After a Year Away, Shoemaker Has 61st Birthday at Del Mar

After being absent from racing on the occasion last year, Bill Shoemaker was back at Del Mar on Wednesday to celebrate his 61st birthday.

In 1991, the world’s winningest rider was in Colorado, recovering from his auto accident of four months earlier. While he watched on satellite, the entire jockey colony sang “Happy Birthday” to him.

A perfect gift Wednesday would have been a victory by the Shoemaker-trained Storm Ring in the seventh race. It was too much to ask. Dispatched at 29-1, she beat only one filly in the six-furlong allowance race.

The real present had come four days earlier. Saddled by Shoemaker’s assistant Paddy Gallagher at Arlington International Racecourse, Alcando upset 1-5 favorite Dance Smartly and won the $154,400 Arlington Budweiser Breeders’ Cup.

“(Shoemaker) has come a long way,” said Bill Harmatz, the former jockey and Shoemaker’s longtime friend who is working horses in the morning for the trainer. “He’s got a great attitude. Nothing bothers him.”