Webb Foresight Paved the Way

They’re not about to hang a plaque for Bryan Webb at the Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., but no racing history would be complete without the chapter the vagabond trainer and the teenage jockey, Barbara Jo Rubin, wrote on a winter night in West Virginia more than 30 years ago.

Webb, who was 73 when he died of heart failure Wednesday in New Jersey, gave Rubin a leg up on one of his horses Feb. 22, 1969, unlocking the door for a female riding movement that peaked when Julie Krone, aboard Colonial Affair, won the Belmont Stakes in 1993. When she retired last year, Krone had won 3,541 races, a record for a woman. Rubin’s career total of 28 wins was just as important.

Win No. 1 for Rubin--on the Webb-trained Cohesion at Charles Town--was the first for a woman in a parimutuel race, coming at a time when many male riders would rather sit out races than ride against females. Five weeks before Rubin’s first win, 13 jockeys were fined $100 apiece by Florida racing authorities for refusing to ride against her in a race at the old Tropical Park.

Webb had signed Rubin to a riding contract, used her to gallop his horses in the mornings and was confident she could compete against men. But he was in a tough spot at Tropical, where Saul Silberman, the owner of the track, owned some of Webb’s horses. Silberman didn’t want Rubin riding his horses, or anybody else’s.

“She’ll just stir things up,” Silberman said.

Testing Silberman’s ire, and jeopardizing his business with a major client, Webb named Rubin to ride a Tropical race with a horse that had another owner. When the jockeys boycotted, canceling the race, Webb and a tearful Rubin retreated to the trailer that served as a dressing room. They huddled inside as fans bombarded the walls with bricks.

In early February, Webb moved his horses to Maryland, where he hoped to run them at Pimlico in Baltimore by day and at nearby Charles Town in West Virginia at night. Pimlico management, aware of Webb’s female jockey, wouldn’t give the trainer stall space unless he signed an agreement he wouldn’t use Rubin.

Webb’s plan was to work Rubin into races at Charles Town. “I’ve got a girl jockey who could ride here and put this place on the map,” he said to Irv Kovens, who owned the third-rate track.

Kovens hadn’t heard about the brick-throwing incident in Florida, but still didn’t want to play the pioneer.

Webb took his best hold. “This is a nice Jewish girl who can really ride,” he said to Kovens. “I thought your people took care of their own.”

On Feb. 22, the ninth race at Charles Town took on epic proportions when Webb, with Kovens’ approval, entered two horses, one to be ridden by Rubin and the other going to Larry Kunitake.

A crowd of more than 9,000--twice what Charles Town might draw on any other Friday night--showed up. Webb had hand-picked Cohesion for this spot. He didn’t want to blow this shot.

The trainer and his jockey were surrounded by security guards in Charles Town’s enclosed paddock. Cohesion was No. 1, and the horse and Rubin led the field on to the track for the post parade. “A vanguard of male chauvinist pigs heaped abuse upon her,” said Bill McDonald, who did publicity at Charles Town.

The Webb entry of Cohesion and Reely Beeg was hammered down to 2-5 by post time. They were running 1-2 through the short Charles Town stretch, when Cohesion passed his stablemate just before the wire. The stewards didn’t disagree with the public perception that Kunitake had let Rubin’s horse pass him, but they didn’t change the order of finish. Several years ago, long after the statute of limitations was up, Webb was still adamant that the race was honest.

Kovens sent Rubin by limousine to New York, where she was interviewed by Ed Sullivan, Walter Cronkite and Joe Garagiola for the major networks. Webb remembered once that Rubin was also the first woman to ride a winner in New York.

After that New York race, Webb gave Rubin a ride to the airport. He was forced to pull over to the sound of sirens and flashing lights behind him.

“I’d bet the horse pretty good,” Webb said. “The first thing I thought was that they were going to take the money away from me. But somebody at the track had sent the cop. Somebody back there wanted Barbara Jo to stay and ride the next day.”

Betting horses “pretty good” was a way of life for the Alabama-born Webb, who learned the training game from his uncle. For more than 40 years, Webb mostly ran a claiming stable, which took him from Florida to New England to the Midwest and finally to Northern California by the 1980s. Along the way, he won his share. At Ak-Sar-Ben in Omaha, he once beat the legendary Marion Van Berg for a meet title. He also won titles at Pimlico, Rockingham Park and Detroit Race Course, and in the early 1990s he finished second twice to Jerry Hollendorfer’s mighty stable at Bay Meadows. Webb retired from training five years ago after suffering a stroke.

When Chick Lang was the general manager at Pimlico, Webb walked into his office one day and dumped about $27,000, mostly in small bills, on his desk. It took them a while to count and stack it.

“I can’t trust myself,” Webb said. “Put this in your safe, and no matter what, don’t give it back until the meet’s over.”

Two days later, Webb was in Lang’s office, asking for his money. True to their recent agreement, Lang wouldn’t budge.

“He got it back when the meet ended, just like he first wanted,” Lang said. “But you know, he never used me as a banker again.”