The Loser

Horse-race spectators keep their eyes up front, where the money rides. Nobody watches a loser.

In the fourth race at New York's Aqueduct race track last week, the chalk players cheered as Miss Stowaway, the odds-on favorite, got away fast, ran easily, and finished under wraps. Few noticed that five furlongs back a 40-to-1 longshot called Plenty Papaya broke skittishly from the starting gate and lunged for the outer rail. Aboard the black two-year-old filly, Jockey Roy L. Gilbert, 22, a lanky kid from the mountains of eastern Kentucky, was pushing his hottest winning streak. Seven years away from his first job as a stable boy, he was at the "Big Apple"riding in bright silks for rich purses.

Desperately, Gilbert sawed on the reins and slashed with his whip. But Plenty Papaya bolted back to the inside. Just before hitting the barrier, horse and rider parted company. The railbirds were watching the front runners, and no one saw what happened next. But an aluminum-shod hoof or the concrete base of a rail post shattered the jockey's skull. Roy Gilbert died on the way to a hospital.

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