Editors Note: This story first appeared in the September 5, 2020 edition of the BloodHorse. It is reprinted here with permission from author John Clarke.
In order to find my way to Saratoga I had to go through Louisville. In 1963, I went to the Kentucky Derby, my first trip to a racetrack, anytime, anywhere.
I was sitting in my college dorm room in Indiana when my friend Bobby Arcaro came by with an invitation to the Derby. Bobby is Eddie Arcaro’s son… yes, that Eddie Arcaro, arguably the most famous jockey America has ever had and the winner of five Kentucky Derbies. So famous that none other than Norman Rockwell drew a caricature of him for a Saturday Evening Post cover in 1958. Horseracing was very big in America at that time, and Arcaro had attained celebrity status.
We took the big Caddy from South Bend to Louisville. It was a ’61, California red with black leather seats. It was a real boat. We were four college kids taking an epic road trip to the Kentucky Derby. We traveled down old Route 31 through Plymouth and Rochester and Peru. These Indiana towns were not picturesque. At Kokomo we stopped to put the top down. We were wearing suits and ties and three of us wore ill-fitting pork pie hats.
We pulled into the Brown Hotel in Louisville late in the afternoon. Mr. Arcaro had taken care of our hotel rooms. I had never seen such a beautiful place. We checked in and went straight to Uncle Willie’s room. Bobby’s uncle had a big corner suite. He ordered a tub full of premium beers, an improvement over the Old Milwaukee we drank back at school. I remembered that Uncle Willie had once sent Bobby $5,000 worth of losing betting slips, tiny little stubs in those days. Bobby had plastered them on a bulletin board in his dorm room.
We went down for dinner in the hotel at 7 p.m. I saw a few little guys at the big, rectangular table. I recognized Bill Shoemaker, who wouldn’t? Shoemaker was tiny and shy. His wife, Babbs was there and at 5’ 9” she dwarfed Shoemaker. I didn’t know the other jockeys. Dale Robertson, the actor from “The Tales of Wells Fargo” was there too. I sat next to his wife, Lula Mae, and we talked about books. She looked like a movie star to me. She would later send me a copy of Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet”. It arrived the following week in my mailbox at school, with her inscription on the inside cover. Toward the end of the meal, my friend Bill, after consuming many gin and tonics, decided that it was appropriate that he pay for one of his drinks. He sent Mr. Arcaro a dollar bill; I remember that bill passing from hand to hand as it traveled down to Mr. Arcaro at the head of the big table. People got a real kick out of it.
On the way into the track the next day, we walked by a guy who was running the old shell and pea game. Bill, always confident in his abilities, played a few rounds. The operator suckered him into losing $20, half of his stake for the day. This was sobering for all of us.
Inside the track, we had great seats in the clubhouse near the finish line. I decided to play Candy Spots, the undefeated California horse, in the Derby. Shoemaker was riding him. We had paddock passes and went down to look at him. I had never seen such a horse. He was very beautiful and had prominent spotted markings on his hindquarters. When “riders up” was called, Shoemaker mounted and looked quite small on Candy Spots. Braulio Baeza rode the 9/1 shot, Chateaugay. He looked great on the horse, erect, impassive, chilly and in command. I second-guessed my betting choice.
Candy Spots went off as the 3/2 favorite. He had a tough trip that day. He was blocked twice and had to settle for a fast closing third. Chateaugay won. My $10 bet went up in smoke, but there was help on the way. Uncle Willie had a horse for us in the last race. He came down to our box and told us all about it. He seemed sure of the horse. Uncle Willie was a colorful figure. He wore a Borsalino Fedora; hounds tooth jacket, black tie, baggy slacks with cuffs, and brown and black wingtips. He looked prosperous. I bet my last $10 on the horse. He won for fun and paid $9.40. We all sauntered out of Churchill Downs as winners that day. I learned that cashing a winning ticket at the racetrack is exhilarating. Gambling money is more valuable than earned money. It’s a different form of currency. The two aren’t the same thing at all.
A few years later the four of us graduated, believing that we would keep in touch, but we did not. Fast forward fifty years or so to 2018. I was an established horseplayer and horse owner by then. Sitting in Section M of the grandstand at Saratoga one day, I read an article by Tom Law in the Saratoga Special. It was about Bobby Arcaro and his life in Florida and revealed that Bobby was spending a few days in Saratoga. I promptly called Tom, and he was good enough to arrange a meeting. I met Bobby on the ground floor of the Clubhouse an hour later. He looked great after all this time, still dressed as smartly as he was in our student days. He took me up to the Steward’s Room at the top of the track. Everyone knew him up there as he had been coming to Saratoga often since we got out of college. How had I not run into him in all those years? We talked about old times. I told him that I saw his father at Monmouth Park years ago and had reintroduced myself. I would like to think Mr. Arcaro remembered me, but I don’t know.
Bobby gave me a tip on the last race at The Spa. This time, I bet more than $10 and the horse won for fun and paid $8.60. I sauntered out of the track a winner and walked down Union Avenue and into town. Churchill Downs seemed close at hand.
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