Thirty-five years ago, Chris McCarron arrived on the horse racing scene like one of those stealth bombers flying over the Rose Parade. Suddenly, he was just there.
He was immediately competitive, an instant winner. Horse players quickly learned to look for him at the head of the pack. Other jockeys needed time to blossom. McCarron showed up in full bloom.
On Feb. 9, 1974, the 5-foot-2, 109-pound McCarron climbed aboard a 5-year-old gelding named Erezev for a race at Bowie in Maryland. It was freezing cold. The blizzard that had blown through that morning, leaving five inches of snow, had forced the cancellation of morning training at the track.
"It looked like the kind of day they'd cancel the race card," McCarron says. "They weren't worried about us. They would cancel when they thought the fans couldn't get to the track to bet."
By 10:30 a.m., the snow stopped, snowplows pushed it to the fences and racing went off as planned with a 1 p.m. post time.
McCarron was 18, one of nine children from Dorchester, Mass., whose older brother, Gregg, had become a jockey and enticed Chris to the track, even though Chris initially was petrified of horses. The year before, as an exercise rider, Chris had started to catch jockey fever when he saw Sandy Hawley break Bill Shoemaker's record of 485 wins in a single season.
"I was in the crowd when they were taking pictures of him," McCarron says. "I kept trying to get in position so I could jump up just as the cameras were shooting and try to get in the picture. I knew this was history."
Little did McCarron know how he would be tied to that history, or how soon.
On that freezing February day at Bowie, in only his 10th mount as an apprentice jockey, McCarron rode Erezev to victory, McCarron's first. As tradition held then, and still does today, a jockey's milestone victory brings a dousing of water, as well as shaving cream and eggs. Also, there is the boot black.
"It's just liquid boot polish," McCarron says, "but it sure stings once it gets onto your genitals."
It turned out the ritual was much more ordinary than its recipient, who turned 19 one month later. In quick order, somehow getting placed frequently on quality horses by veteran jockey agent Eddie Kinlaw, McCarron started winning. And winning.
Hawley had continued past Shoemaker's 485 to end his 1973 at 515 wins. By December of the next year, the teenager who had tried to jump into Hawley's photo was about to have a record of his own.
