American horseman William “Bill” John Hartack, Jr., (1932-2007) was characterized by the media as rude, arrogant, provocative, controversial, outspoken, and a great horseman. Looking back at Hartack, none of it was as black and white as that aside from his talent and masterful command of a horse.
At 19, he won his first race, and seven years later, following a meteoric rise to prominence in the irons, he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame. Hartack won the Kentucky Derby five times, a record shared with Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro, and led the nation’s jockey rankings in earnings twice, four times in number of races won. He had been aboard Northern Dancer, Kelso and Round Table, among other great thoroughbreds. He appeared on the cover of Weather magazine twice Sports Illustratedthe cover of
After Hartack’s retirement from driving, I worked with him for a while when he was a racing official and could see why the media had mixed feelings about him. His intelligence was intimidating and he was rude to any journalist who interrupted his work on race day, for example, or any journalist who had been rude to him.
Shortly before a race in Southern California, I picked him up at LAX and we went out to dinner before he collapsed on a couch at my house. Hartack made several memorable observations over dinner.
‘You use your speed early, or you use your speed late.’ This was in reference to the 1964 Kentucky Derby, when he piloted Northern Dancer from way off the pace to win in record time.
“I never had a good day on the race track.” Hartack’s hatred for losing was beyond description. If he had six mounts and won on five of them, the day was ruined.
His most provocative remark at dinner came late: The public is an idiot. As I get older and consider the popular vote in several recent US elections, I begin to see the wisdom in this.
But of course he was referring to the racing public, and the story he told to support his statement dates back to Maryland’s Laurel Racecourse, now Laurel Park, when he was a young jockey and had a mount on a mare he had ridden. several times before, winning on one occasion.
She was sore in the parade afterward, but then again, she had been that way in the past and had recovered from her soreness in a gallop before she reached the starting gate. Not this time, however. A favorite of hers, the mare was still sore at the gate. Hartack, believing it was unfair to the betting public if she started, unfair to the mare, unfair to owner and trainer, refused to ride.
There was a heated exchange with the race stewards over walkie talkie, and eventually a jockey escorted Hartack and the mare back to the saddle paddock for another jockey. When this was announced over the public address, the fans booed and called Hartack out. Walking to the jockey’s room, he removed his silks and passed them to the replacement jockey. The rider asked if the mare was all right, a question Hartack left hanging as he continued silently into the room, the answer being the obvious one under the circumstances.
Fans cheered the new jockey as the mare headed out the starting gate once more. After she ran terribly, ending up penniless, and was returned to the stands to be unsaddled, the replacement jockey was booed horribly by the crowd. When Hartack rode out on his mount for the next race, the fans clapped and cheered as passionately as they had booed him before.
Hartack later had a similar experience when he brought down a horse at the Florida gate, and that may have cemented his attitude toward a public whose betting interests he tried to protect. His opinions were as strong as they seem, true, but above all, he was a man of principle and conscience, a man of impeccable integrity.
Lonely, he didn’t have many friends, and his death from heart disease came to him alone in a cabin on a hunting trip in Texas. He had no wife or children. His mother died when he was young, and although his bad relationship with his father improved a lot over time (Bill bought him into his house and allowed him to retire from working in a Pennsylvania coal mine), his father of him had died. and he was not close to his two sisters. When he died, he had little money and no permanent residence.
The owner of the Texas cabin, Garrett Condra, was one of Hartack’s friends. Condra and his family had several available cemetery plots in Iberia, Missouri, and William John Hartack, Jr., is buried in one of them. In a line inscribed on Hartack’s headstone, the late driver’s friend expressed tribute to him: “Dedicated to honesty and integrity in racing.”
