“I hope they don’t allow it,” Mr. Fitz said. “Nothin’ bothered my horse. He run it fair and square and got beat. No, I don’t want to win like that. I’ll take second and stick with it. The horse is all right. He give it a good try. I don’t want any more than that.”
A few minutes later, the tote board said the result was official; Jester was the winner. The foul claim had been disallowed.
“That’s good,” Mr. Fitz said. Then he looked at the people around him, who were busy ripping up tickets on Misty Flight.
“Serves you right, hangin’ around here and bettin’ like fools,” he said.
His life with these strange, beautiful animals shows he has this attitude. “All those winners,” he was saying one day, “could’ve lost just as easy. Then where would we be today?”
He was in the kitchen of his Belmont Park cottage and son John walked in from the next room with a piece of writing tablet paper, on which was penciled the record of a horse called Agnes D.
“This was an important horse to Pop,” John said. “This is the first horse he trained that won a race at a major race track. Take a look at it. You’ll see why we don’t get cocky around here.”
On April 30, 1903, the paper said, Agnes D, ridden and trained by James E. Fitzsimmons, finished sixth in a race at Jamaica. Then with a change of jockeys, Agnes D won at Morris Park on May 24. So on June 4, Trainer Fitzsimmons invaded the big time—Brooklyn’s Gravesend track. Agnes D went to the post, but was acting up and the assistant starter took a good hold. Too good. The field went away with Agnes D calmly standing at the post, the assistant starter holding her tightly. The next time out, June 11, the horse broke fine and got home first. It was a big day for Mr. Fitz.
“But you see,” John Fitzsimmons said, “she learned a new trick in that first race at Gravesend. It’s hard enough to get a horse into good habits, much less start teaching her bad ones.”
On the next time out, July 8, Agnes D remembered standing at the post and watching the field go. Worse, she had fond memories of it. When the field broke, she didn’t twitch a muscle. And, despite all tutoring, she kept up a pattern in races, from then on, that was murder. It went like this: July 17, Brighton Beach, Left at Post; July 30, Jamaica, Win; August 14, Saratoga, Win; September 2, Coney Island, Left at Post; September 21, Gravesend, Left at Post.
“Habits,” Mr. Fitz said. “Once they get to doin’ things, you got trouble. They can show you that you’re not so smart. Do it in a hurry, too.”
“Gallant Fox, Pop,” John said.
“Oh, yes, well I don’t think that was exactly trouble but it goes to show you that they know what’s going on, don’t worry about that. Well, back in 1930 Gallant Fox was the best horse we had around here. I guess he was the best horse anybody else had around, too, because he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and the Belmont. Won all them big three-year-old races. Well, this one knew where things stood in a race. Anytime he was really goin’ for it and there were horses in front of him, he’d have his ears flat back on his head. But the minute he’d pass horses and get out there on the lead and he’d figure he had it won, Pop! Up come the ears. They’d be standing straight up, like he was tryin’ to hear something. Why out here in the Lawrence Realization he had a kind of a tough time with a horse called Questionnaire. He was runnin’ behind most of the way. Then Sande, yes, that’s Earl Sande, he was doin’ the ridin’, well Sande gets him to move and now it turns into a close thing. Must be something like seventy yards from home and Gallant Fox gets his nose out in front. Make it a little more than that. Gets half a head out in front. Now he’s only a couple of jumps from the wire and anything can happen. But Pop! The ears went straight up, as if he was saying, ‘That takes care of that.’ It was life and death to win the thing, but he didn’t seem worried about it at all.”
John had been digging through a pile of old boxes and magazines and now he came back with an eight-by-ten photo of the race’s finish. The great Earl Sande had his face buried in Gallant Fox’s mane and his big hands were wrapped in the reins. It was a picture of a jockey riding all-out at the wire. Clods of dirt flew from under each horse’s hoofs. Gallant Fox had, at best, that half a head on Questionnaire. It was anything but a convincing margin. But the ears were straight up.
“That’s what got him into trouble,” Mr. Fitz said. “He lost interest when he passed a horse. Lost the Tremont to Whichone because of that. He passed Whichone in the stretch, then just about stopped dead. He was looking around and Whichone come right back and passed him and by the time the Fox got going again it was too late. There was some talk that he was lookin’ up at an airplane or something. I don’t know about that. All I know is that he lost. But it goes to show you this is no easy business. These aren’t mechanical rabbits. They’re nice animals, all right. Pretty. But they take an awful lot of care and they can get in trouble a lot of ways. You can go to bed at night with a horse worth a million dollars in the barn and when you come around to look at him in the morning he might not be worth a quarter. Gets sick or something and he’s not worth anything. It happens all the time. And when you get them to a race they’re liable to do anything. Even Gallant Fox lost one on me. Goes to show you.
“Your biggest trouble is with the legs, of course,” he went on. “You’ve seen how thin they are. Well, son, when a horse runs all his weight comes down on one leg. His lead leg. Here, I’ll show you.” Mr. Fitz cupped his hands and held them out in front of him. “Now when a horse runs it goes like this.” He began to make motions with his hands. Each hand was supposed to be a front leg of a horse. Mr. Fitz began to make little running motions with them, then he stopped. “No, I’m not doing it right. Here, maybe it’s this way.” Then he started moving them in another pattern. “No, that isn’t it, either.” He grunted a little. “Oh, John!” he called. John came into the room again. “Show him how a horse runs,” Mr. Fitz snapped.
The first inclination was to look out the window. Obviously, if Mr. Fitz couldn’t illustrate the basic moves of an animal he has lived with and worked with for seventy-six years, age finally has taken an awful lot out of him.
But as John brought in a book which was opened to a series of drawings of the thoroughbred in motion, Mr. Fitz wanted to make sure this idea was not kept in mind.
“Pay attention to it now,” Mr. Fitz barked. Then his eyes flashed. “Let me tell you something, son. Maybe I can’t show you how they run right here. But you put a horse out on that track and get him to steppin’ along pretty good and I’ll tell you whether he’s doin’ it right or not. They don’t give me any time to learn how to draw pictures. I’m too busy out there gettin’ them to do it the right way.”
Then for the rest of the afternoon, Mr. Fitz and John sat in this quiet little cottage and talked about what it is like to train horses that race. And as they talked, Belmont’s huge stands, just beyond the stable area gate, filled with people and smoke from their cigarettes and cigars caused a blue haze to hang in the air. There was a big roar when the first race got off. The stands, with their noise and money, were only a short walk from Mr. Fitz’s cottage. But they were really so far away that you could never measure it. For as Fitzsimmons spoke of horses you saw how silly it was to regard them as good bets or bad bets or anything else. They are, instead, people that require so much from those around them that, if you do the job right, the way Mr. Fitz does, it leaves you very little time in which to attend to such personal matters as getting old.
“The horse,” John explained, “is ancient. Centuries ago, he was only eighteen inches high. He had three toes, but over the years two of them kind of got sloughed off and all that’s left of them now are little splint bones, as we call them. Now their upper leg is the same as our lower arm. But what’s under that upper leg is where all the trouble comes from. You see, the leg is awfully thin. And in the running motion of a horse, he pushes off with his hind legs and lands on one front leg. We call that the lead leg. Most horses lead with the left leg. So with each
stride you have one leg coming down onto the ground with a thousand pounds of weight on it. That’s where all the injuries come from.”
“The nerves are fine,” Mr. Fitz said, “but the blood doesn’t circulate too good down there. So if something happens, a good bump will do it as well as anything else, it takes a long time to heal. The blood doesn’t move fast enough to help the healing along. They get hurt so easy it scares you. Every morning, when I put horses out there on the training track, I’m worried until they’re finished and I see them all back in the barn. The minute one of my horses puts a foot on a race track, even if it’s just for an easy gallop, I’m takin’ chances with him.”
Mr. Fitz usually has to worry about a horse for three years. He gets his first look at a new horse in early January at Hialeah Park. All thoroughbred horses have a universal birthday, January l, so he is a two-year-old when he is unloaded from a van and walked into the Fitzsimmons barn for the first time. As a two-year-old, the horse is schooled, then run in the shorter races for horses of that age. At three, the objective is to get him to the glamour races, the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont Stakes, and the like. But the odds are tremendous against this—the average Derby field of about sixteen is the best that can be mustered from an original crop of some eight thousand thoroughbreds foaled in Kentucky, Maryland, Virginia, California, and Florida three years before. Usually, you have to settle for a lot less than the big races. Then, as a four-year-old the horse is in races where the distances get longer, the amount of weight placed on his back becomes heavier and the competition is tougher. There is a big difference in ability between a two- and three-year-old and a three- and four-year-old. A two-year-old is like a boy in grammar school. A horse at three is the same as a high school kid. After that you get to the varsity.
The main job, if you are training a horse, is to find out what is 100 per cent of his ability. In the beginning, races will not, as a rule, show it to you. Dirt in the face, a poor start, sulking under a whip, a bad ride by the jockey, things like these will obscure his basic ability. The only place to start finding out is in the morning. The only standard you can use is time. You run a horse against a clock, then watch him closely when he gets back from the workout. By the time the exercise boy pulls up the horse and brings him back to where the trainer is standing, the horse should be breathing normally. If he is in distress, his sides heaving as he gasps for breath, then he has been worked too fast. By trial and error against the clock you come up with a picture of the horse’s true ability. After that, the job is to get it out of him. Which is where all the work comes in. In life, somebody may be a drunk or beat his wife or be dead lazy and never get anyplace. On a race track, a horse might be too curious and not pay attention to business or he might be too nervous. Or he might not like to have another horse come alongside and test him, stride for stride, and he’ll quit, the same as an awful lot of humans give up if you look them in the eye and ask them for the best they’ve got.
To do it properly, training horses is a long, tedious job and you’ve got to know these animals and actually have a love for them to do it right. This does not mean you fling your arms around a horse and nuzzle him at every opportunity. The most you’ll get out of this is a decent-sized bite on the shoulder. But there must be a basic liking for the horse or the job never will get done. Mr. Fitz, for example, shows little emotion as he stomps around the barn each morning. “I’m just here to wreck these horses by makin’ ’em work hard,” he says. But one morning, when he had his horses quartered at the old Aqueduct track, he was leaning against a barn talking to a couple of people who had come around to take pictures of horses so they could gag the neighborhood with some home movies at later dates.
“You want to see my horses?” Mr. Fitz said. His eyes lit up a little. “Why, that’s wonderful. Now you stay right here with me.” Then he called out to one of his foremen, “Get Nashua out here.” The man went into the barn and he came out leading Nashua, a huge, strapping animal who held his head proudly and looked around. Nashua did a gentle little dance as the stablehand held him. The visitors beamed and began to talk about how beautiful the horse was. This was right up Mr. Fitz’s alley. “Get Bold Ruler out here, too,” he called and a kid said yes he would and he came out of the stable holding the Ruler. “Put ’em right together so these people can look at them,” the old man said.
They put Nashua, who was four, and Bold Ruler, who was two and much lighter and sleeker, side by side and as the people clucked over them, the old man smiled. “Nice horses,” he kept saying. “Real nice horses. They’re nice to work with. No, these aren’t my favorites. I don’t have any favorite horses. It’s just like havin’ a family. The ones who can’t keep up and need some help you worry the most about. Now I got some horses in the barn there that are a little weak and need some extra attention. They’re the ones you got to try and help along.”
This bit of sentiment disposed of, Mr. Fitz stamped his crutch on the ground. “All right, take ’em back,” he called. “I don’t have time to stand around here admirin’ ’em. I’ve got to get to work with the rest of ’em around here. They’re not going to like it much because I’m goin’ to put ’em through their paces the best I can.
“I don’t know whether the horse knows me or not,” Mr. Fitz says. “If you come around here with sugar and give it to ’em two, three days in a row they’d want to know you a damn sight better than they know me. Oh, I guess they know my voice. They don’t like it much, either. They hear me they know it means hard work. When they hear somebody else comin’ around clucking to ’em and with a pocket full of sugar lumps they’re a lot happier. It’s just like the teacher in school. I don’t think kids like to hear her comin’ along with a whole lot of work in her hands. They’d rather have the candy store man pattin’ ’em on the head and reachin’ for some sweets. But the teacher is a lot more important. At least I hope she is. Because that’s what I’m doin’ with these horses. Teachin’ ’em to mind their business and do things right. And they know a lot more than you think they do.
“You take Nashua. Allie Robertson was always with that horse, washin’ him down, pattin’ him. Well, when Nashua was sent down to the farm in Kentucky, Leslie Combs’ place in Lexington, they use Nashua for breedin’ down there, you know, well, anyway, Nashua is down there for over a year when Allie happened to get down there. He had to ship there with another horse. Allie says he went lookin’ for Nashua and he saw the horse out in a paddock chewin’ some grass and loafin’ along. Allie got behind a tree and he says, ‘Hey, Mickey! Mickey!’ We used to call the horse Mickey around the barn. Well, the minute Nashua hears that he starts to go wild. Started running all over the place. He knew that voice all right. And he began lookin’ for it, too. So I guess horses can get to know you, all right. But it’s more important for me to know the horses. You’ll never do any good in this business unless you understand every little habit a horse has. You’ve got to be able to stand out there in the morning and look at the horse and have some sort of an idea whether he’s all right or not.
“Sometimes you can tell how a horse feels by the way he’s standing. If you look at him enough and get to know that he likes to stand in the front of the stall and look out, then you come around and find him in the back with his head sticking into a corner, then it could mean something’s the matter with him. You’ve got to look at the horse a lot to know this. Every chance you get, look him over. Study everything he does. Then if you get to know him as well as you should you can tell if something’s been botherin’ him. Then you can take care of it. If you don’t notice something wrong and you put the horse out onto the track and run him, he’s liable to fall apart. Lord knows they fall apart easily enough without somebody makin’ a mistake and hurrying it along. It takes a lot of looking. You’ve got to do it all the time.”
This looking, if you are around Mr. Fitz in the mornings, seems to be a casual thing. After his horses are worked—they are sent out onto the track in groups of five or six;
“sets” in race track terms—they are brought back to circular enclosures of grass behind the barn. Stableboys then walk them in a circle—“hot-walking”—for about 45 minutes to allow the horse to cool off gradually. While they’re doing this, Mr. Fitz sits in a chair and watches them. To a visitor, it looks like he’s loafing. But if you sit beside him and start to promote a conversation, you are not going to get far.
“Now I’d like to sit here and talk to you all day,” he explained one morning, “but you’re gettin’ in the way of my job. I’ve got to watch these horses. Watch every step they take. And think about ’em. And if you’re going to sit here and talk about some nonsense that happened last night I’m not going to get very far.”
An unfortunate thing about his job as Mr. Fitz sees it, is that the final result must always be in the hands of a jockey. He is an old jockey himself, but has never seemed to be in any particular ecstasy over the little men who climb on his horses and ride them for money in the afternoon. As a rule, in the stories about racing that you read about in newspapers and magazines, the jockey is the big thing. If Willie Shoemaker or Eddie Arcaro ride a couple of winners in a day they automatically rate headlines. And in the stands—the “betting ring,” as the old man calls it—the experts do much of their figuring with jockeys. As many people as not do their betting on the strength of the jockey riding a particular horse. If an Arcaro or a Shoemaker is up, a horse which should be a legitimate 5-1 or more in the betting, goes off at 4-1 or less because of this.
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