Mr. Fitz

The Florida breeze soughing in the pines by the stable at 7:30 a.m. was damp, and the bent old man in the high-top black shoes wore a sweater under his coat. He sat on a folding chair in the center of a walking ring at Hialeah and watched with faded blue eyes as the boys cooled his horses after their workouts. At 85, hunched by spinal arthritis and wracked by asthma. Sunny Jim ("Mr. Fitz") Fitzsimmons last week was starting the 76th year of one of racing's most remarkable careers. "The day I got my first job as a stable boy," he says, "Grover Cleveland was inaugurated--for the first time."

The trainer of such great thoroughbreds of the past as Gallant Fox, Johnstown and Omaha, Mr. Fitz had always been lucky at Hialeah. There, in recent seasons, he had developed Nashua and, most recently, Bold Ruler, 1957's horse of the year. Nashua's first get, frisky two-year-olds, are training now at Hialeah side by side with those of Swaps, the great California horse that beat Nashua in the 1955 Kentucky Derby. But Mr. Fitz last week had eyes only for the Wheatley Stable's three-year-old Progressing, a capricious colt getting ready to run his first race of the season.

Waiting for Progressing's race that afternoon, Mr. Fitz sat on a wooden bench against a sheltered, sunny wall and chatted with dozens of friends and dozens of strangers who pressed against a nearby fence ("Howya feeling, Mr. Fitz?" "I'm feeling fine now"). Then Groom Wendel Griffith brought in Progressing, and Mr. Fitz set to work. Progressing began to act up badly. "Stop trying to put your paw in Wendel's pocket," said Mr. Fitz. He bent under the fidgeting horse, tapped him lightly on the knee with his wooden cane and scolded: "Stop that!" Progressing stopped it. "Maybe he just wants to run," said Mr. Fitz hopefully.

When Progressing headed for the track, Mr. Fitz did not try to watch the race ("I can't raise up enough to see over the crowd"), but waited instead in a warm car parked nearby so he could listen to the track announcer's description of the race over the loudspeaker. Progressing never did begin to run and finished fourth. Back at the barn, Mr. Fitz stared at the barely lathered horse, mused aloud: "He's just got too much nonsense in him today. Just looks like he had a good gallop for himself. We've got to run him to get him sharpened up."

With that, Mr. Fitz supervised the washing down of Progressing, peered at his ankles and gave instruction for the workouts the following dawn. The stables were fading into dusky shadow when Mr. Fitz finally left the track.

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