Two Questions
December 5th, 2007By Jude T. Feld
I was in diapers, watching from the privacy of my playpen, when Iron Leige won the Kentucky Derby in 1957, so it is very safe to assume that the Blood-Horse’s Claire Novak, despite the fact that her usual attire is reminiscent of racing’s golden age, never saw the great Bill Hartack ride anything but a shuttle bus.
It’s been rumored that Daily Racing Form columnist Jay Hovdey might have been around for a few Derbies before me, so I doubt he held the same affection for Hartack as he did for Shoemaker, but he certainly had occasion to meet him later on in life, so we’ll give him the edge over Novak there and with all that metal on his mantle, he would certainly go favored over the fledgling racing scribe.
Both wrote pieces about the late great rider.
Both spent a lot of type quoting a Joe Hirsch Sports Illustrated story written in 1956.
I gotta ask two questions?
Was Hartack that tight-lipped that his last decent interview was in 1956?
And,
How fucking great is Joe Hirsch?
