Emotional Final Day Is a Winner for McCarron

A man of many scripts--mostly compelling ones--Chris McCarron climaxed more than 28 years of horsebacking Sunday by confidently riding Came Home to a two-length win in the $107,500 Affirmed Handicap at Hollywood Park.

It was the 34,230th race and the 7,141st win of McCarron’s career, and the $64,500 winner’s share boosted the 47-year-old Hall of Fame jockey’s record purse total to $264,351,579. McCarron’s second win Sunday came two days after he had made his last out-of-town appearance by riding two winners and taking an all-star jockey competition at Lone Star Park near Dallas.

His riding peers doused him with buckets of water that night; on his farewell day, they deluged him with admiration and praise.

Galloping out Came Home after the race, McCarron had a flashback to a snowy, freezing-cold 1974 day at Bowie, Md., where he rode his first race.

“I was wearing three pair of goggles that day,” McCarron said. “But I forgot to pull any of them down. From the three-eighths pole to the wire, I couldn’t see a thing. It’s a good thing I finished last.”

McCarron’s older brother, Gregg, who had beaten him to the track by several years, also was riding in Maryland.

“No wonder you couldn’t see anything,” he said. “You didn’t use any of your goggles.”

About 90 minutes before the Affirmed, in a winner’s-circle lovefest attended by McCarron’s family, jockeys present and past and owners and trainers McCarron had ridden for over the years, Gregg McCarron sneaked up on his brother. Chris McCarron had been led to believe last week that his brother, with training and grandfatherly duties in Maryland, wouldn’t be attending.

They embraced warmly, both in tears. It was Gregg McCarron who encouraged his kid brother to follow him to the track. But Helen McCarron, their mother, thought that one jockey in the family was enough.

“I remember Chris coming down to Maryland between his junior and senior years in high school,” Gregg McCarron said. “He got on a horse and was scared to death. I called our mother and told her Chris had nothing to worry about. I told her that he’d never make it. You know, that’s the first and only time I’ve been wrong.”

Marje Everett, the former chairman of Hollywood Park, was part of Sunday’s crowd of 16,850. Three of the five jockeys--the still-active Laffit Pincay and Russell Baze and the retired Bill Shoemaker--who rank ahead of McCarron in the win column also were there. It was Everett who staged an all-star jockey competition in 1976, when McCarron got his first exposure to California racing. Two years later--on March 27, McCarron’s 23rd birthday--McCarron and his wife Judy flew to the West Coast to stay.

Gary Jones, now retired as a trainer, remembered McCarron’s invasion of a jockey colony that then, as now, already was steeped with talent.

“He was wise beyond his years, and very confident,” Jones said. “When I asked other trainers to sum up Chris in one word, the words ‘phenomenal,’ ‘fantastic,’ ‘professional,’ ‘style’ and ‘class’ are the ones that are used.”

Slightly more than a week ago, McCarron announced that he was retiring. He said that he no longer had the wall-to-wall passion that he felt was required to continue.

McCarron rode in five races before his win aboard Came Home.

“I thought I was going to be ready for [the last day], but I was wrong,” McCarron said. “I was going along pretty good, but when [his daughter] Erin read that poem in the winner’s circle, she got to me. After that, I had trouble with my composure.”

Known for his focus as much as his left-handed whip, McCarron ratcheted himself up for the Affirmed. Although McCarron had ridden Came Home to victory in the Santa Anita Derby, more recently they had finished sixth in the Kentucky Derby, and Sunday the colt was running with 124 pounds--about 115 pounds of McCarron and the rest equipment and lead--which was between four and nine pounds more than his five rivals. The horseplayers, many of them buying $2 tickets that would wind up in their scrapbooks instead of being cashed, bet Came Home down to a 2-5 favorite.

Owned by a partnership that included Trudy McCaffery and John Toffan--McCarron’s longtime clients--and trained by Paco Gonzalez, Came Home broke alertly and through slow early fractions was second only briefly. After a half-mile he had displaced Kamsack as the leader. He was two lengths in front of Tracemark at the eighth pole and protected that lead to the wire. The margin was two lengths, with Tracemark finishing seven lengths in front of Calkins Road, the third-place finisher. The time for 1 1/16 miles was 1:41 4/5. Came Home paid $2.80 to win.

“When we hit the head of the lane, I had a strong feeling that the race was over,” McCarron said. “Because my horse took off then like he typically does. All the way back [to the winner’s circle], I was pinching myself. This was all just too good to be true.”

Joining in the applause in the winner’s circle was Craig Dollase, who trains Tracemark. Before the race, Dollase had been asked if he’d like to see McCarron go out a winner.

“Sentimentally, I said yes,” Dollase said. “But business is still business and we were trying to win. But this is great. It’s great for Chris to go out like this.”

As McCarron dismounted, Gonzalez said: “I’ll see you at the barn [for today’s morning workouts] at 6:30.”

McCarron grinned and said:

“Can you make it 8 o’clock instead?”

Usually, a jockey with a high-weighted horse and a comfortable lead will make sure he doesn’t win too easily, the better to buffalo the racing secretary when he assigns weights for the next handicap. McCarron went out ignoring that stratagem.

“I was going to win by as far as I could today,” the ex-jockey was now saying. “Sorry about that, Paco.”

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*--* Last Time Around How Chris McCarron fared on final mounts of his career Sunday at Hollywood Park: RACE HORSE FINISH 2nd Trackofthecat Second 3rd Miss Hennessy Third 4th Always Game Sixth 5th Blind Ambition First 6th Come Back Ronnie Third 7th Came Home First

FINAL NUMBERS 7,141 Career wins (sixth all-time) 34,230 Mounts in 28 years $264,351,579 Purse earnings (first all-time)

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CHRIS McCARRON * BY THE NUMBERS

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WINNERS RIDDEN - 7,141

All-Time Jockey Leaders in Victories

*--* *Laffit Pincay 9,379 Bill Shoemaker 8,833 *Pat Day 8,268 *Russell Baze 7,840 David Gall 7,396 Chris McCarron 7,141 Angel Cordero Jr. 7,057 Jorge Velasquez 6,795 Sandy Hawley 6,449 Larry Snyder 6,388

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EARNINGS OF MORE THAN 264 million

All-Time Jockey Leaders in Earnings

*--* Chris McCarron $264,351,579 *Pat Day $262,524,254 *Laffit Pincay Jr $230,002,432 *Jerry Bailey $228,817,198 *Gary Stevens $204,409,516 *Eddie Delahoussaye $194,127,264 Angel Cordero Jr. $164,561,227 *Kent Desormeaux $154,866,259 *Mike Smith $144,584,112 Jorge Velasquez $125,544,379

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WIN PERCENTAGE - 20.9

Win % of Selected Hall of Fame Jockeys

*--* Bill Shoemaker 21.9% *Pat Day 21.9% *Russell Baze 21.3% Chris McCarron 20.9 % Sandy Hawley 20.5% Eddie Arcaro 19.8% *Laffit Pincay Jr. 19.7% Angel Cordero Jr. 18.7% John Longden 18.6% *Gary Stevens 18.1% *Eddie Delahoussaye 16.2%

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SIGNIFICANT STAKES VICTORIES - 316

Major Races Won

*--* NO RACE YEARS (HORSE) 2 Ky. Derby 1987 (Alysheba), 1994 (Go For Gin) 2 Preakness 1987 (Alysheba), 1992 (Pine Bluff) 2 Belmont 1986 (Danzig Connection), 1997 (Touch Gold) 5 Breeders’ Cup Classic 1988 (Alysheba), 1989 (Sunday Silence), 1996 (Alphabet Soup), 2000-01 (Tiznow) 21 Races Worth $1 Million or More Among the victories: 1984 Arlington Million (John Henry), 1992 Breeders’ Cup Distaff (Paseana), 1998 Pacific Classic (Free House)

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Note: Asterick (*) indicates active jockey. Statistics are compiled from races at North American tracks and selected international races. Primary sources: Daily Racing Forum, Equibase and Hollywood Park.