American jockey William "Bill" John Hartack, Jr., (1932-2007) was characterized by the media as rude, arrogant, provocative, controversial, outspoken and a great jockey. Looking back on Hartack, none of it was as black and white as that, other than his talent and masterful command of a horse.
At 19, he won his first race, and seven years later, following a meteoric rise to prominence in the irons, he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame. Hartack won the Kentucky Derby five times, a record shared with Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro, and led the nation's jockey standings in earnings on two occasions, four times in number of races won. He'd been aboard Northern Dancer, Kelso, and Round Table, among other great thoroughbreds. He was featured on the cover of Time magazine, twice on Sports Illustrated's cover.
Following Hartack's retirement from riding, I worked with him for a time when he was a racing official, and I could see why the media had conflicted feelings about him. His intelligence was intimidating, and he was curt with any journalist who interrupted his work on a race day, for example, or any journalist who'd otherwise been rude to him.
Shortly before a race meeting in Southern California, I picked him up at LAX, and we went out to dinner before he crashed on a sofa at my place. Hartack made several memorable observations over dinner.
'You use your speed early, or you use your speed late.' This referred to the 1964 Kentucky Derby, when he piloted Northern Dancer from well off the pace to win in track record time.
'I never had a good day at the race track.' Hartack's hatred of losing was beyond description. If he had six mounts and won on five of them, the day was ruined.
His most provocative observation during dinner arrived late: 'The public is an idiot.' As I grow older, and consider the popular vote in several recent elections in America, I begin to see the wisdom in this.
But of course, he was referring to the racing public, and the story he told to support his statement goes back to Maryland's Laurel Race Course, now Laurel Park, when he was a young rider and had a mount on a mare he'd ridden several times before, winning on one occasion.
She was sore in the post parade, but then, she'd been that way in times past and had warmed up out of her soreness in a gallop before reaching the starting gate. Not this time, however. An odds-on favorite, the mare was still sore at the gate. Believing it was unfair to the betting public if she started, unfair to the mare, unfair to the owner and trainer, Hartack refused to ride.
There was a heated exchange with the racing stewards on a walkie talkie, and in the end, an outrider escorted Hartack and the mare back to the saddling paddock for another rider. When this was announced over the PA, the fans booed and called Hartack names. Walking toward the jockey's room, he removed his silks and passed them to the replacement rider. The rider asked if the mare was all right - a question Hartack left hanging while he continued in silence to the room, the answer being obvious under the circumstances.
The fans cheered the new rider wildly as the mare made her way to the starting gate once more. After she'd run terribly, finishing out of the money, and was returned to the stands to be unsaddled, the crowd booed the replacement rider something awful. When Hartack came out on his mount for the next race, the fans applauded and cheered him as passionately as they'd earlier jeered him.
Later on, Hartack had a similar experience when he took off a horse at the gate in Florida, and that may have cemented his attitude toward a public whose betting interests he tried to protect. His opinions were as strong as they come, true, but above all, he was a man of principle and conscience, a man of spotless integrity.
A loner, he didn't have many friends, and his death from heart disease came to him alone in a cabin on a hunting trip in Texas. He didn't have a wife or children. His mother died when he was young, and although the poor relationship he'd had with his father improved greatly over time - Bill had bought him a home and enabled him to retire from work in a Pennsylvania coal mine - his father had passed away, and he wasn't close to his two sisters. When he died, he had little money and no permanent residence.
The person who owned the Texas cabin, Garrett Condra, was one of Hartack's friends. Condra and his family had several cemetery plots available in Iberia, Missouri, and William John Hartack, Jr., is buried in one of them. In a line inscribed on Hartack's gravestone, the late rider's friend phrased his tribute: 'Dedicated to Honesty and Integrity in Racing.'
Don Walters is the author of the Amazon.com eBooks The Woman Who Loved Horses and Zoe, among other works. He grew up with horses in Kentucky, where he makes his home today. Visit his website with a click here for horse-related topics and links for connecting to other readers & writers.
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