After a Career of Danger, He Faces His Biggest Challenge

At Bill Shoemaker’s home in San Marino, the constant ringing of the telephone was the only interruption of the gloom.

Cindy Shoemaker, the Hall of Fame jockey’s wife, took the calls. She had hurried back to California from Kentucky, where some of her show horses were appearing.

Amanda, the Shoemakers’ 10-year-old daughter, had not gone to school and sat quietly while the adults tried to think of things to say.

Jockey Jorge Velasquez had stopped by, as had jockey-turned-trainer Frank Olivares and Marje Everett, the former president of Hollywood Park. Jockey Eddie Delahoussaye, whose sister had told him about Shoemaker’s tragic auto accident after seeing the news on television, spent much of Monday night at the hospital.

“All the falls he’s come out of on horses, and now this,” said Terry Lipham, the former jockey who now books mounts for Delahoussaye. Lipham played golf on the same course where Shoemaker was only hours before his accident.

Delahoussaye was stunned when he heard the news.

“I still can’t believe it,” he said Tuesday. “I’m devastated. I pray to God that he’ll be all right.”

On Sunday, Delahoussaye rode a horse trained by Shoemaker to second place at Santa Anita. The day before, Shoemaker had been in the paddock before the Santa Anita Derby, looking at the horses that were trying to qualify for the Kentucky Derby, a race he won four times as a jockey.

Shoemaker was well on his way to becoming one of those racing rarities--a good jockey who goes on to become an accomplished trainer.

Since saddling his first horse about a year ago at Hollywood Park, Shoemaker has had 19 winners, 19 seconds and 17 thirds in 147 races. His clients had given him some good horses, and he was scheduled to get some more, the result of recent purchases by England’s Robert Sangster.

Shoemaker’s last stakes victory was with Shirkee, a gelding who had graduated from the claiming ranks, in the Shanekite Handicap at Santa Anita March 31.

“I never saw a guy love what he was doing any more than Shoe training his horses,” said Doug Atkins, one of the owners of Shirkee.

Although he was retired as a jockey, Shoemaker never left the saddle. He exercised many of his horses in the mornings.

“Shirkee was rank (hard to handle), so Shoe didn’t get on him anymore,” Atkins said. “Some of his horses, he wouldn’t get on them twice if they were that way. But others, he would come back for more.”

Tempest Cloud, the eighth horse Shoemaker saddled, gave him his first victory as a trainer, in a maiden race at Hollywood Park last June 30. Baldomero gave him his first stakes victory in the Osunitas Handicap at Del Mar on Sept. 8. Baldomero later won the Golden Harvest Handicap at Louisiana Downs for Shoemaker’s first graded stakes victory, but she was destroyed last fall at Santa Anita after breaking down during a race.

Shoemaker was so dedicated to succeeding as a trainer that he would drive across town to Hollywood Park, get on a couple of horses, and then drive back to Santa Anita to board a few more before the morning was over.

“He was like Charlie Whittingham, he had that instinctive knack of knowing what to do with horses,” Atkins said. “He had a sixth sense about horses. And he was always very competitive. Whether it was riding horses, training them or just playing cards, he always wanted to beat you.”

After Baldomero won in Louisiana, Shoemaker compared riding with training horses.

“(Training) is a more satisfying feeling for me,” he said. “And I enjoy telling the other jockeys how to ride. If they don’t win, I can blame them now.”

Lipham was a quarter horse jockey before he switched to thoroughbreds.

“It’s tough to come in and not know anybody,” Lipham said. “But Shoe treated me like a brother. If there’s ever been a human being who’s better at doing everything he tries, I’d like to meet him.”

Despite the seriousness of Shoemaker’s injuries, horsemen predicted that he will still be battling.

“He’s tough as whalebone,” said Whittingham, who trained Ferdinand, Shoemaker’s fourth Kentucky Derby winner.

Atkins recalled the broken pelvis in 1969 that sidelined Shoemaker for more than a year.

“They said he wouldn’t ride again after that,” Atkins said. “But I wouldn’t count him out. He might defy whatever the doctors say.”

Times staff writer Bob Mieszerski contributed to this story.