My Feuds With Officials And The Press

Valenzuela doesn't realize how much he hurt racing by not taking a stand. Maybe he wouldn't have won his case, and maybe I shouldn't knock him for dropping it, because that may have been the best thing for himself. But I'm criticizing him for dropping it and then using the "good of racing" as an excuse. That would be the same as saying, if you saw a jock holding a horse and could prove it or could attempt to prove it, "Well, we don't want to expose racing as crooked, because it would hurt the sport." Permitting this sort of thing to flourish without saying anything may not hurt racing on the surface, but it really corrupts racing inside. And it really bugs me.

I still feel that an owner has a right to use whoever he wants to. But the way racing is today, with tracks all over the country, an owner who removes a rider at the last minute may be stopping that boy from riding a contender in some other stakes. There's got to be a strict rule covering this sort of situation. There's got to be.

I quit the Jockeys' Guild on account of this thing. It wasn't because of Shoemaker riding the horse, and it wasn't because of Valenzuela not riding the horse. But when Milo was trying to establish his case, and he had to be in the jocks' room to show that he was there and ready to ride—they wouldn't allow him into the room. Now, if you're going to run an innocent man down the road and permit it to go by, then what the hell good is racing? I'm supposed to owe something to this outfit [the Guild] that allows something like this to go on? It could have been me, and then I would like to see somebody say, "What do you owe racing?" I'd have had a good answer for him. I'd have owed him a kick in the tail.

What is racing? Who is racing? There's not one person who is racing. Racing is everybody, everybody connected with the game. The Jockeys' Guild does not want to enter into any argument that will cause notoriety. The Guild wants to smooth everything over, to compromise. The executive manager, Bert Thompson, is not going to fight for the individual. He decides whether the individual's right or wrong and then takes a course of action. What right does he have to judge whether I'm right or wrong or whether Valenzuela is right or wrong? He's got no right. Valenzuela is paying him to represent his interests, and I'm paying him to represent my interests, so the two of us—and all members of the Guild—are partially paying his salary. When he represents me, he's my lawyer. That means that Bert Thompson is supposed to defend me as though I'm innocent until I'm proven guilty.

Who ever heard of a guy accused of a crime hiring a lawyer who says to him, "'Look, I think you're guilty. You're paying me, but I think you're guilty and I'm going to defend you on that premise." Who ever heard of that? The way Bert Thompson runs things he decides himself whether you're innocent or not and then whether the Guild should defend you or not. And you're paying him!

Where was the Guild when I fought that fine down in Miami? Where was Bert Thompson when his representative, Nick Jemas, came to me and said, "Bill, we're not going to help you with this case, 'cause we think you're wrong." What happened was I got fined $100 for not showing up for film-patrol movies the day after a foul claim. They never discussed it with me, and they fined me without even having a hearing with me. If I didn't pay that fine in 48 hours I faced an indefinite suspension until I did pay.

Nick Jemas is telling me that they decided I'm wrong and that I should just pay the fine and forget about it. He's going to tell me! If you go out and get an outside lawyer, the Guild won't work with him. They say, "You use us or you use a lawyer, but you can't have both of us." I took it to the racing commission. They upheld the fine. Then I took it to court, and the court made them pay me my money back, because they had fined me without a hearing. And then you know what you get after something like that? You get nothing but garbage out of them after that. They look at you like you're some kind of nut or something just because you proved them wrong. That's the worst thing in the world you can do. They're just waiting for you to try and get out of line so they can jam it down your throat.

You ought to be in front of a steward sometime as a jock. I've been there when a jock came in and tried to explain his part in a foul incident, and they're about to give him days. The jock stood up to defend himself, and the steward had nerve enough to say, "Sit down, I don't want to hear from you. One more word out of you and it's 20 days instead of 10." What kind of a hearing is this? And if you talk back to them it comes out in the papers that you're fighting authority.

When Junie Corbin got an offer for my contract from the Rice stable, trained by Tommy Kelly, he said to me, "I'll take the $15,000 if it's all right with you." And I said, "Junie, go ahead. Tommy's all right." I realized the circumstances—he needed the money. So he sold me to Tommy, and the funny part about it was that Tommy Kelly filled in exactly where Junie left off. He was just as conscientious and, as far as being a father was concerned, he was as good as anybody. I mean, I fit in very well with him. Very good relationship. I rode for him for a year and a half, until I became a free-lance rider.

I was extremely fortunate in transferring from the half-mile tracks to the big time—the mile tracks, the larger purses, the better riders and the better stables. Even while at the halfers, I had ridden some at Bowie and Pimlico, which helped me as far as people around the mile racetracks knowing me. I had won a 2-year-old stakes for the Chenery outfit, so when I was sold to Ada Rice the combination of being somewhat known and somewhat successful at the mile tracks kind of helped overcome that half-mile reputation. Plus the fact that Tommy Kelly had a very successful season. Pet Bully was one of the key horses that I rode, and he got me into the stakes-rider class. I think I won about six stakes on him that year. I think the fact that this horse was running so well, that I was new in the business and that at this time racing needed a new rider to come along—all three things shot me to the top in 1954.