Italian American Heritage Month: Eddie Arcaro

Eddie Arcaro

If you found yourself atop a horse competing against Eddie Arcaro at a thoroughbred race course, you were up against the one jockey that was known as "The Master." 

Arcaro was a fierce competitor who took no prisoners. He rode five Kentucky Derby winners -- a record he shares with Bill Hartack -- a record six Preakness winners and six Belmont winners. The latter feat tied 19th century jockey Jimmy McLaughlin for most victories in the Belmont.

Arcaro racked up 4,779 wins, including a record 17 in the Triple Crown series, and six times atop the North American jockey standings in earnings. On top of all that, he won racing's coveted Triple Crown twice. And check out the legendary horses he rode: Hall of Famers Citation, Whirlaway, Kelso, Nashua, Bold Ruler, Sword Dancer, Hill Price, and Real Delight, among numerous other champions and standouts.

Arcaro spent his childhood in the Cincinnati metropolitan area, which includes the Kentucky cities of Covington and Newport, just across the Ohio River border between the two states. His parents, Pasquale and Josephine, were Italian immigrants and his father held a number of jobs, including taxi driver and operator of an illegal liquor enterprise during Prohibition. Arcaro was born prematurely, and weighed just three pounds at birth; because of this, he was smaller than his classmates and was rejected when he tried out for a spot on a baseball team. His full height would reach just five-foot, two inches.

Arcaro served as a mentor to a younger generation of jockeys. Earlier, in the 1940s, he was one of the co-founders of the Jockeys Guild, which sought to secure disability assistance for injured riders and guard the profession against abuses such as race fixing. Arcaro was president of the Guild from 1949 until 1961. 

He retired to Florida, where he played golf and served as a broadcast analyst for Triple Crown races for a number of years. Widowed in 1988 when Ruth, his wife of 51 years, passed away, he remarried and spent the remainder of his years in the Miami area. He died of liver cancer on November 14, 1997, at the age of 81. Survivors included his wife, Vera, and children Robert and Carolyn.

H/T World Biography