It’s So Momentous Again for Longden

Responsible for what many have called the greatest moment in Santa Anita history, John Longden is coming back to his favorite track.

The man who wrapped up his 40-year career as a jockey with a dramatic nose victory aboard George Royal in the 1966 San Juan Capistrano will be in Arcadia to celebrate another milestone.

To mark his 90th birthday today, Santa Anita, where Longden recorded 932 of his 6,032 wins, will honor the 4-foot-11 giant with a winner’s circle ceremony between races.

Wife Kathy, about 20 years Longden’s junior, will be with him. They were married April 30, 1993, the day before Sea Hero won the Kentucky Derby. Listen to them both and it sounds as if every day is Valentine’s Day.

Longden says he does miss life at the track, that he still could train horses, as he did for more than 23 years after he quit riding--he had Kentucky Derby and Preakness wins as a trainer with Majestic Prince in 1969--but he is happy living in Banning, 80 miles east of Los Angeles.

Except for some lower back problems, Longden’s health is fine and, as always, he is looking forward to visiting Santa Anita. He was there last month when the track acknowledged Laffit Pincay Jr.’s 50th birthday and he is also expected to be present Monday, when Alex Solis becomes the 48th rider to receive the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award.

Woolf, killed in a racing accident Jan. 3, 1946, at Santa Anita, was Longden’s schoolmate and friend. The award pays tribute to jockeys whose careers have reflected credit on themselves and the sport. Longden won it in 1952, the third recipient after Gordon Glisson and Bill Shoemaker.

The son of a coal miner doesn’t pay much attention to age, he says. Small wonder. He almost didn’t make it to his 6th birthday. Going to join his father in Alberta, Canada, from England in 1912, he and his mother just missed getting on the Titanic because a train was late.

“I don’t give any thought [to turning 90],” he said. “I just go day by day. When the Lord decides to take me, I’ll be ready.

“I’m doing fine. We travel and I play golf two or three times a week. My game’s just fair, but I keep at it.”

Although the Longdens have sold their motor home, they still spend a lot of time on the road. They go fishing every summer in Bishop, and visit Kathy’s relatives in Washington. And last year, they were at Del Mar when Cigar’s 16-race winning streak was ended by Dare And Go in the Pacific Classic.

Longden, whose first wife, Hazel, died in 1989, met Kathy through a mutual friend, Charles McCoy, in 1992. They were married about a year later.

“My first father-in-law was a racing fan and I had heard about John Longden for years and years,” Kathy said. “I never dreamed I would ever meet him. Then when I did get to meet him, he was such a dear, sweet person and I just fell in love with him immediately and I think everybody that meets him loves him.

“He’s the greatest. He’s only 90 years young. I think he’s very young for his age. His health is super good. The Lord has been very good to him and he knows that.”

Elected to racing’s Hall of Fame in 1958 and the only person ever to both ride and train Kentucky Derby winners, Longden keeps up with the sport he took up when Calvin Coolidge was in the White House.

He watches race replays nightly, but doesn’t believe he or anyone else will ever again see a horse like Count Fleet.

Longden and Count Fleet swept the Triple Crown in 1943, completing it with a 25-length victory in the Belmont Stakes.

“He was by far the best,” Longden said. “He could do anything. He could run fast and run far, and he ran over any kind of track. He was just a super horse, much better than the horses running now. Cigar was a very good horse, but he was nothing like Count Fleet.

“He ran the first quarter in 22 [seconds] and the last in 23 and they don’t do that anymore. He had speed and he would rate himself. He could run short or long, it didn’t make any difference.”

George Royal was no superstar but the Canadian-bred did enable Longden to make his 32,413th ride and March 12, 1966, historic.

Only days after Longden, then 59, announced that the San Juan Capistrano would be the final race of his career, George Royal, a 5-year-old son of Dark Hawk and 6-1 fourth choice in the field of nine, repeated his Capistrano win of the previous year.

It was almost as if the horse knew the magnitude of the occasion. Since his San Juan victory of 1965, he had lost 10 of 12 starts and, during that meeting at Santa Anita, his best finish in four starts had been fifth. Clearly, he was only 6-1 for sentimental reasons.

Fifth with a quarter of a mile to run, Longden and his bay companion got up to win by a nose, after a stretch battle with Plaque and Bobby Ussery, in 2:48 4/5 for about 1 3/4 miles on turf.

“I thought, outside of Citation-Noor [in the 1950 San Juan Capistrano], it was the best race I ever saw,” said trainer Noble Threewitt, who will turn 86 on Feb. 24 and who has known Longden for more than 60 years.

In 1950, Noor, ridden by Longden, upset Citation, who carried 13 more pounds, to win the Capistrano in a very close finish.

“It was something like a grand finale to a movie,” Threewitt said of Longden’s closing triumph. “It was a very, very emotional race. He was a great rider. He had a real knack for getting horses out of the gate and he got a lot of run out of them. Nobody now rides the way he did.”

Despite George Royal’s poor form leading up to the race--he had finished eighth in the Santa Anita Handicap in his previous start--Longden said he was fairly confident.

“I thought he had a good chance,” said Longden, who also won in another photo finish during his last afternoon in the saddle. He and favored Chiclero beat Bill Hartack and Valiant Man by a head in the day’s fourth race. “He had won the race the year before and he was training well. [Canadian trainer and former rider] Don Richardson did a real good job with him.

“It was kind of a load off my shoulders when he did win. Once I had decided to retire, I thought a lot about winning the race, but when it happened, I didn’t know what to think.”

There are plenty of other good memories. Longden had many big victories after his first aboard Hugo K. Asher over a muddy track at Salt Lake City 70 years ago.

Among his 67 stakes wins at Santa Anita were five Santa Anita Derbies and four Big ‘Caps. He also won the Hollywood Gold Cup four times and his mounts earned nearly $24.7 million.

But he doesn’t live in the past. The present agrees with him, mainly because of his wife.

“People don’t come any better than her,” he said. “I didn’t like being alone. I like company and you couldn’t get any better company than Kathy.”