THE SHOE: REFLECTIONS ON A LEGEND : Shoe Stood Up to See Himself Get Nosed Out in the Derby : Triple Crown: The one glorious moment that Shoemaker never experienced might have been lost aboard Gallant Man in 1957.

When John Nerud was training horses, he used to say: “A bad day at the race track is better than a good day anywheres else.”

There couldn’t have been a worse day for Nerud and Texans Bill Shoemaker and Ralph Lowe than May 4, 1957, when Shoemaker thought the sixteenth pole was the finish line at Churchill Downs.

At 25, Shoemaker was already one of America’s pre-eminent jockeys, but in this Kentucky Derby he got Lowe’s Gallant Man beaten by standing up in the irons for an instant, thinking the race was over. By the time Shoemaker recovered and resumed riding, Iron Liege regained the lead and defeated Gallant Man by a nose.

Shoemaker already had won a Derby, with Swaps in 1955, and he would go on to win 11 Triple Crown races--four Kentucky Derbys, two Preaknesses and five Belmont Stakes. But it’s the old story about human nature: He’ll be remembered as much for the gaffe on Gallant Man as he will be for that patient, seeing-eye ride on Ferdinand when he won his last Derby, at 54, in 1986.

Some athletes don’t live well with monumental failure. The best way to end a conversation with Gene Mauch is to ask the former manager about how his Philadelphia Phillies blew the 1964 National League pennant. Johnny Pesky, the old Boston Red Sox shortstop, draws the line at reminiscing when the 1946 World Series is broached. On an outfield relay in the eighth inning of the final game, Pesky hesitated for a second--about as long as Shoemaker paused with Gallant Man--and Enos Slaughter of the St. Louis Cardinals slid home under his throw for the winning run.

Through the years, however, Shoemaker has been upfront about the Gallant Man incident, discussing it with equanimity. In the immediate aftermath of the race, it was his lack of candor, Nerud believes, that resulted in a 15-day suspension by the Churchill Downs stewards. The late Lincoln Plaut, one of the stewards, once said that Shoemaker first told them that Gallant Man had stumbled. Pressed by the stewards, Shoemaker finally said that the mistake was his alone.

With the finish so close, there was little doubt that Gallant Man was the best horse. On the turn for home, when Shoemaker hit Gallant Man with his whip, and the colt accelerated. Nerud turned to Lowe in their box seats and said: “Go down and get the roses--you can take ‘em back to Texas with you.”

Nerud and Plaut noticed Shoemaker’s hesitation, but few in the press box did. Plaut, a former turf reporter, quickly called Don Fair of the Daily Racing Form, so the official chart of the race would reflect what happened.

“The finish line at Churchill is about a sixteenth of a mile closer to the first turn than it is most other places,” Shoemaker said. “I hadn’t ridden there since the Derby the year before, and I didn’t have any other mounts on Derby day, which I realized afterwards was a mistake. It was a big boo-boo, in front of a big crowd and on national television.”

Lowe was more angry with the stewards than he was with Shoemaker. In fact, he bought Shoemaker a new Chrysler, hoping it would make him feel better.

Lowe tried to keep Nerud from going down to see Shoemaker after the race, but the trainer went, anyway. “It didn’t cost us our lives, and there’s no turning the clock back,” Nerud told Shoemaker. “I’m not happy about losing, but I’m not going to get sore at you.”

The night before the Derby, while Lowe, Shoemaker and Nerud played gin rummy and ordered room service in Louisville’s old Brown Hotel, Lowe told them about a dream he had earlier in the week. It was a nightmare, really, with Lowe visualizing Gallant Man on his way to victory and the colt’s previous jockey, John Choquette, standing up in the irons. Lowe hadn’t wanted Choquette to ride his horse in the Derby, even though he had won three races with him. Nerud remained loyal to Gallant Man’s regular rider, until Choquette was suspended by New York stewards the week before the Derby. That’s when Shoemaker got the call to ride Gallant Man for the first time.

When Shoemaker heard about the dream, he said: “Mr. Lowe, please don’t worry about that. I’m a professional rider. That won’t happen to me.”

In the paddock a few minutes before the Derby, Lowe told Tom Young, Churchill Downs’ track superintendent, about the dream.

At least twice in California, Shoemaker had misjudged the finish line in important races. One occasion was 1956, when Porterhouse beat Swaps in the Californian at Hollywood Park.

Gallant Man didn’t go to the Preakness, which was run two weeks later with Bold Ruler winning by two lengths over Iron Liege. That year, 1957, may have produced the best crop of 3-year-olds that ever ran, because besides Bold Ruler--voted horse of the year in one poll--and Gallant Man and Iron Liege, there was also Gen. Duke and Federal Hill.

“It wasn’t bitterness that kept us out of the Preakness,” Nerud said the other day from Florida. “With Shoe suspended, we would have had to go through a rider change again, and I didn’t want to put the horse through that Triple Crown grind. The race we wanted was the Belmont. We might have won the Preakness, but that could have worn out the horse for the Belmont, so we just decided to wait.”

Shoemaker was back, and Gallant Man, with a five-week rest, was tightly wound for the Belmont. Only six horses started, and Gallant Man won by eight lengths--beating Bold Ruler by 12--while running 1 1/2 miles in 2:26 3/5, an American record. The time wasn’t bettered until Secretariat’s epochal Belmont 16 years later.

“Today, I wouldn’t have even got the chance to ride Gallant Man in the Belmont,” Shoemaker said. “Today, you get beat on a horse and they’ve got a new jock on him the next time. It’s more of a cut-throat business now than it was then. But that was a sweet victory in the Belmont, because of what happened in Kentucky.”

After Lowe died, Shoemaker funded a racing sportsmanship award in his honor.

Shoemaker said Gallant Man was the best mile-and-a-half horse he ever rode, but he found four other 3-year-olds who also mastered that distance to win the Belmont. They were Sword Dancer in 1959, Jaipur in 1962, Damascus in 1967 and Avatar in 1975. Damascus was also a Shoemaker Preakness winner, coming after Candy Spots’ victory at Pimlico in 1963.

Shoemaker has never won the Triple Crown with the same horse. Of the two best horses Shoemaker says he’s ridden, Swaps returned to California after winning the Derby, and Spectacular Bid, winner of the 1979 Derby and Preakness and third in the Belmont, wasn’t ridden by Shoemaker until late in his 3-year-old season.

Damascus and Shoemaker were favored in the Derby but ran third, behind longshots Proud Clarion and Barbs Delight. “I still thought he was the best 3-year-old that year,” Shoemaker said.

Damascus won 12 of 16 starts in 1967, including the Wood Memorial, the Preakness, the Belmont, the American Derby, the Woodward and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. He was named the divisional champion.

Shoemaker rode in the Kentucky Derby a record 26 times, five more than Eddie Arcaro. Arcaro and Bill Hartack, who made 12 appearances, have won the Derby five times each, one more than Shoemaker. Hartack, astride Iron Liege, was the beneficiary of Shoemaker’s goof on Gallant Man, and he rode Northern Dancer to victory in 1964, when Shoemaker opted for the Hill Rise, the second-place finisher.

Shoemaker won the Derby with Tomy Lee in 1959 and after a reprise with Lucky Debonair in ‘65, he came up empty nine straight times at Churchill Downs. Several of those mounts were badly beaten, exceptions being Damascus and Avatar, who ran second to Foolish Pleasure after being roughed up by Diabolo in the stretch in 1975.

By the mid-’80s, Shoemaker’s career was sputtering and he was beginning to think about retirement. In 1985, he won only 80 races, his lowest total in a non-injury year. He was concerned about just hanging on to some day-to-day business, let alone another victory in the Derby.

Midway through ‘85, trainer Charlie Whittingham showed Shoemaker a 2-year-old chestnut he had in his barn at Hollywood Park. “He’s by Nijinsky and he looks the part,” Whittingham said. “I’ll save him for you. He might be a Derby horse.”

This was strange talk coming from Whittingham, a trainer whose appearances at the Derby are about as infrequent as sightings of Halley’s comet.

Shoemaker rode Ferdinand three times as a 2-year-old, their best finish a third in the Hollywood Futurity. Ferdinand’s record was unspectacular, but by the time he turned three, Whittingham was salivating as much as he allows himself to do. Still, victories were scarce, and after a third-place finish on a slick track in the Santa Anita Derby, the trainer and Shoemaker went to Louisville with a horse generally perceived as an outsider.

Whittingham worked Ferdinand a couple of times in company at Churchill Downs, using Hidden Light, a standout 3-year-old filly, as a target for the late-moving colt to run at. In the mornings, Shoemaker was aboard Hidden Light, with Larry Gilligan, a heavier jockey, aboard Ferdinand.

On Derby day, Whittingham and Shoemaker were holding back knowing winks, while a crowd of 123,000 sent Ferdinand off at 17-1.

Ferdinand broke from the inside post, a terrible place to be in a 16-horse field, and a crowding condition from the outside almost sent Shoemaker’s colt over the fence by the time they reached the first turn. Shoemaker elected to drop back, not worry about his early position, and try to save as much ground as he could along the rail.

On the backstretch, Shoemaker moved Ferdinand to the outside, and they began passing horses. At the top of the stretch, they were four horses away from the lead, but those were packed across the track, blocking his path. Shoemaker said later that he probably would have won going around or going inside, but he has frequently been one to oversimplify the difficult.

He had to make a split-second choice, and he squeezed Ferdinand to the inside, occupying a spot that Pat Day, aboard Rampage, wished he could have had.

Once clear, Ferdinand rolled to a 2 1/4-length victory. In the winner’s circle, where Shoemaker cried a little, they were an odd couple, the 54-year-old jockey and the 73-year-old trainer, the oldest at their respective professions ever to win a Derby.

Shoemaker never thought about it, but as he and Ferdinand reached the sixteenth pole, 110 yards ahead of them, hanging from a post at the finish line, was a round, painted target, the kind used for archery shooting. Churchill Downs and other tracks had installed the targets--reminders to the jockeys of where the race ends--after the 1957 Gallant Man episode.

Had Ferdinand’s unexpected victory squared Shoemaker’s account in the Kentucky Derby?

“No,” Shoemaker said. “Nothing ever makes up for the mistakes you make.”

TRIPLE CROWN VICTORIES

KENTUCKY DERBY (4)

YEAR HORSE MARGIN $2 WIN PAYOFF 1955 SWAPS 1 1/2 LENGTHS $7.60 1959 TOMY LEE NOSE 9.40 1965 LUCKY DEBONAIR NECK 10.60 1986 FERDINAND 2 1/4 LENGTHS 37.40

PREAKNESS (2)

YEAR HORSE MARGIN $2 WIN PAYOFF 1963 CANDY SPOTS 3 1/2 LENGTHS 5.00* 1967 DAMASCUS 2 1/4 LENGTHS 5.60*

BELMONT (5)

YEAR HORSE MARGIN $2 WIN PAYOFF 1957 GALLANT MAN 8 LENGTHS 3.90 1959 SWORD DANCER 3/4 LENGTH 5.30* 1962 JAIPUR NOSE 7.70* 1967 DAMASCUS 2 1/2 LENGTHS 3.60* 1975 AVATAR NECK 28.40*

* Betting favorite.