Once while caddying golf, Eddie Arcaro
had trouble locating several shots. The irritated golfer said, “Kid, drop that
bag and go home. You'll never make a caddy as long as you live. A little runt
like you ought to be a jockey.”
Never has an insult turned into a
better piece of advice. Arcaro became quite a jockey. His accomplishments
reached a peak in 1948 when he rode Citation to the Triple Crown of horse
racing—winning the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes—and in
the process became the first jockey to take the Kentucky Derby four times and
the Triple Crown twice.
Arcaro learned that the best way to
move through the field was to squeeze his horse through the pack, an aggressive
style that caused him to fall more than a few times. Arcaro also developed his
own set of techniques for using the whip. While many riders whipped their
horses repeatedly, he applied the whip judiciously, often simply waving the
wand in front of his mount.
Arcaro, who weighed 51 kg (112 lb), won
more than 100 races a year in the 1930s. He rode Lawrin, at 9-to-1 odds, to the
1938 Kentucky Derby title, and in 1941 he guided Whirlaway to the Triple Crown.
He won his third Kentucky Derby in 1945 atop Hoop Jr.
A tragedy led to Arcaro's jockeying
Citation in 1948. Jockey Al Snider, the horse's regular rider, was set to guide
the horse in the Kentucky Derby in May. In March, however, Snider drowned in a
fishing accident in Florida. Arcaro, a close friend of Snider, called Ben
Jones, Citation's trainer, to ask if he could jockey the horse. Arcaro,
however, had angered Jones earlier in the season when his mount collided with
one of Jones's favorite horses in an important race. Arcaro vowed if Citation
won, he would split the jockey's share of the winnings with Snider's widow.
Jones agreed.
Rain fell hard in Louisville, Kentucky,
on the morning of the Derby, May 1, 1948. When the race card began at 11:30 AM,
however, the day was hot and muggy. Track conditions gradually improved while
100,000 people jammed Churchill Downs to see horse racing's biggest event.
Citation, one of just five horses in
the field and one of the smallest to run the race in 40 years, was the favorite
at 2-to-5 odds. The other highly regarded horse in the field was Coaltown, also
trained by Jones and, like Citation, a product of Calumet Farm of Lexington,
Kentucky. Coaltown, jockeyed by Newbold Leroy Pierson, led in the first eighth
of a mile and in the backstretch. Citation remained in second. As the horses
rounded the turn for the homestretch, however, Citation pulled even, galloped
into the lead, and coasted to victory. No other horse contended.
Arcaro, according to the New York
Times, was “the most jubilant little man in these United States when he
returned to the jockeys' quarters.” The race was Arcaro's fourth Kentucky Derby
win in nine attempts. “He's great,” Arcaro said of Citation. “He'll win the
Triple Crown.”
The victory earned Arcaro widespread
acclaim. Time magazine featured Arcaro in a long article in which he
explained his successful riding techniques. “You've got to make the horse think
you're part of him,” he said. “You sit right tight and dig your hands into his
neck. And when he drives, you drive, and when he comes back you come back with
him. That's the only secret I know about helping a horse, and it's no secret.”
Two weeks later Arcaro and Citation
confronted the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown. As at
Churchill Downs, the Pimlico track in Baltimore, Maryland, was damp. Rain had
fallen hard the day before the race. Although sunshine and wind on race day
improved the track's conditions, Arcaro demonstrated that Citation was the
class of the field, regardless of track condition. Citation, the overwhelming
favorite at odds of 1-to-10, came out of the gate first, pulled ahead by two
lengths on the backstretch, and romped to the finish six lengths ahead of the
second-place horse, Vulcan. Arcaro used the whip only twice: at the entrance of
the backstretch and just outside the eighth pole. According to the New York
Times, ”Citation got the idea, and kept pulling away from the others
through the final yards.”
The final race in the Triple Crown was
the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park near New York City on June 12. Arcaro and
Citation again won handily. “This Citation was a horse apart from anything else
I had ever ridden,” Arcaro wrote in his autobiography. “His stride was frictionless;
his vast speed alarming.”
Citation continued to win race after
race, but by the end of 1948, injuries kept the champion from racing for more
than a year. Arcaro accumulated more victories in 1948 on other horses. He rode
188 winners in 726 races for a winning percentage of 26. The horses he mounted
that year won a total of $1.68 million.
