THE SHOE: REFLECTIONS ON A LEGEND : Longden’s Last Ride, Second Career Tough Act to Follow : Next: Shoemaker can’t match old pal’s finale, but hopes to equal his success as a trainer.

Bill Shoemaker is a man of his word. He vowed many times through the years that he would never stay in the saddle as long as his old pal Johnny Longden, who quit riding in 1966 at 59.

But Shoemaker cut it close. When he hangs up his size-1 1/2 riding boots at Santa Anita Saturday, he will be 6 1/2 months shy of his 59th birthday on Aug. 19.

One thing is certain: Shoemaker has no shot at going out with the same drama Longden provided in his last ride on that smoggy March afternoon in Arcadia 24 years ago. The contrivances surrounding Shoemaker’s last ride, shoehorned into a live television format, make for an artificial atmosphere. The race was invented for the occasion. Of course, no one will be surprised if Shoemaker rises to that occasion with a victory. But he will receive the same ovations, win or lose.

Longden, on the other hand, practically called his shot. His final ride aboard George Royal in the 1966 San Juan Capistrano Handicap ranks with Sarazen’s double eagle at the Masters and Kirk Gibson’s ninth-inning home run against Oakland in the 1988 World Series.

Unlike Shoemaker’s finale at Santa Anita, which has been in the hands of public relations people for more than six months, Longden’s last hurrah was spontaneous, with barely 48 hours’ warning. It was also long overdue. He had won the Triple Crown on Count Fleet in 1943 and five national titles, but nearly 40 years of spills and breakdowns had taken their toll. Longden wasn’t just feeling his age; he had an ache or a pain to go with every one of his record 6,030 victories.

In the winter of 1966, he was kicked in the back by a filly named Douceville. The resulting pinched nerve required total rest to heal, but Longden continued to ride. His right leg suffered the worst effects of the injury, as it began to shrink both in length and circumference. The Longden limp became a sad trademark of the proud and fearless “Pumper.”

On the way to a dinner in his honor, Longden decided to announce his retirement. His last ride would be aboard George Royal in the San Juan Capistrano two days later, on March 12, after which he would begin a new career as a trainer. Many in the crowd were surprised and secretly pleased, for the racing community had been dreading the day Longden’s reflexes failed at a crucial moment.

But Longden refused to go quietly. He had accepted four mounts on his last day. He won with the first one, a sprinter named Chiclero. He followed with a sixth place and a third place to set the stage for George Royal and the San Juan.

Longden and George Royal had won the race in 1965, but the horse had been running far below his best form in early ’66. Several horses in the field of nine were given a better chance of winning, including Hill Rise, Tom Cat and Cedar Key, ridden by Shoemaker.

“John was a tough old rider back then,” Shoemaker recalled. “We all wanted to beat him one last time.”

George Royal was last when the field galloped past the stands the first time as u Plaque and Bobby Ussery set the pace. Longden hugged the rail around the clubhouse turn, then angled out on the backstretch to begin his long, steady run at the leaders.

Just past the half-mile pole, Manuel Ycaza, riding Hill Rise, looked over his right shoulder and saw the old man on the move. Ycaza gave Hill Rise a push and tried to move with George Royal, but Longden had the momentum. As George Royal swept past Hill Rise, Longden sawed off just enough of the corner to make Ycaza pull up slightly, eliminating Hill Rise.

George Royal banked into the stretch with dead aim on Plaque. They came together at the eighth pole, and George Royal edged into the lead. But Plaque fought back. Longden had been hitting his horse left-handed, then went to a ferocious shoulder-pumping finish for the final 50 yards. Ussery was all over Plaque, doing everything but jumping off to push.

“Damn right I wanted to beat that old s.o.b.,” Ussery said later. “I didn’t care if it was his last race.”

Longden’s memories of the finish are still vivid.

“Ussery hit his horse everywhere but the bottom of his feet,” Longden said earlier this week from his Arcadia home. “At the wire, I knew it was either a dead-heat or I had won it. It was a great way to go out.”

In the final strides, George Royal dropped his nose to the wire just in time. Longden had performed the miracle. Victory number 6,032 was by far the most unlikely of his career. Sitting atop George Royal in the winner’s circle, Longden doffed his helmet, smoothed back his toupee and saluted the crowd, more than 60,000 strong.

While Shoemaker cannot hope to top the excitement of Longden’s last ride, neither can he expect to reap similar success as a trainer. Shoemaker would have to win nothing less than the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

Longden embarked on his training career just two days after his final ride. That Monday he flew to Florida, where he inspected the racing stock of Canadian industrialist Frank McMahon.

“I believe people took me seriously as a trainer from the start, because I had the horses and I was willing to do the work,” Longden said.

“While I was riding I had been with Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons and a Seattle trainer named Sleepy Armstrong,” he said. “After the horses were put away, I’d hang around and talk with (the trainers) about training. It was always something I was going to do someday.”

In 1967, McMahon made headlines by taking Longden’s advice and buying a chestnut son of Raise a Native for a record $250,000 at the Keeneland yearling sale.

Named Majestic Prince, the colt went on to win the 1969 Santa Anita Derby, Kentucky Derby and Preakness before finishing second in the Belmont Stakes on a suspicious leg. Majestic Prince never raced again, but Longden had come tantalizingly close to being the only man to ride and train Triple Crown winners.

Longden, who turns 83 on Feb. 14, still trains a few horses at his familiar Santa Anita barn No. 6. Even without Majestic Prince in his portfolio, he would have ranked among the most successful jockeys to turn trainer. His more than 24 stakes winners included Baffle, Diplomatic Agent, Jungle Savage and Money Lender.

Many leading trainers started out as jockeys, but their careers rarely lasted very long. Increasing weight, injuries or common sense usually prompted a career move. Hall of Fame trainers Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons and Woody Stephens both enjoyed a measure of success in the saddle. So did Joe Manzi, Steve DiMauro and former steeplechase jockeys Scotty Schulhofer and Tom Skiffington.

Other than Longden, only three Hall of Fame riders were able to boast of truly successful training careers: Earl Sande, Ivan Parke and John Adams.

Sande, who won the 1930 Triple Crown on Gallant Fox, is the only man to have won national titles in both riding (1921, ‘23) and training (‘38). Parke won the most races in 1923 and led all jockeys in races and purses in ’24. As a trainer, he won the Kentucky Derby with Hoop Jr. and major stakes with Olympia and Jewel’s Reward, among others.

Adams, 84, topped the list of race-winning jockeys in 1937, ’42 and ’43. He retired from riding in 1958 and embarked on a training career that lasted 25 years, until poor health forced him to give up his horses. As a trainer, his more than two dozen stakes winners included J.O. Tobin, Relaunch, Niarkos, Hill Circus and New Policy.

“I started training in Chicago,” Adams said. “A fellow I knew told me that I had so many friends around the track, I could drop my claimers as low as I wanted to and nobody would take them. So what happened? First horse I ran got claimed.

“But I always figured I’d go into training. The only other thing I knew was farming, and I wasn’t about to go back to that.”

The transition is more difficult than it would appear, especially for a celebrity such as Shoemaker.

“There’s a big difference between being under the horse instead of on top of the horse,” said veteran trainer W. L. Proctor, who outgrew his jockey weight early.

Actually, the two professions have very little in common.

A jockey is an athlete geared toward making split-second decisions. A trainer is basically an administrator who must think in terms of days, weeks and months when it comes to the success and welfare of his horses. A jockey is an independent contractor, whose greatest expense is disability insurance. A trainer runs a business involving staff, material, subcontractors and staggering premiums for worker’s compensation insurance.

Danny Velasquez was a journeyman jockey in California for more than 20 years before phasing into a training career in the early 1980s.

“I think the top riders sometimes have more trouble making the switch than the rest of us,” said Velasquez, who learned the ropes from trainers Bobby Frankel and John Canty.

“Most jocks are out every day at dawn, hustling mounts and working horses,” Velasquez said. “The top guys might come out about 7 o’clock, work a few (horses) and go home. And that’s all they have to do.

“Then, when they start training, they discover that they have to work harder than they’ve ever worked before. They really have to apply themselves. If they’re pretty well set with money, sometimes they figure it’s not worth the trouble. One thing’s for sure--you really have to love what you do to be a trainer.”

Velasquez predicts that Shoemaker will do well in his new profession, even starting out at 58.

“They say good horses make a good trainer, and because of who he is, Shoemaker has a better chance of coming up with good horses,” Velasquez said.

“The last three or four years, I’ve seen him coming out early practically every morning. He’d be on a pony, riding to the track with some of Charlie Whittingham’s horses. It’s been obvious that he has been planning this move for quite a while.”

Longden, too, sees no reason why Shoemaker can’t become a success as a trainer.

“More than anything else, it takes dedication and patience,” Longden said. “Shoemaker’s got plenty of both.”