Pigeons to Platers

In 1923 a Wyoming rancher named Charles (''Cowboy'') Irwin trained a stable of 50 horses which won 147 races that season. Only two other trainers in U. S. Turf history had ever saddled more than 100 winners in a year; no one had ever done it two years in a row. Long considered unapproachable by contemporary trainers, these records were last week broken to bits by a 32-year-old Brooklyn pigeon fancier named Hirsch Jacobs.* At Yonkers, N. Y. last week Trainer Jacobs, who a dozen years ago did not know the difference between a pony and a Percheron, saddled his 150th winner of the current season. With ten weeks of racing left, his total should reach 175 before the year is over. This will be the fourth consecutive year that Trainer Jacobs has saddled more than 100 winners. Unlike that of Cowboy Irwin, his record was compiled at the best tracks and against the best competition U. S. horse-racing has to offer.

Born & bred in Brooklyn. Hirsch Jacobs outgrew sidewalk handball as an outlet for his competitive urge when he was 13. Like many another adolescent in New York's restricted areas, he then achieved a vicarious escape mechanism by raising and training homing pigeons, in partner ship with his Italian neighbor, Charles Ferrara. When representatives of the Jacobs-Ferrara lofts came home first in several pigeon races, the partners turned their thoughts to bigger things. In 1924 they invested in a race horse named Demijohn. This was before Pigeon Fancier Jacobs had ever seen a horse race or even made a bet on one.

Of the thousands of horse races he has seen since, Mr. Jacobs has bet on remark ably few. Unlike most trainers, who hope to enlarge their earnings by wagering on their products, he made it his purpose from the outset to derive a surer if more modest income solely from prizes. By 1929 he had achieved his ends sufficiently to impress a Florida colonel, one Isidor Bieber, who hired him to train his B. B. Stable. Last year Hirsch Jacobs bought the Bieber horses, settled down to work in earnest. Since 1933, the first year he led the list of U. S. trainers, he has saddled 507 winners. They amount to the unheard of proportion of 30% of his entries.

Aware that homing, even for pigeons, is an acquired impulse, it occurred to Hirsch Jacobs that few race horses know what horse races are for. Buying cheap, discarded beasts which, to his sharp eye, possessed potentialities of speed, he schooled them in the neglected fundamentals of their profession, as though winning were a kind of circus trick. Logical, the first thing Trainer Jacobs teaches horses is the start. Orthodox horsemen are frequently disconcerted when one of Mr. Jacobs' educated mounts streaks industriously away from the barrier before his rivals know a race is on. Trainer Jacobs' 146th winner last week was Night Sprite, who, because he had failed to win in his last six starts, had been sold at bargain rates two days before. After only 48 hours in the Jacobs barn, Night Sprite knew exactly what to do. He plunged across the finish line first by a head, having opened up a gap of ten lengths at the start.

It is the belief of Mr. Jacobs that a trainer who expects to get good treatment from his horses should respond in kind. He inspects each of his charges several times a day, makes them practice no more than is absolutely essential, hires the best available exercise boys. He believes that every horse has requirements in exercise, food and personal habits different from those of every other horse. He makes a point of discovering and supplying these. One of the most sensational Jacobs horses this summer has been Amagansett, a 6-year-old jumper which Mr. Jacobs got last spring for the nominal price of $1,000 because his owner, Thomas Hitchcock Sr., considered him surly and ill-tempered. Amagansett, who stopped sulking as soon as Trainer Jacobs bought him, has since won eleven races, $11,000 in purses.

Trainer Jacobs is adept at picking races and riders as well as race horses. His entries are rarely overmatched. He has no contract jockey, chooses riders who are "hot," i e., enjoying winning streaks. Jacobs' horses are usually entered in the name of his wife. Mrs. Ethel Jacobs consequently last week became the leading U. S. owner in number of races won.

Currently, the Jacobs stables contain 60 horses. Forty are in active competition. The rest are learning the business at the Jacobs farm in Maryland. The majority of both groups are "platers" (cheap horses entered in races of which any entrant can be claimed by anyone for a price stated by its owner beforehand). Under Jacobs' management platers sometimes improve so rapidly as to be unrecognizable. Wonder horse of the season is a 7-year-old named Action. When Trainer Jacobs bought him for the customary $1,000 six months ago, Action was not only the cheapest kind of plater but, apparently, superannuated and a cripple. Rejuvenated, and converted from a steeplechaser into a flat racer by his new owner, he won eleven out of his next 13 starts. Last week Action had earned $22,685, was a leader in the handicap division, racing's highest.

*Not to he confused with Trainer Max Hirsch and his sad-faced daughter, Trainer Mary Hirsch.

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