Bill Shoemaker

How to ride your way into the Hall of Fame? Impossible question. Nobody could reduce such a journey, the decades of endeavor and experience, to a single explanation, a single concept. In the case of Chris McCarron, however, you can actually reduce the answer to a single word, simply by asking a different question. That question is: why did you make seven trips to Washington to lobby for the HISA bill? And the single word, answering both questions? Cooperation. That's what he always sought from his mounts; and that's also...

It was back in 1984 when a 19-year-old kid named Mike Smith rode in his first GI Kentucky Derby aboard sixth-place finisher Pine Circle. He was the youngest jockey in the race. The oldest was a legend, the then 52-year-old Bill Shoemaker. Aboard Silent King, Shoemaker was riding in the Derby for the 23rd time. As for Smith, he was just happy to be there, not knowing when he would get another chance. He never thought that one day he would become the Shoemaker of his generation. That's what Smith...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL--They are a dime a dozen nowadays, but back in 1981, the idea that a track would offer a $1-million purse for a Thoroughbred horse race was about as far-fetched as civilians building their own rockets for space travel. As president and chief executive officer of Arlington Park, the late Joe Joyce conceived of and brought to fruition a race that would be called the Arlington Million, an event aimed at drawing the best horses to race over the renowned Arlington turf course not just those based domestically,...