KENTUCKY DERBY : Longden Just Around for Ride on Count Fleet

Fifty years ago, jockey Johnny Longden and an independent thinker named Count Fleet shared a baggage car on a train from New York to Louisville, Ky. It was the beginning of a mission that resulted in one of the most spectacular sweeps of racing’s Triple Crown.

Count Fleet and Longden arrived at Churchill Downs to run in a Kentucky Derby that many patriots felt should have been canceled. The United States was at war, gasoline rationing was in effect and there were federal restrictions on travel.

“The Derby will be run if only two horses start and only two people show up,” said Matt Winn, a Kentucky colonel and president of Churchill Downs.

The 1943 race was called “the Streetcar Derby,” because no tickets were sold outside Louisville and many of the fans traveled to Churchill Downs by trolley. A crowd of 65,000 showed up to watch 10 horses run, but only one of them mattered. Becoming the first wire-to-wire winner of the Derby in 17 years, Count Fleet won by three lengths as the 2-5 favorite, becoming the most popular Derby winner since Agile, at 33 cents on the dollar, beat only two other horses in the 1905 running.

“Count Fleet began fast,” said the Daily Racing Form’s Derby chart, “was hustled along until he reached the stretch, shook off the bid of Gold Shower (the second choice at 9-1) and, responding to a shaking up, won handily.”

Longden, 86 and living in Banning, rode 6,032 winners before retiring in 1966 to train horses.

“Count Fleet was the best horse I ever rode, the best by far,” Longden said. “I was just along for the ride in the Derby.”

Count Fleet was a headstrong, free-running horse who didn’t like to be restrained or struck with the whip. Longden’s philosophy, that horses generally give their all without being hit, matched the Count’s personality perfectly.

“He was a little roguish, but he was a runner,” Longden said. “He was a freak. He loved to run. If you took a hold of him, he’d bolt. He’d try to run for the outside fence.”

His owner, John Hertz, was a Czech immigrant who was brought to Chicago by his parents when he was 5, covered boxing for a Chicago newspaper, started the Yellow Cab Co. and eventually was a pioneer in the rental-car business.

In 1927, Hertz bought Reigh Count for $12,500 and the next year they won the Kentucky Derby. Hertz bred Count Fleet via a mating of Reigh Count and Quickly, a nondescript mare, but the offspring was so difficult to ride that his owner wanted to sell him as a 2-year-old.

“I was the only one who knew how good Count Fleet was,” Longden said.

Once, in New York, Count Fleet bolted through the gap in the training track and took Longden, at a full gallop, the wrong way up the stretch of the main track.

“That horse is going to kill you some day,” Hertz said to Longden, and he put a $4,500 price tag on Count Fleet.

Longden, Hertz’s contract rider, heard at the barn one day that a buyer was going to meet the price. Longden hopped on his bicycle, pedaled to a nearby store and phoned Hertz.

“Don’t sell him,” Longden said. “I’m not afraid to ride him. This horse just loves to run.”

So Hertz pulled Count Fleet off the market. As a 2-year-old, the horse ran 15 times, winning 10, with four seconds and a third. The last time he ever lost was a third-place finish in the Futurity at Belmont Park in October of 1942.

A week later, in the Champagne, Count Fleet ran beyond 6 1/2 furlongs for the first time and was timed for the mile in 1:34 4/5, a record for a 2-year-old that stood for 23 years.

Count Fleet finished his 2-year-old season with three more victories, including a 30-length triumph in the Walden Stakes at Pimlico. In John B. Campbell’s Experimental Handicap, a theoretical ranking of 2-year-olds, Count Fleet was given high weight of an unheard-of 132 pounds.

Count Fleet ran six times during his undefeated 3-year-old season. In his second start, two weeks before the Kentucky Derby, he won the Wood Memorial by 3 1/2 lengths, but a horse broke sideways leaving the gate and rapped Count Fleet on the hoof.

“I nursed him on that train all the way to Louisville,” Longden said. “I held ice and Epsom salt compresses on his foot.”

For the Derby, Count Fleet’s leg was laced with sulfa drugs, and trainer Don Cameron covered the sensitive area with axle grease to guard against infection.

In those days, the Preakness was run seven days after the Derby. Count Fleet had scared away all but three rivals, including Blue Swords, who had finished second in the Derby, and Vincentive, who was responsible for the gate accident in the Wood.

“Count Fleet outran his field from the start,” the Racing Form chart said. “(He) opened up a safe lead, came slightly wide entering the stretch and finished with speed in reserve.”

The winning margin over Blue Swords was eight lengths, which is still the second-biggest in Preakness history. Count Fleet’s win price was $2.30, a Preakness record until Citation, en route to his Triple Crown sweep, paid $2.20 in 1948.

The Belmont Stakes was a month later, but two weeks after the Preakness, Cameron ran Count Fleet in the Withers Mile at Belmont Park, and he won by five lengths over a muddy track.

In the Belmont, there were only two opponents for Count Fleet. The chart of the race was not much different from the Preakness footnotes: “Count Fleet outran his opposition from the start, drew into a long lead, was steadied along and was galloping through the stretch run.”

The win price was $2.10, the lowest possible, the time was a record 2:28 1/5 for 1 1/2 miles and the margin was 25 lengths, a record that would last until another Triple Crown champion, Secretariat, won the Belmont by 31 lengths in 1973. Secretariat’s total winning margins in the three races--36 lengths--were the same as Count Fleet’s.

In the paddock after the Belmont, Hertz’s black and yellow silks--the same colors that were painted on his taxis--were auctioned off for $50,000 in war bonds.

The Belmont was Count Fleet’s last race. He rapped himself on the right foreleg in the race, and afterward it was discovered that he had badly bruised the ankle and suffered a serious tendon injury. Some critics, including fellow Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro, blame Longden for pushing Count Fleet in an attempt to break the time record.

“There was nothing I could do,” Longden said. “He was a free-running horse, and you just had to let him go.”

In seven weeks, Count Fleet had won five major races by 44 1/2 lengths. He also enjoyed a successful stud career. Hertz had insured him for $550,000, which was believed to be a record then. One of his sons, Count Turf, won the Kentucky Derby in 1951, and he also sired horse-of-the-year champions Counterpoint and One Count. Count Fleet died at 31 on Dec. 3, 1973, in Kentucky.

He was the sixth of 11 Triple Crown winners. Affirmed, in 1978, is the last horse to have swept the races, and when the Derby is run for the 119th time Saturday, another crop of 3-year-olds will seek the elusive title.

“It’s been a great life,” said Longden. “I believe in luck. If you have luck, you’re going to get there, and I’ve had a lot of luck.”

In 1969, Longden saddled Derby winner Majestic Prince, becoming the only horseman to ride and train a Derby winner.

Not all of Longden’s luck has been good, though. A riding spill resulted in a broken back that has bothered him since.

Longden, who also wears a pacemaker, officially retired from training about three years ago, but he still pops up occasionally with a 2-year-old, always hoping that another Count Fleet or Majestic Prince will bring him a Kentucky encore.