When the racing Hall of Fame held induction ceremonies Monday, Jacinto Vasquez was inducted and Earlie Fires was again overlooked. To many thoroughbred owners and trainers, that’s a sad commentary on the standards of the Hall.
Fires, who has been the epitome of integrity during his 33-year career and is four victories away from becoming the 13th jockey in thoroughbred history to ride 6,000 winners, didn’t receive enough votes to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The jockey honored was Vasquez, who in 1984 served a one-year suspension for alleged race-fixing and in 1963 served 140 days in suspensions for rough riding.
“How can they glorify somebody who was set down for fixing races and ignore somebody with the credentials and character that Earlie has?” said Glencoe’s Leonard Lavin, one of the country’s most prominent thoroughbred owners and breeders and one of Fires’ first and foremost patrons. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Vasquez was one of the world’s best jockeys–until late in his 37-year career, when horseplayers nicknamed him “the Anchor.” During his prime, when he was based in New York and Florida, he was the regular rider of Ruffian, Foolish Pleasure, Genuine Risk and several other North American champions. During a career that began in 1959 and ended in 1996 he won 5,231 races, putting him 15th on the list of all-time leading riders.
Primarily because he has spent virtually all of his summers and early autumns riding in Chicago, Fires hasn’t had comparable horsepower going for him. Saratoga is where the best horses are, but Fires doesn’t regret being based here. Chicago’s northwest suburbs is where the Arkansas farm boy found a wife, and together they found happiness.
“I love Chicago,” Fires said. “My wife’s family lives here, and we raised our family here. For me, this always will be home. Here at Hawthorne, the Careys (who own the track) always have treated me right. It’s the same with Mr. (Dick) Duchossois at Arlington.”
Fires, who turned 52 last March, is a five-time champion at Arlington International Racecourse and a three-time champion at Hawthorne Race Course, where he’s currently riding. In addition, he has won riding titles at six other tracks–Churchill Downs, Keeneland, now-defunct Miles Park, Gulfstream Park, Hialeah and Calder.
Even though Fires has never won a Triple Crown or a Breeders’ Cup race, his accomplishments in Chicago, Florida and Kentucky give him a resume that is comparable to those of many riders who are in the Hall of Fame.
Election is a three-step process. A nominating committee prepares a ballot of jockeys, trainers and horses, which it then narrows to a list of three candidates in each category. From the list, a panel of 125 turf writers and broadcasters selects one inductee in each category. Regional biases have been known to manifest themselves in the voting.
“I guess it’s because he never went to New York,” said trainer Lou Goldfine.
“He’s a thinking rider who knows every trick in the trade. And every time Earlie gets on a horse, you know he’s going to give you everything he’s got.”
Never one to spare the whip, Fires horrified British journalists with the relentless stickwork that drove Be My Native, a 72-1 long shot from England, to a second-place finish in the 1982 Arlington Million.
In European racing, where much more stringent restrictions are applied to the use of the whip, Fires’ tactics would have resulted in a suspension. But in Fires’ mind it was merely an honest day’s work.
“This is a business,” Fires said. “A business where you almost have to prove yourself every day in every race. Right now I could be riding a lot more horses. But I refuse to ride bad horses. When I get on a horse I’m riding to win. At least I don’t cheat anybody.”
“If Earlie tells you something it’s coming straight from the heart,” owner-trainer Noel Hickey said. “The man doesn’t have a dishonest bone in his body, and he still can ride.”
Fires is scheduled to go to Saratoga, the site of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, to ride defending champion Illinois-bred Horse of the Year Bucks Boy, a horse trained by Hickey, in Saturday’s Grade I Sword Dancer Invitational Handicap.
In his heart, Fires believes he belongs in the Hall of Fame. “It’s no fluke thing when you ride 5,000 or 6,000 winners,” he said. “I guess they consider me a Midwest rider, but I’ve probably won more races in Florida than anybody riding today. I’ve ridden a lot of the real good horses once or twice. I won with Foolish Pleasure. I rode Unbridled when trainer Carl Nafzger put him on the grass (and he finished second in Arlington’s 1990 Secretariat Stakes).
“I ride Churchill Downs pretty good, but I’ve never had a horse come into the Kentucky Derby with a good shot at it. I’ve been real close two different times. Both times I was third (on the mutuel field horse Blue Skyer in 1966 and on 23-1 long shot Francie’s Hat in 1968). I can’t think of one thing I could have done in either of those races that would have made me one inch closer.
“Probably the race I remember the most is Abe’s Hope losing by a jump to Buckpasser (in 1966) at Hialeah in the Flamingo. The races you should have won and didn’t are the ones that stick out in your mind. You remember every darn thing in that race.
“I’ve ridden a lot of good horses, but I think In Reality was the best 3-year-old. He just had the poor luck to be in the same year (1967) as Dr. Fager and Damascus.
“Demetri’s Boy (one of the all-time leading Illinois-breds until he broke down in the early 1980s) was one of the few horses I ever got attached to. He tried all the time. When he wasn’t doing well, I didn’t like riding him. I knew he wasn’t giving it his best shot because he couldn’t, and I knew it hurt him to lose. I hated to see it. He was the most honest horse I ever rode.”
Fires has set the standard for integrity during his distinguished riding career. “He was that way when he started, and he never changed,” said Lavin. “I’ve known Earlie since the mid-’60s, when I hired Willard Proctor as my trainer, and Earlie was under contract to ride for him.
“Proctor and I brought him from Arlington out to California one of those first years. Guys like Charlie Whittingham and Buddy Hirsch were putting him on horses, and he was winning a lot of races. If he’d have stayed I think he’d been a Gary Stevens or a Chris McCarron. But he wanted to go back to Chicago.
“Now they tell me he’s not getting a lot of horses to ride at Hawthorne. If that’s the case, Proctor and I would love to have him come out here to Del Mar and ride for us. Believe me, he could ride a lot of horses for other guys too.
“A couple of years ago, I had a mare named Top Rung. She had a lot of talent, but none of the jocks out here could handle her–she always was finishing second and third. We brought Earlie out to ride her, and she beat the very best.”
