Premiere Handicap to Be Renamed for Bill Shoemaker

The $100,000-added Premiere Handicap at Hollywood Park was renamed the Shoemaker Handicap today in honor of the world’s winningest jockey, who retired earlier this month at age 58.

Bill Shoemaker rode his final race at Santa Anita on Feb. 3. In last year’s 47th running of the Premiere Handicap, Shoemaker won aboard Peace to register his 1,000th stakes victory.

The Shoemaker Handicap, a one-mile race for 3-year-olds and up on Hollywood Park’s turf course, is scheduled to be run April 29, four days after the April 25 opening of the track’s 1990 spring-summer meeting.

Shoemaker was aboard the winning horse in the Shoemaker Handicap six times when it was known as the Premiere Handicap. The race was moved to the turf course in 1984. Before 1978, it was contested at six furlongs.