Sport: A Way with Horses

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The race was just a lowbrow $5,500 "claimer," the last on a long day's card at California's Santa Anita Park. The stands were littered with tickets and tout sheets, and sullen losers were already fighting traffic on their way home. Aboard a lackluster hayburner named Strathnaver, Jockey Willie Shoemaker was having traffic troubles, too. Bottled up in the backstretch, he slipped his mount through a narrow gap on the rail, brandished his whip, and drove hard for the finish. Strathnaver collared the leaders in the last 70 yds., hung on wearily to win by a neck. Flashbulbs popped and sportswriters clustered around the winner's circle. "How does it feel, Willie," one wanted to know, "to ride six winners in one day?"

To stony-faced Willie Shoemaker, 30, it probably felt monotonous. In the last 75 years, only 42 riders have booted home six winners in a day; Shoemaker has done it eight times. He has won 41 $100,000 races (including four in six weeks last year), and his record for victories in a single season (485 in 1953) has never been approached. Eddie Arcaro and Johnny Longden have won more races; Arcaro has won more money. But Arcaro is 46, Longden is 55, and they have been riding thoroughbreds for a combined total of 65 years. In only 13 years in the irons, Shoemaker has won 4,256 races, and his mounts have earned more than $25 million.

High & Forward. Key to Shoemaker's remarkable record is his flawless, sensitive riding style. "Willie takes such light hold of a horse," says Eddie Arcaro, "that he could probably ride with silk threads for reins." A master handicapper, he is so adept at measuring a mount's running ability that he has been accused of talking to his horses. Says a California racing official: "Two things stand out about Shoemaker. One is that he's clean: he can maneuver at close quarters, but he never takes advantage of other riders. The other is his disposition. He's a good winner and a good loser. He's never overelated, and he's never discouraged."

Hunched high and forward, his weight over his horse's withers, Shoemaker is the picture of tranquillity in the saddle. "The big thing," he says, "is to relax. Lots of jocks don't do that. They're tense. Somehow I think my relaxation gets across to the horse, makes him want to run. If I were asked to give advice to young riders, the first thing I'd tell them is 'Never get in a hurry.' "

Reared in Southern California, Texas-born Willie Shoemaker had never ridden a thoroughbred before he quit school at 15 to work on a horse farm. "I used to listen to the radio nights," he explains, "when they re-created the races at Santa Anita and Hollywood. I got the idea that because of my size I could be a jockey."