Word: ben
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...think twice before betting against Citation. He belongs to Calumet Farm, the "baking powder" barn, which has found a magic recipe for raising breadwinners. Calumet owns more than its share of the best horses (Armed, Citation, Coaltown, Bewitch, Fervent) and has the best trainers, the Jones boys?shrewd old Ben ("B.A.") Jones and his son Jimmy. In Jockey Eddie Arcaro they have the best known, most respected and most hated jockey in the land...
Troubleshooter. Trainer Ben Jones, whose business for 40-odd years has been to know good jockeys, and who has watched .the best of them, says that Eddie Arcaro is the best he has seen since Carroll Shilling. Why? B.A. doesn't rightly know: "It's like playing a piano. Some have a better touch than others...
...hand at diagnosing "trouble" horses. Seven years ago, Arcaro got an SOS call from Ben Jones in Louisville, four days before the Derby. Whirlaway had Ben worried; he wouldn't go around turns. The more other jockeys fought him, the more he drifted wide. Trouble-shooter Arcaro experimented in a workout; he took a long rein and let Whirlaway follow another horse around the turn. It worked so well that Whirlaway (Arcaro up) won the Derby by eight lengths in the fastest time it has ever been...
...knows from experience how rough Eddie used to be is Ben-Jones, a pretty rough guy himself. Arcaro, riding for someone else, sometimes crashed horses that Jones was training. Says Eddie: "He's known from Maine to Spain as a tough man. He'd get mad, but he'd cool out." In 16 years, between feuds, Arcaro has ridden just three horses for Ben...
...says Eddie. "I want no part of him." But Jones talked him into it, and Eddie got the biggest wallop of his life ("You only win your first Derby once"). The next time it was Whirlaway, and the Triple Crown. This February, the chances of Arcaro riding Citation for Ben Jones were about 100 to 1 against. Eddie, up on Assault, had crashed into Ben's pride & joy, Armed, in the Widener Handicap...