BILL SHOEMAKER’S FINAL RIDE : Shoemaker in Jockey Room: High Jinks to the End : Scene: Delahoussaye may have kept Shoe from winning his last race, but the legend got the last laugh.

For the past 41 years, Bill Shoemaker’s second home has been the jockeys’ room--any jockeys’ room, from Santa Anita Park to Pimlico and points in between.

For Shoemaker, the room was more than a place to change his silks and polish his boots. He ate there, slept there, played cards, Ping-Pong and pool there and smoked his skinny, little cigars.

Even on days when he had only one mount he would show up early, don his white terry cloth robe and settle in for a marathon round of race track rummy with valets and fellow jockeys.

On Saturday, Shoemaker closed up shop in the Santa Anita jockeys’ room, leaving a huge hole where his 4-by-6 foot cubicle used to be. He packed up his tack box, his shower shoes and his extra boots--a good starter set for any racing hall of fame.

Down came Shoemaker’s faded newspaper photo with his daughter, Amanda, taken after his victory in the 1985 Santa Anita Handicap on Lord at War, the race that made him the first to win $100 million in purses. Down came the six-inch strip of masking tape that read, simply, “Shoe,” a truly modest label for what was literally the center of the horse racing universe on this day.

An hour before Shoemaker’s last ride, his usually spartan cubicle was packed with flowers: boxes full of long-stemmed red and white roses and a bouquet from the management at Beulah Park in Ohio that dwarfed the rider as he read the card.

Shoemaker arrived in the room Saturday morning at 10 o’clock for a television interview. He knocked back a plate of ham and eggs, then killed some time at the card table, winning one, losing one and paying off from a wad of bills in his pocket.

All day long, the other riders swirled around Shoemaker, pressing him for one last autograph, posing with him for one last snapshot. Luis Jauregui, Dave Patton, Frankie Detorri, Jesus Castanon--they all wanted something to show their grandchildren someday.

Jimmy Hood, Shoemaker’s valet for more than 25 years, came by to be with him on the big day. Hood, who rode against Shoemaker as his career began, knew better than anyone what was going on between those gray temples.

“He’s going to miss the room most of all,” said Hood, now retired. “He liked nothing better than to spend time just being here with the other guys.”

At 2 p.m., about 45 minutes before the final ride, Shoemaker slipped on a set of mustard gold racing silks, adorned on the back with a red “SS”--for Sully’s Stable--and trimmed with red epaulets. Across the room, Fernando Toro was getting a razzing from Corey Black.

“Starting tomorrow, Bull, you’ll be the oldest guy in the room,” Black said to the 49-year-old Toro. “I call Bill ‘Papa Shoe,’ but we’ve got to call you Grandpa, don’t we?”

Shoemaker gave Toro a sympathetic smile.

“Don’t let them give you a hard time, Bull,” said Shoemaker. “It’s great when you turn 50. You get to flirt with all the girls and nobody minds. They think you’re just a harmless old man.”

At 2:15 p.m., Shoemaker weighed in for the final time. As he stepped onto the scale, valet Bobby Markus handed him 20 pounds of saddle and lead-filled pads, the difference between Shoemaker’s 98 pounds and the 118 assigned to Patchy Groundfog.

“Unhhhh,” Shoe groaned in mock stress as he leaned backwards under the weight. “That’s the last time for that.”

Shoemaker let off a little nervous energy with some stretching exercises. Right leg, left leg, then a few deep bends to the floor. His game face was in place, and it was time . . . for cake.

Santa Anita head chef Tony Pope hustled the jockeys into the pool and ping-pong room for the obligatory sheet cake, a table-sized creation of chocolate, cherry and vanilla that only Shoemaker could eat without blowing his riding weight. Flanked by Pope and fellow rider Eddie Delahoussaye, Shoe grinned one more time for one more bank of cameras.

“No, Eddie, no! Don’t push his face in the cake,” a rider yelled from the back row.

“No way, man,” Delahoussaye said. “Not while he’s holding that knife.”

As Shoemaker plunged the blade into the pastry, Delahoussaye scooped up a finger of frosting and plopped it in the middle of Shoe’s nose. A bit dribbled to the front of the silks and was quickly wiped away.

A few minutes before it was time to head for the paddock, the other jockeys in the Legend’s Last Ride gathered around Shoemaker for a group photo. They mugged and giggled like school kids, and, just as the shutter snapped, Chris McCarron slapped a handful of shaving cream on top of Shoemaker’s helmet.

“I figured one of you guys would try something like that,” said Shoemaker, a world-class prankster. “I tried it on a guy earlier, but he was too fast for me.”

The moment finally had arrived. At 2:27 p.m., Bill Shoemaker, the dignified dean of thoroughbred race-riding, walked out of a jockeys’ room as a jockey for the last time, sporting a trace of shaving cream on his helmet, a cake stain on the front of his silks and a relieved smile at the thought that his longest day would soon be over.

A half-hour later, Delahoussaye returned to the jockeys’ room after slipping through inside Shoemaker and winning the Last Ride on Exemplary Leader.

“I’ll never forgive you, Delahoussaye,” a fan screamed as he walked back through the crowd.

Shoemaker was hip deep in post race interviews, but it was business as usual for Delahoussaye and the other riders as they suited up for the next race. Delahoussaye shed his winning colors, picked up a new set of silks for the sixth race and eased them on.

“Damn!” he shouted as his hand appeared at the end of the sleeve covered in shaving cream. He tried the other sleeve. Same result.

“OK, who did it?” Delahoussaye demanded. “Was it you, Sibille?”

Ray Sibille smiled and pointed to someone else, who pointed to someone else.

“At least I can be sure of one thing,” Delahoussaye added. “This time, for once, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Shoemaker who did it.

“But I’m not saying it wasn’t his idea.”