Eddie Arcaro (George Edward Arcaro) , 1916-97, American jockey, b. Cincinnati. In a thirty-year career (1931-62), he won 4,779 races and his mounts won $30,039,543 in purses, leading Sports Illustrated to deem him at his retirement "the most famous man to ride a horse since Paul Revere." Arcaro won six Preaknesses and six Belmonts and was one of only two jockeys (Bill Hartack was the other) to win the Kentucky Derby five times. He was the only jockey to have won the Triple Crown (the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes) twice, on Whirlaway in 1941 and on Citation in 1948. His mounts won the Horse of the Year title eight times between 1941 and 1961.

ARCARO, EDDIE 1916-

Jockey

Young Jockey

Eddie Arcaro quit school at age fourteen to ride racehorses, and he became one of the most successful jockeys in the history of the sport, the only rider ever to win two Triple Crowns. Five feet, two inches tall and weighing 114 pounds, Arcaro developed powerful hands and the ability to use the whip with either hand early in his career. With experience he gained the knowledge to judge pace to become the finest "money boy" in the game. During his twenty-six-year career his mounts won over $24 million.

Success

Arcaro learned to ride almost by instinct, he once said, and rarely credited himself with a great ride, preferring to praise the horses. "You seldom hear of a jockey getting into a slump riding good horses," he explained. He rode in his first race in May 1931 and had not ridden a winner for forty-five races when he brought Eagle Bird to the wire in first place at Agua Caliente in January 1932. After Arcaro sustained two fractured ribs and a punctured lung in 1934, stable owner Clarence Davison, who had given Arcaro his first chance to ride, paying him $20 per week, sold his contract for $5,000 to Calumet Farms. There he had access to the best horses in racing and made his reputation, beginning with a winning ride on Larwin in the 1938 Kentucky Derby, the first of a record five Kentucky Derby wins.

Two Triple Crowns

For Calumet, Arcaro rode the great Whirlaway, one of the fastest racehorses ever to take the track, but who had the bad habit of drifting wide on the turns. Arcaro was able to keep Whirlaway under control, and in 1941 he rode him to a track record in the Kentucky Derby and a Triple Crown. In 1942 Arcaro was suspended for a year for trying to force Cuban jockey Vincent Nodarse over the fence aqueduct. He admitted his mistake and used the time off to gather his resources. He returned better and more determined than ever. In 1945 he won another Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, and in 1946 he rode 160 winners, who collected over $1 million in purses, the most ever won by a single jockey in a year. The peak of Arcaro's career was in 1948, when he rode Citation to the Triple Crown; that year Arcaro had 188 winners and won $1.68 million in purses. By 1952 more than half his 15,665 mounts had finished in the money. In 1958 he became the third jockey to amass more than 4,000 victories. After his retirement Arcaro worked as a sports journalist, providing race commentary on radio and television.