In a blog I wrote a while back, I recalled the famed career of Thoroughbred horse racing trainer Bobby Frankel. Recently, I came across a report, written last year, about a jockey, David Cohen, who is one of the few Jewish riders in the horse racing game. Why are there so few Jews as riders in this sport? Why are there not as many Jews involved at the closest levels of the sport?
Most of the Jewish figures of racing exist in the past. The most famous Jewish jockey was the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame inductee Walter Blum. Also inducted into the National Horse Racing Hall of Fame, Blum rode the 1971 Belmont Stakes winner and other top race horses; he achieved this success while being able to see out of only one of his eyes. Another famous Jewish figure in racing was Hirsch Jacobs, a trainer of horses like Hail to Reason and Stymie.
To be honest, unless one is born into horse racing or has a deep desire to be in the business, few people ever make it to the track beyond a random excursion. It takes a deep-seated love of the game to commit one’s entire life to it. For whatever reason, not many Jews have dedicated their lives to horse racing.
As a contrast, horse-racing journalism remains peppered with Jewish individuals. Steve Haskin, a writer for The Blood-Horse, the industry’s premier weekly Thoroughbred publication, for which I used to write, is a kind-hearted, knowledgeable, and clever journalist. In a way, I consider him my mentor, someone who taught me that a love of horse racing doesn’t just have to be casual. He’s one of the leading writers for the magazine and regularly covers major stories, from Zenyatta to the Kentucky Derby contenders.
Haskin never imagined that his life would lead down this road. An excerpt from a book he co-wrote about Bob Baffert testifies to his love of the sport: He never dreamed he’d be socializing with Baffert, a leading trainer. Indeed, in Baffert: Dirt Road to the Derby, Haskin says, “To a Jewish kid growing up on the streets of Brooklyn, New York, the adventures and misadventures of someone from Nogales, Arizona were something I could relate to only through Saturday morning TV serials. After all, Nogales, in my mind, was nothing more than a saloon, a livery stable, and a hitching post.”
Even if Haskin started out far from the racing world and trainers like Baffert, he found his true passion in life and pursued it. Eventually, after working tirelessly, he became a respected journalist whose opinions are valued by thousands of racing enthusiasts. He took his tenacity, intelligence, and wit and applied himself to the job he knew he loved. A love of the game carried him farther than he likely dreamed he’d ever journey.
The moral of the story here lies in the tale of a few Jewish individuals in a sport dominated by people of other ethnicities. I don’t regularly read about discrimination on the racetrack, but it can still be hard to break into an area where there aren’t many people of your own ethnic background. From David Cohen to Steve Haskin, Jews have taken their passion to heart and achieved their ultimate goals in horse racing. As a Jewish student, that idea—taking one’s love and always working at it—can never be repeated enough.
