Fitzsimmons, "Sunny Jim" (James)
Horse racing
b. July 23, 1874, Brooklyn, NY
d. March 11, 1966
The house in which Fitzsimmons was born was torn down to make way for the Sheepshead Bay Race Track, where he began his long career in thoroughbred racing as a waterboy. After nearly ten unsuccessful years as a jockey, Fitzsimmons became too heavy for that job and began training horses.
Before he retired in 1963, just before his eighty-ninth birthday, he had saddled 2,428 winners that earned $13,082,911. Among them were Gallant Fox, who won the triple crown in 1930; Omaha, who won the 1935 triple crown; and Nashua, who won the Preakness and Belmont in 1955, then beat Kentucky Derby winner Swaps in a $100,000 match race.
Fitzsimmons also trained Granville, Horse of the Year in 1936, and Bold Ruler, Horse of the Year in 1955. He led trainers in money won in 1936, 1939, and 1955.
Most remarkably, Fitzsimmons was a public trainer through most of his career, yet wealthy owners who could afford their own trainers trusted their horses to him, beginning in 1914 with thirty-four horses owned by James Johnson of Quincy Stable.
Ten years later, he took over the horses owned by William Woodward's Belair Stud. During one ten-year stretch, half of the winners at Belmont Park were Belair Stud horses trained by Fitzsimmons. When he retired, he was training horses for Wheatley Stable and Ogden Phipps.