Evening star., 1939-01-22
BY MAX HILL,

broke, and he had wife and baby,
q wee mite not old enough to know
why the larder was so empty.
Jimmy's pal. Charley Rosengarten,
was sympathetic and tried to help,
but then Charley wasn't packing too
fat q pocketbook himself. Both
were jockeys who had come up the
hard way in a rough and tumble
occupation at best.
A 10-dollar bill would do wonders
Tor Jimmy'S household. Charley
knew that, so one day he declined
to ride horse called Toro Max.
"Give the mount to Jimmy" he
said.
They gave the mount to Jimmy, all
right, and he was off to good start.
Down the back-stretch, wedged In
a mass Of driving horsefesh, he
held his own. The leaders swept on
around the stretch turn.
'Toro Max went down.
Jimmy was pitched sprawling be-
meath the flying hooves.
He never knew what happened, for
they took him to hospital. his tiny
body broken, and there he died.
Somebody gave his wife the $40.
Charley Rosengarten saw him
tumble to death, and when Jimmy
was buried he was there. crying un-
abashed-a lad whose helping hand
had sent friend to death.
Enforced Privation Takes Toll.
For so many jockeys the end OF
the trail is an early grave, or an
old age harassed by poor health.
You can't go without food and abuse
yourself day after day by strenuous
exercise to make weight without
feeling the pinch later.
Most jockeys are old men by the
time they are 80, washed up in the
profession that for the moment
brought them wealth and glory.
Some, just few, save their
money, but it's a case of easy come,
easy 90 most of the time.
Charley Kurtsinger is an excep-
ton, for he has a couple of farms
down in Kentucky and another In
Indiana and now hopes to become a
trainer.
That's what jockeys usually do
when weight or age pulls them
~ cut of the saddle. Trainers or en-
ployes of one sort or another at the
tracks. Likely as not the wizened
fellow you bought your last mutuel
ticket from was crack pigskinner
L his day.
But of that, more later
One autumn day out at Empire in
New York a little guy nobody
seemed to know strolled around the
paddock, restless and uneasy. The
crowd would have known him,
though, couple of years ago when
they called him the best jock on the
~big apple"
Race track memories are short,
and Eddie Litzenberger, the one-time
hard-riding lad from Calgary, wasn't
decked out in the black and white
silks Of Maemere Farm any longer.
He was just little fellow wandering
around wondering when, if ever, he
could ride again.
Inactivity Blights Jockey.
Eddie-he still looks to be a kid
playing hockey from school-isn't
very old as you and I go, but mac
tivity is the blight in many a jock
ey's life. He was spilled at Jamaica
in May. 1887, and it took him until
this winter at Tropical to get back
In the saddle.
That May day at Jamaica an am
bulance sped down the track, its
siren screaming, and then they took
Eddie off to hospital to wait for a
1arr fo
for the lad about whom so many
had whispered in admiration:
- There goes Eddie Litzenberger,
the jockey"
1t was to be harder yet before the
md.
I'VE got off good, I was riding
.Narfree," Eddie reminisced, "and
we had the No. l post. saw an
opening and drove for it, but they
closed in on me. We hit the rail
end bounced off. I knew something
had happened to my leg the way it
hurt. 1 tried again. Then we
crashed I don't know anything
more until they put me in the ambu-
2ance"
1t was just broken leg, after all,
and legs will mend. That wasn't the
way it went for Eddie. BY August he
was on crutches, and where else
would he go but Saratoga? One day
walking across his room the crutcheS
slipped, and the leg broke again.
Months more in a hospital.
Then last winter in Miami, George
Phillips-who had been his boss-in-
y1ted him out to dinner.
Breaks Leg Third Time.
1T was nice dinner" said Eddie,
~but when we got ready to go and
/ was walking out I hit wet spot
on the floor and fell and broke the
leg again"
Ed6ies first mount ran last at
Tropical, and he's still got tough
Job to get back into his old hard
riding habits to become again the
shrewd judge of pace he once was.
Somehow jockeys lose the skill that
means the difference between top
Fighter and an ordinary boy. He's
only 81 and mayhap the leg will
hold up for him to boot 'em home"
again.
411S OpIAIlAAoAlA may IlCiP.
IT amt the worrying kind" he
said. Not me-"
Don Meade seems to have con-
quered the long layoff he had be-
cause. said the Florida Racing Com
mission, he bet on mounts other
than his own. Finally this winter
he was restored to good standing
after three seasons on the ground.
He always was alert in the saddle
and could rate his mount in front
or bring him from behind with
equal facility.
Don had hand in one of the
toughest rodeo races of modern
day racing, the Kentucky Derby
OF 1888, when he rode Brokers Tip
to narrow victory over Head
Play as he and Herb Fisher mauled