Racing Legend Woolf Mourned at Santa Anita

On this date in 1946, at Santa Anita, they played taps.

Teary-eyed jockeys, trainers and grooms gathered at the winner’s circle and 24,000 spectators choked back the emotions.

That day, at 3 a.m., racing immortal George Woolf died at nearby St. Luke’s Hospital. A jockey who’d won every major stakes race save the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, Woolf, 36, had been thrown from his mount, Please Me, two days earlier.

He was the nation’s leading money earner in 1944 and considered the best stakes rider of his era.

He won the first three Hollywood Gold Cups on Seabiscuit, Kayak II and Challedon. He won the first Santa Anita Handicap aboard Azucar but is best remembered today for beating War Admiral aboard Seabiscuit in a 1938 match race at Pimlico.

At the time of his death, he owned the still-popular Derby restaurant in Arcadia.

Tragically, it ended in an instant.

Please Me stumbled at the clubhouse turn and Woolf was pitched directly over the horse’s head. He landed heavily on his head, suffered a skull fracture and never regained consciousness.

Also on this date: Twenty-six years ago today, in 1973, all of baseball pondered the sale of the New York Yankees. George Steinbrenner bought the club from CBS for $10 million.

Also on this date: Baseball followers wondered how high the salary spiral would go. On Jan. 4, 1963, Detroit’s Al Kaline signed for $52,000 and St. Louis’ Stan Musial for $70,000.