THOROUGHBRED RACING : Jockeys Guerin and Errico Left Their Marks in Different Ways

Eric Guerin and Con Errico died Sunday. They were retired jockeys and spent their final years in Florida. The rest of their lives were markedly different.

Guerin, a product of backwater Louisiana, won a Kentucky Derby and 2,711 other races, and in 1972 he was elected to the Racing Hall of Fame.

Brooklyn-born Consolato Errico got his start eight years later than Guerin, riding in his first race at 24, and he finished with slightly more than 700 winners. Errico was a dashing figure who married a Copacabana showgirl and was as handy on the dance floor as he was on horseback. Con Errico even had his own barber in jail.

Errico spent about five years in prison, serving half of the sentence he got after being convicted of race-fixing in New York in the 1970s. Federal prosecuters portrayed Errico as Tony Ciulla’s runner, the go-between who paid $1,500 to $7,000 per jockey per race to get riders to hold back their horses, so longshots bet by Ciulla could win exactas and trifectas.

Some of New York’s best jockeys were implicated in the scandal and were repeatedly identified by convicted race-fixer Ciulla as his accomplices. But the government’s case against the jockeys broke down because Errico, even when faced with a lengthy prison sentence, would not blow the whistle.

Errico always said he was blameless, although it seemed strange that during a four-year period in the early 1970s, after he had passed 50, he kept a jockey’s license by riding in only 16 races. Thus he had carte blanche in the jockeys’ room, as though he was a regular rider.

Errico, who did not testify at his trial, said he spent a lot of time in the jockeys’ room because he sold insurance to the riders. The six-day trial in 1980 ended with a jury verdict in less than six hours. Errico was stunned by the conviction. “I was 1 to 20 to win,” he said. “(Jose) Amy was in the hot seat. To get out of it, he pointed the finger at me.”

Amy, who testified that Errico had given him money to restrain horses, didn’t escape, either. His nascent career was promising, but he was dealt what has amounted to a lifetime ban to ride in the United States and now, at 39, rides in his native Puerto Rico.

Errico’s friends, who included Jake LaMotta and Rocky Graziano, called him “Scamp” long before his conviction, using a nickname that had followed him out of Brooklyn to the track. “When I was a kid,” Errico said, “I was always getting in trouble.” In the saddle, he overcompensated to win, drawing at least 50 suspensions for rough riding.

At his trial, the only witness for Errico was a California restaurateur, who testified that at the time Amy was allegedly stiffing horses for bribes, Errico was on the West Coast, getting a facelift.

Errico, who was 70 when he died, won a few important races, including the 1949 Travers at Saratoga with Arise. One of the best horses he rode was Crafty Admiral, who was the male handicap champion in 1952.

When Crafty Admiral won the Brooklyn Handicap in 1952, Guerin was his rider. Guerin won the first Kentucky Derby he ever rode in, with Jet Pilot in 1947, and in 1953 he should have won the race again, with Native Dancer, but they lost by a head to Dark Star, a 24-1 shot.

Except for the Derby, Native Dancer never lost a race, and Guerin was along for all but one of the gray horse’s 21 victories. Their Derby was a contradiction, because Guerin’s forte was keeping a horse out of trouble. “Eric knew where he was going all the time,” another Hall of Famer, Eddie Arcaro, once said. “He didn’t take a lot of crazy chances.”

At Churchill Downs in 1953, however, Native Dancer, the 7-10 favorite with stablemate Social Outcast, was doomed from the start. Money Broker, at 45-1, drew the gate immediately outside of Native Dancer, and he bumped Guerin’s colt leaving the gate. On the clubhouse turn, Money Broker swerved to the outside, almost knocking Native Dancer off stride. Guerin said later that he thought Al Popara, Money Broker’s jockey, deliberately went after Native Dancer.

Ten lengths back and in eighth place early, Native Dancer made a wide run down the backstretch, then was angled toward the rail by Guerin through the stretch as he barely missed catching Dark Star and Henry Moreno.

Native Dancer’s legion of backers were bitter about the outcome, many of them blaming Guerin’s ride as much as the rough stuff from Money Broker. “Guerin took Native Dancer everywhere on the track except to the ladies’ room,” one wag said.

The Preakness was three weeks after the Derby that year, and in between, Native Dancer won the Withers at New York. Then he won the Preakness at Pimlico and the Belmont Stakes, giving him three major victories in less than a month.

Guerin went through the years accepting the blame for the 1953 Kentucky Derby with equanimity. “People never forget a mistake,” he said. “For years and years, horseplayers have liked to talk about how we lost the Derby.”

Eric Guerin was 69. He was a ticket clerk at Gulfstream Park in later life, and his ashes were to be spread over the Florida track. Near the finish line, of course.

Horse Racing Notes

Besides running Prairie Bayou, the favorite in today’s $600,000 Jim Beam Stakes at Turfway Park, trainer Tom Bohannan will try to win the $125,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park with Dalhart and Zimmerman. Dalhart is Bohannan’s best shot in Arkansas, in a rematch against Foxtrail, who upset him by three lengths at Oaklawn on March 6. . . . Storm Tower, undefeated before he ran second to Bull in the Heather in the Florida Derby, may not run in the Kentucky Derby. “We have questions about whether he can go the Derby distance (of 1 1/4 miles),” trainer Ben Perkins, Jr. said. “One possibility is the Wood Memorial (at 1 1/8 miles at Aqueduct on April 17) and the Preakness (at 1 /16 miles at Pimlico on May 15, two weeks after the Derby).”

Jockey Julie Krone went to court in Florida this month, getting a restraining order against a man who has been stalking her at Eastern tracks for about three years. Winner of a race at Gulfstream this week: Stalker, a horse previously ridden by Krone. . . . Gary Stevens won three of the four races in Dubai Friday and finished second in the other race take an international jockey competition. This is the schedule for Stevens and Kent Desormeaux, which will enable them to arrive at Santa Anita in mid-card today: Leave Dubai at 2 a.m. local time today; fly to Gatwick Airport near London; take ground transportation from Gatwick to Heathrow Airport, so they can catch the Concorde to New York; fly from JFK airport to LAX; take a helicopter at LAX that lands at Arcadia Methodist Hospital, near Santa Anita.

The stakes-winning Devoted Brass, who’s expected to run in the Santa Anita Derby a week from today, is likely to have a new owner and trainer by then if he passes a veterinarian’s exam. Don Jordens is selling the gelding to David Milch, who owns Gilded Time, last year’s champion 2-year-old male who has had a foot problem this year. Milch’s trainer, Darrell Vienna, would replace Noble Threewitt. The sale price is estimated at between $800,000 and $900,000. . . . Star Recruit has a bone chip in his front leg and is out for the year.