Under the Wire

Jockey Tony DeSpirito's headlong drive on the record for winners ridden in one year took on all the suspense of a movie serial last week. As 18-year-old Tony came closer & closer to the record mark, people who had never seen a horse race were asking: "Will he make it?" Tony did, getting in under the wire in the last race at Tropical Park on the next-to-last day of the year. On New Year's Eve, as a clincher, Tony rode Winner No. 390, two more than the longtime record of 388, set by Walter Miller in 1906 and tied in 1950 by Willie Shoemaker and Joe Culm one.* For little (5 ft. 2 in., 106 Ibs.) Tony DeSpirito, the record was a victory scored against long odds. Son of a Lawrence (Mass.) millworker, Tony knew nothing about horses until he quit school two years ago and began hanging around nearby Rockingham Park. He got odd jobs as a "hot walker" and exercise boy and, finally, his big chance as a jockey. But he rode so badly in his first race that the stewards grounded him and advised him to give up riding entirely.

A Few Essentials. Tony tried again in Florida last January, but was again set down for incompetent riding. During the layoff, Tony started working out with a veteran rider who taught Tony a few essentials. Tony soon improved enough to qualify for a license as an apprentice jockey. Back in the saddle, he traveled up & down the Eastern seaboard, and wherever he went he whipped home winners.

But Tony kept running into trouble. He drew a $100 fine for cussing at fans; he had a spill that forced him to cancel his mounts for a week. Even after Tony began to draw in sight of the record, Jockey Culmone flatly predicted: "He'll never make it. The pressure will get him." Then Tony got another crusher: a ten-day suspension for twice lugging into a horse in a tight race. When the suspension was lifted the day before Christmas, he faced a seemingly impossible task: 19 winners in eight days.

'I'm Not Nervous." Winging back & forth to Cuba, where racing is allowed on Sundays, Tony rode 15 more winners, still needed four, with only two racing days remaining in 1952. "I think I'll break the record now," said Tony. "I'm not nervous--just kind of tight." Tony loosened up enough--and got enough breaks from sympathetic owners--to ride winners in the second and third races the next day and to tie the record with a winner in the fourth. Tony's quest ended in the last race astride a horse aptly named King's Quest.

Tony dedicated his record-breaking ride and his winning jockey's fee ($50) to Jockey Walter Miller, now confined to a New York sanatarium. The little "apprentice," who becomes a full-fledged jockey this month, can afford such gestures these days. Purses for his winning mounts totaled more than $800,000, and Tony's income came close to $40,000 last year.

* Miller, riding in the days when there were only six-race cards and no winter season, had a winning mark of 28% on 1,384 mounts. DeSpirito's winning mark: 26% on 1,474 mounts. Riding in more than 1,600 races, Shoemaker hit 24%, Culmone 23%.

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