Sport: Shy Terror

Jockey Charlie Burr put aside his comic book, settled back more comfortably in his deck chair, and surveyed his pleasant surroundings. Florida sunshine warmed his skinny (5 ft. 3 in., 101 Ibs.) frame; the flowers of Tropical Park—hibiscus, cro-tons, ixora—bloomed in profusion around the track; banks of clipped Australian pine lined the clubhouse drive. This, he decided, was the life—a far cry from his boyhood years on the farm in Kansas. Last week, just two months after he lost his apprentice allowance (a five-pound weight concession), Charlie Burr entered an exclusive fraternity: he became the seventh American jockey to ride 300 winners in a year.*

Charlie got there by starting early in life: "I've been riding since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Grandmother and Daddy gave me a saddle horse when I was six." By the time Charlie was eleven, and weighing a wringing-wet 45 Ibs., he had ridden his first winner in a quarter-horse race at Ponca City, Okla. Riding for his uncle, Clarence ("Shorty") Burr, young Charlie barnstormed all over Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri in the rough & ready quarter-horse circuit.

It was good training for the big time. Charlie learned to use his big hands ("They've milked many a cow") to get the most out of a race horse, and he learned how to deal with rival jockeys. Off the track, Charlie is a shy little fellow with a guileless grin; on a horse, he is a hot-tempered terror. This year he got a nine-day suspension for slashing a jockey, got another ten days for causing a spill, was fined $200 for cussing out another rider, and was out of action for 48 days with a broken wrist after a three-horse pileup. His slashing style ("If you're not squawling at the jockeys, you're squawling at your horse") may have cost him some winners, but Charlie Burr, at 17, can afford to be philosophic about it: his 301 winners and some 700 other mounts this year have netted him more than $35,000.