Willie Shoemaker

Legendary jockey with 8,833 winners

William Lee Shoemaker, jockey: born Fabens, Texas 19 August 1931; three times married (one daughter); died San Marino, California 12 October 2003.

It was always going to be a remarkable life for the child born in Fabens, Texas, in 1931. Weighing in at a little under three pounds, the story goes, the boy was so small and frail that he was bundled into a shoebox and kept incubated in the oven. Little wonder, then, that he earned the nickname "Shoe". His full name was William Shoemaker, and he was to dwarf all jockeys in America during a riding career that spanned six decades.

Starting with his first winner in 1949 at the appropriately named Golden Gate Fields racetrack in California, Willie Shoemaker signed off an unparalleled stint on horseback on 3 February 1990 in front of 64,573 fans at Santa Anita. The occasion marked his 40,352nd ride and his mount, Patchy Groundfog, finished fourth, yet most racegoers had wagered on his mount with no intention of cashing in a winning ticket. Instead they wanted a memento of one of America's great sporting legends, eulogised by grandfathers, father and sons alike, all of whom witnessed his grace in the saddle and exchanged tales about moments of sheer magic.

There were many to choose from. Shoemaker collected a total of 8,833 victories, the equivalent of a winner a day for more than 24 years. His fame was such that he was instantly recognisable. He was once the subject of a nationwide advertising campaign in the US that never mentioned his name. But then, at 4ft 11in tall and supported by size-2 feet, Shoemaker was something of a physical rarity.

It was his grandfather who gave him the scent for horses. The young Shoemaker was barely five when thrown on to the back of a pony. He dropped out of school to take his first job on a ranch, and was subsequently introduced to racing by Wallace Bailey, a jockey at Santa Anita, where he honed the style that was to carry him to a plethora of records.

He moved out to Bay Meadows racetrack to serve his apprenticeship in 1949, and such was his talent that he posted 219 victories in his first year of race-riding. The following year Shoemaker took the first of his 15 national Championships, and was well on the way to plundering the $123m that his mounts were to earn their respective owners.

Five years later he partnered the first of four Kentucky Derby winners aboard the legendary Swaps, giving the Californian-bred colt a vintage ride from the front. That tactic was to become his hallmark, although he was equally skilled in charging from off the pace, his cool judgement under pressure never better illustrated than when punching home Ferdinand, trained by his comrade-in-arms Charlie Whittingham, in the same race 31 years later.

Other Derbys came with Tomy Lee in 1959 and Lucky Debonair six years later, but Shoemaker threw away the 1957 Kentucky Derby when, riding Gallant Man, he misjudged the winning post and stood up in his irons, acclaiming victory 50 yards short of the wire. He was beaten by a nose by Iron Liege; incredibly the horse's owner claimed to have dreamt the entire sequence of events a week before the race.

In addition to four Kentucky Derby victories, Shoemaker partnered five Belmont Stakes winners as well as two in the Preakness, taking his tally in American Triple Crown races to 11. But there were other, more personal riding triumphs he savoured as much, if not more, such as the time he nursed the suspect stamina of the miler Olden Times in the one-and-three-quarter-mile San Juan Capistrano Handicap in 1962, fending off several challenges and leaving the opposition shaking their heads in amazement and frustration.

Shoemaker was always a fit man, but the fall he sustained at Santa Anita in 1968 left him with a shattered thigh and 13 idle months. Typically, he returned with a flourish to ride three winners on his first day back - only to take another horrific spill 10 weeks later. It took four months for his temporarily paralysed left leg to heal but, although he also suffered a fractured pelvis and ruptured bladder in the tumble, he was essentially a lucky man.

Luck had nothing to do with Shoe's achievements on the track. His total of 8,833 winners is a world record by a long way; he had bettered the previous best as far back as 1970, adding a further 2,800 to it for good measure. He was the first jockey to partner the winners of $100m, and won the first million- dollar race ever staged, riding John Henry to a dramatic, last-gasp victory in the Arlington Million in 1981. And Ferdinand's victory in Kentucky in 1986 made him the oldest jockey to win America's most famous race. He was 54 years old.

Shoemaker's contemporaries were never safe from his practical jokes and the fact that he was not a slave to his diet allowed him relief from the bouts of depression to which his colleagues were routinely subject. He was a model of discipline for the younger riders, many of whom based their riding styles on his.

He rode in Britain on several occasions, almost landing the 1978 Derby on Robert Sangster's Hawaiian Sound, which failed to contain Shirley Heights by a neck. In 1989 Shoemaker organised a world tour to give racing fans one last chance to savour his qualities.

It was inevitable that he would turn to the training ranks, and he saddled his first Stakes winner, Baldomero, within months of swapping roles. But his efforts were seriously compromised when he was left paralysed from the neck down after a road accident in 1991.

One of Shoemaker's own idols was the golfer Arnold Palmer, principally for Palmer's ability to generate huge interest in the game. Shoemaker would never have acknowledged it, but there are thousands of racegoers who first went to the racetrack specifically to watch him ride.

Julian Muscat