Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

From the Other Side of the Tracks...
Winner of Five Kentucky Derbys Passes

November 27, 2007

The legendary Hall of Fame jockey Bill Hartack died suddenly on Monday at 74. On Monday evening, Hartack was found dead in a cabin at a camp near the town of Freer, in southern Texas, where he journeys each winter to hunt.

Hartack’s remains have been taken to a coroner, and the cause of his death has yet to be determined, but it is suspected he died of a heart attack, according to the trainer Mike Stidham. Hartack hadn't been seen since sometime Sunday. Security personnel were called Monday evening to check on Hartack, at which time his body was discovered.

Hartack would have been 75 on Dec. 9. He has remained active in racing as a steward, and recently finished working the race meet at Louisiana Downs.

Hartack and Eddie Arcaro are the only two riders to have won the Kentucky Derby five times. Hartack's first Derby came with Iron Liege in 1957, his last with Majestic Prince in 1969. In between, he won North America's biggest horserace with Venetian Way (1960), Decidedly (1962), and the great stallion Northern Dancer (1964). Hartack also won the Preakness three times, and the Belmont once.

A native of Ebensburg, Pa., Hartack grew up motherless from age 8, and under the stern hand of his coal-mining father on a Pennsylvania farm. At 17, Hartack took a job as an exercise and stable boy with the trainer Junie Corbin at Charles Town Race Course in West Virginia. Corbin turned him into a contract rider at Waterford Park in the fall of 1952, and by the end of the next year, Hartack’s career had taken flight.

He made the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1956, the cover of Time in 1958. In 1959, at the tender age of 27, Hartack was inducted into racing's Hall of Fame.

Hartack rode from 1978 to 1980 in Hong Kong, then retired entirely from race-riding. In the U.S. phase of his career, he rode 4,272 winners. Hartack led the nation in races won four times, and was the first rider to have purse earnings of $3 million in a season.