Laughing in the Hills

by Bill Barich

  For most jockeys the day had begun a little before dawn. They were out at the track by six to gallop horses for trainers, in hopes of getting a riding assignment in the afternoon, when it counted. Even stars like Tony Diaz, who didn’t have to hustle any more, participated in the ritual. Diaz was the only million-dollar jock at Golden Gate, with purses totaling $1,380,172 in 1977, and he was the most stylish dude I’d ever seen on horseback. One morning I watched him take a beautiful bay mare five furlongs over the turf course. He wore a black silk shirt, camel-colored trousers creased like paper, and boots polished so bright they sparkled in the sun. All the while he was riding he kept a lit cigarette between his lips, dragging on it nonchalantly. When he dismounted he took off the hard protective liner he had on his head and replaced it with a big Stetson with a brim like wings. The hat functioned both as a joke and a sign of class. Diaz was cool, he was having fun. When workouts ended he could go home and rest easy until post time, his future secure.

  Less fortunate jockeys retired to the Jockeys’ Room, a purgatorial two-story building near the grandstand, where they waited out the afternoon. The room was a monument to slaughtered minutes, and the clutter inside was astounding. On the lower floor, lockers were crammed in one against another, spilling talc, tape, socks, clothing, deodorant, cologne, wallets, and pinups. Benches and folding chairs were set at varying angles and formed a labyrinth in which at least one half-naked jockey seemed always to be trapped. Sometimes friends shouted helpful instructions to the trapped man, but their voices were lost in the jumble of sound coming from TV sets and radios, which played competitively, pitting Days of Our Lives against Golden Oldies. Reception was always bad, fuzzed by hair driers and electric razors. Jockeys loved to look good and were willing to put in the time required to sculpt a perfect pompadour or wave. They liked fancy shirts and bell-bottomed jeans, which gave their legs a longer line, but they had trouble keeping clothes in press, because of all the steam in the air. It billowed out in misty clouds from the steam room and left a dapple of moisture on the skin. You could see it on the upper lips of tall out-of-place agents, and on the noses of the tack salesmen who stumbled around showing off their wares, slick new whips and boots, enough leather for a dozen sadomasochists.

  In the midst of the hubbub, valets went about their business. They took care of jockeys’ gear, shining boots and collecting silks and making sure things were in order, for which they earned a small salary plus tips. A few of them had once been jockeys, but the lesson this might have taught current performers went largely unlearned. Riders had king-size egos. Bickering among them was constant, and fistfights occurred so frequently that a ranking of contenders could be compiled. Jorge Aragon would head the list. He’d been set down, or suspended, so many times that backstretch wags suggested he quit riding and become a bantam-weight. Aragon paid no attention. His English was bad and besides, the jokes weren’t funny. Every suspension cost him money. And once he climbed onto a horse’s back he seemed out of control, wild and reckless, and he kept making passionate errors. Recently during a race he’d stolen another boy’s whip after he’d dropped his own, reaching across the pack to snatch it away, and had of course been set down again by the stewards. The fans loved him for taking chances, but Aragon’s face was often long and his demeanor sad and mopey.

  Upstairs, jocks with stable metabolism could buy a burger or BLT at a grill spackled with grease, or sunbathe on a terrace overlooking the backstretch, or shoot pool or play cards or bet among themselves on when the first Chinaman in sneakers would walk through the south admissions gate. Gambling was not encouraged, but jockeys wagered valorously on anything from pinochle to exactas. They were accustomed to an accelerated lifestyle and it took a certain amount of hard cold cash to maintain it. Riding races was sometimes not enough. The fee for handling a losing mount ranged from thirty to thirty-five dollars, and when you considered that many jockeys rode less than once a day, and almost never on a winner, it wasn’t difficult to ascertain that the elaborate new Firebirds and Toronados in the jockeys’ parking lot were the result of supplemental income. Not even the lowliest bugboy drove a battered Volkswagen like those cruising the obstructed streets of Berkeley.

  The busier jockeys with a few mounts on the afternoon’s card kept to themselves and studied the Form. They tried to devise a strategy for each race they were to ride in, checking out the competition, looking to see what was on either side of them, early speed or closing foot, but this was mostly an intellectual exercise because races seldom turned out as anticipated. Even when the break went right, with all the horses where they ought to be, you could count on an apprentice or some other inexperienced rider to foul things up. They bumped you or shut you off or drove recklessly toward holes that didn’t exist, and sometimes you ended up just trying to stay alive instead of winning. This was especially true at cheaper tracks where unskilled riders flourished. Nobody liked to talk about it, but riding racehorses was the most dangerous sport around. On muddy days, you couldn’t see despite wearing six pairs of goggles, flipping one spattered pair after another onto your cap, and then, too, there were accidents, sore animals breaking a leg and falling down right in the middle of the pack. Older jockeys said this happened more often now than it used to, and they were careful in selecting which stock they’d ride. Bad spills, busted limbs, concussions, teeth forced free of gums, hemorrhoids, these were all occupational hazards, and so was dying. Just after Tanforan opened, Robert Pineda, twenty-four, fell from his horse and was trampled to death at Pimlico. Pineda’s brother Alvaro had died three years earlier at Santa Anita, when his mount reared in the starting gate and crushed his skull.

  Such events had to be forgotten as quickly as possible. Death-obsessed riders were worthless on the track. Their defensive style stood out in bold relief against the style of young riders like Galarsa, who learned fast and were strong enough to hold faltering horses together in the stretch. This was a much-valued talent, a gift like ESP or perfect pitch, second only to the greatest gift of all, the Gift of Hands. Jockeys talked to their mounts with their hands, with their palms and fingers, but only a few rare individuals had flesh fine enough to relay messages in an uninterrupted flow. Everybody admired Laffit Pincay, who was strong, with big arms and a massive back, and could bully horses into submission (he was especially good with stallions), making them do what he wanted them to do, but his hands were nothing when compared to Bill Shoemaker’s. The Shoe was a genius, an uncanny sensory package, even though he rode less forcefully than he used to. He just sat on a filly, touched her lightly on the neck, made a mooching sound in her ear, and then guided her gently home without ever going to his whip. He’d won nearly a quarter of the thirty-one thousand races he’d ridden in, and nobody could explain his success except by referring to his hands. They were tiny and held in as much esteem as those in the famous Dürer drawing. Not a few people on the backstretch would demand an autopsy when the Shoe’s soul ascended at last into heaven.

  Out on the infield the jockeys were enjoying themselves. Even the most careworn faces were listing toward innocence. The girl in argyle kneesocks made a fancy catch and blushingly accepted her teammates’ cheers. When she ran in after the third out a few players cheered her in more subtle fashion, hugging her in the appropriate places and whispering what were no doubt batting instructions in her ear. The jockeys held the lead going into the fifth inning, but then their opponents made a move. With runners on second and third, Dale Steward was summoned to the plate to pinch-hit. Steward kicked off his boots, took off his hat, spat out the grass blade between his teeth, and rubbed dirt into his palms. He wanted badly to succeed. He took a wild cut at Lobato’s first pitch and missed it by a mile. “Shee-it,” he said softly, stepping away and shaking his head as though he’d never missed a pitch before. He hit Lobato’s next delivery on a line over the center fielder’s head. The ball kept climbing toward the campanile on the distant Berkeley campus, and Steward watched it fly, his eyes wide as a ten-year-old’s and
his stockinged feet gliding over the grass.

  III

  The soul, said Plato, was like a chariot being pulled in two different directions. One horse, the nag of the senses, drew it down toward earth, while a second horse, who loved goodness, struggled to carry it upward toward God. Only a strong driver could control the horses and keep them in harmony, Charioteer Reason. Matteo Palmieri, a Florentine businessman, had a different opinion. In his long poem, “The City of Life,” he said that souls were angels who’d refused to take sides during Satan’s rebellion. For this offense God had exiled them into human flesh, ordering them to choose now between good and evil. Machiavelli seemed unconcerned about the soul’s progress. “The worst that can happen to you is to die and go to Hell,” said a character in his Mandragola. “But such multitudes have died before you, and in Hell there are so many nice people.”

  IV

  Bill Mahorney was on the terrace of the Jockeys’ Room working on his tan. He wore a brown bathing suit and his skin was almost the same color. His hair had a sunbleached blondish tint, like surfers’ hair, and at thirty-six he combed it carefully to hide the bald spots underneath. Mahorney liked the heat. When the weather was cold, arthritis stiffened him up and he could feel the plastic and steel in his body. Nearby, some younger jockeys wearing white nylon riding pants cut off at the knees like jeans were leaning over the terrace ledge and watching pretty girls come strolling through the gates, but Mahorney kept his distance. He was a loner, professional, arrogant, with a tendency to analyze things too deeply. This had gotten him into trouble in the past. Too much thinking was the enemy of instinct, and without instinct riders were nothing. But because he was so good Mahorney had survived.

  Currently he was third in the jockey standings at Golden Gate, with over forty wins, but he handled almost as many stakes winners as Tony Diaz. As a contract rider for Chuck Murphy’s stable he rode all Murphy’s horses, and there were some nice animals, particularly two-year-olds, in the bunch. He rode for other trainers, too, almost always on horses with a chance to win, five or six times a day. Most jockeys envied him, but for Mahorney the thrill was gone. He’d ridden in fifteen or twenty thousand races at tracks all over the country and the excitement he’d felt as a young man, that fantastic sense of lightness, of being in command, had dissipated. Now and then he got up for a big race, when the horses were classy and the competition tough, but mostly it was business as usual: workouts, the afternoon card, a quick shower, maybe dinner out, and then home to the ranch in Marin County where his kids were waiting. Often they were asleep by the time he got there, and they were always asleep when he left before dawn, and it upset him sometimes not to see more of them.

  Mahorney didn’t set out to become a jockey. His friends kept telling him he was the right size to ride (this was true of many jocks), but he knew nothing about racing and even less about horses. He was twenty years old, ambitionless, and working as a produce clerk in a Thrifty Mart store in Los Angeles when an acquaintance, a man who owned horses, offered to get him a job as a ranch hand at the Dandy Bar Ranch in Stockton, California. Mahorney turned in his lettuce heads and packed his bags. The Dandy Bar was a quarter-horse outfit and there Mahorney cleaned stalls, groomed and curried and learned to ride. The ranch work suited him. He’d been born and raised in Washington, D.C., and in Stockton he encountered for the first time a fullness of life he’d been missing elsewhere, horses foaling, growing, running, dying. California got to him and soon he was wearing jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat around town, surrendering to the West. Later he would add the obligatory pickup truck.

  His debut as a jockey came in a quarter-horse race at Pomona in 1962. Quarter horses are bred primarily for speed, and their races, which proceed from point to point with about as much intricacy as a bullet moving toward a target, seldom cover more than 870 yards. A jockey can do only two things to expedite matters, get his horse out of the gate quickly and keep him running straight. Mahorney did both of them well. In 1964 he graduated to thoroughbreds and broke his maiden on Mark Ye Royal. Trainers liked him because in addition to his riding skills he was bright and articulate and could supply them with much-needed information about their stock. Horses perform differently under pressure than they do in morning workouts, and if a jockey is attentive he can detect problems that might otherwise go undetected. He knows if his mount is laboring or breathing improperly or lugging in or out or being spooked by shadows. Mahorney, intelligent and English-speaking (speaking only Spanish could be a drawback for aspiring riders), was adept at communicating. He was also tougher than the average bugboy and wouldn’t let older riders push him around during a race. They were notorious, these older jocks, for taking advantage of rookies whenever they could. They’d roar into a turn behind some bug and yell, “Get out of my way, I’m in trouble, the horse is going down,” and when the terrified bug responded by taking up on the reins and moving away from the rail, they’d whisk through the hole he’d left behind, smiling all the while.

  By 1965 Mahorney’s career was in orbit. After being the leading apprentice at Santa Anita, he led all riders at both Aqueduct and Arlington Park; he made the transition from apprentice to journeyman with ease and finished second in the standings at Hollywood Park. He was floating along inside the jockey’s dream bubble, with clothes, cars, girls, and money to burn, but already he was thinking a little too much. Success bothered him in some ways—it had come too simply, almost without effort—and he was beginning to realize that riding horses was a job like any other. It was a good job, better than juggling cucumbers at two bucks an hour, but the business aspects of it and the increasing demands on his time were disillusioning.

  In the fall he returned to Arlington Park. There, at the start of the meet, he rode four winners in three days and appeared ready to dominate the ranks again. One night he was driving home in his new Bonneville and saw another car at the top of the hill he was ascending suddenly cross over the divider line on to his side of the road. It hit him head-on at sixty miles an hour. The kid driving it had passed out, and in the rolling softness of his stupor landed unharmed, but Mahorney woke up in the hospital with two broken knees. For the next few months he was flat on his back, staring at the ceiling.

  “I’m afraid you’ll never ride again, Bill,” the doctor said, sounding like an actor in some TV movie, but Mahorney refused to accept the prognosis. As soon as he could get out of bed, he started working on his legs. Before long he was walking with crutches and then without them. He had trouble with disintegrating cartilage and slippage in the joints, but eventually he was strong enough to give riding another try. Instead of going to Arlington or Aqueduct he went to Golden Gate. Maybe he told himself he’d ship up to the big leagues again when he was fit, but this never happened. His knees were too fragile. Over the next decade the pain in his left knee increased and he could feel bones rubbing together, pinching the nerves. In 1976 he underwent surgery again. The doctors gave him an artificial joint of steel and plastic and told him he might be crippled for life, but this time he hardly even listened.

  Lying there in the sun on the roof with his scarred knees in evidence Mahorney had the look of someone on the verge of satisfaction. Something in his attitude reminded me of gentlemen relaxing after dinner, grandfathers loosening their vests and lighting up cigars. No doubt it had taken him years to reconcile what he could do now with what he’d done in the past, and with his dreams, but he seemed pleased to be where he was, a star of the second magnitude at a track twice removed from the Ideal. He had to ride more often to make the same amount of money he’d made as a bug, but there was the consolation of those thirty-six acres in Marin. He was no longer so tough on himself, no longer so critical, although sometimes without warning the old anxiety snuck up and ambushed him. Just the other night, he said, he’d been driving home after the races when suddenly he’d gotten tense and angry, for no reason at all.

  V

  Back by Headley’s barn one afternoon I heard the sound of a sewing machine and
followed it into a small shop located at the extreme south end of the shedrow. A man with thick graying hair, Chuck Herndon, was working on some blinkers he’d designed to help trainers cut their expenses. The cloth hood featured Chicago eye screws around the eyeholes so that trainers could detach and replace the plastic blinker cups without having to replace the cloth, too. This was advantageous because different horses needed their vision adjusted in different ways. Some required only a half-or quarter-cup, just a sliver of the world obliterated. Herndon charged thirty-five dollars for the blinkers. He also made pennants and horse blankets, splitting the work load with his wife, but his major piece of merchandise was racing silks. Bolts of brilliant cloth, scarlet, chartreuse, shocking pink, hung from rollers behind his head. The shop was called Colors by Herndon.

  Silks were first introduced at Newmarket racecourse in England in October 1762 for the purpose of identifying horses and jockeys during a race. Nineteen owners participated: seven dukes, one marquis, four earls, one viscount, one lord, two baronets, and three commoners. They all chose different colors, with the exception of two blues, sky and garter, but reached accord on their choice of cap, the black velvet one favored by huntsmen. These days, Herndon said, silks were made of nylon, though an occasional special order came in. He bought his material, a heavy-duty weave used in flags and bunting, from a wholesaler in Los Angeles. He charged between sixty-five and seventy-five dollars per set and for an additional fee would provide design consultation, helping owners pick an emblem or motif. His designs were often complex and made visual jokes. He showed me a photo of a shirt with a ferocious-looking tiger on the back, above the words “Big John Wong.” “Wong’s five feet tall and wears a cowboy hat,” he said, “and I made those silks in the Year of the Tiger.” I asked him how he liked the work. “Beats selling soap for Procter & Gamble,” he said.