Shoemaker, "Bill" (William L.)
Horse Racing
b. Aug. 19, 1931, Fabens, TX
d. Oct. 12, 2003
Born prematurely, Shoemaker weighed only 1 pound and 13 ounces and wasn't breathing. The doctor said he wouldn't live, but his maternal grandmother, Maude Harris, wrapped the tiny baby in rags, put him in a shoebox, and placed the shoebox on an open oven door, with the heat set on low. Within a short time, the baby was warm and breathing.
"He'll live, Ruby," Maude Harris said to the mother. "He's a little fighter."
Though he weighed only 80 pounds, Shoemaker was undefeated as a wrestler in the 95- to 105-pound division in high school and he was also a successful Golden Gloves boxer before leaving school at sixteen to take a job cleaning out horse stalls. He soon became an exercise boy and, in 1949, an apprentice jockey.
He was an immediate success, riding 219 winners to finish second in the nation even though he didn't get his first victory until April. In his first full season, 1950, he tied for the lead with 388 winners, which matched Walter Miller's record, set in 1906.
Shoemaker led in purses with $1,329,890 in 1951, rode a record 485 winners in 1953, and led in wins again with 380 in 1954. He was also the top money winner in both years and had a record $1,876,760 in 1954.
As he got more rides in high-purse stakes races, he rode fewer mounts and his wins declined. Nevertheless, he led in victories in 1958 and 1959 and was the top money winner seven years in a row, from 1958 through 1964.
Shoemaker won the Kentucky Derby four times, aboard Swaps in 1955, Tomy in 1958, Lucky Debonair in 1965, and Ferdinand in 1986. At fifty-four he was the oldest jockey ever to win the race.
He would have tied the record of five Kentucky Derby victories, but when he was leading the race with Gallant Man in 1957, he thought the one-sixteenth pole was the finish, pulled the horse up, and lost to Iron Liege. The winning jockey, Eddie Arcaro, said afterward, "He's the only one I know who could have suffered that kind of experience in a race like the Derby without going to pieces. That's why the little son of a gun is going to go on and on."
He did go on to win the Belmont that year with Gallant Man. Shoemaker also won the Belmont with Sword Dancer in 1958, Jaipur in 1962, Damascus in 1967, and Avator in 1975, and he took the Preakness with Candy Spots in 1963 and Damascus in 1967.
The record for career wins was clearly within Shoemaker's reach in 1968, but he missed most of the year and part of 1969 with a severely broken leg and, shortly after returning in 1969, he suffered a broken pelvis.
On September 7, 1970, he rode his 6,003rd winner to break Johnny Longden's record. It had taken Longden forty-two years and 32,000 mounts to set the record; Shoemaker broke it in twenty-two years and 25,000 mounts.
Two years later, Shoemaker won his 555th stakes winner to break Arcaro's record and in 1985 he became the first jockey ever to earn more than $100 million in his career. He still wasn't finished. After undergoing knee surgery early in 1987, Shoemaker won the Breeders' Cup Classic aboard Ferdinand.
Shoemaker retired in February of 1990 with 8,833 wins in 40,350 mounts, including 1,009 stakes victories, and $123,375,524 in purses. He began training horses at his own stable in California. On April 8, 1991, his car left the road when he was driving home from a country club. Shoemaker's neck was broken in the crash. He survived by the narrowest of margins, but became a quadriplegic.
After six months of rehabilitation, Shoemaker returned to training horses, equipped with a mouth-operated, motorized wheelchair. He trained winners of 157 races, including 30 stakes races.