Word: riders
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Arcaro's biggest failing used to be his temper. When he got mad during a race, he crashed flagrantly into other horses. He won a reputation as the roughest rider in the business...
After a race, Davison would take Eddie aside to diagram his mistakes. He showed Arcaro how he lost distance by swinging wide to go around two horses on a turn; low he risked being run into the rail by trying to squeeze through on the inside of a front rider. He formulated it into a rule that Eddie still works by: "Never go outside of two or inside of one." Davison was insistent about never losing ground; it cost Arcaro one spill after another, trying to squeeze through between horses. The first bad tumble he had was from a plater...
...Atkinson, 31, is known as The Slasher because of the way he flails the whip. Arcaro's only other serious rival is the West Coast's favorite Johnny Longden, who is 38. They all have slightly different styles. Longden, for example, is famed as a "whoop-te-do" rider: a jockey who likes to get out front and stay there. Atkinson rides with his stirrups even; Arcaro uses what is called the "ace deuce" technique, in which the right stirrup is about two inches higher than the left. Says Arcaro: "I don't agree with the idea of it myself...
...years ago he stole another long race?the two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup ?exactly the same way. But he isn't always the best rider on every horse. One very good one that he can't ride is Stymie, greatest of the money-earners (with $823,560). He once rode Stymie, whom he says he doesn't "fit," admitted that he must have looked like Ned the Coachman coming down the stretch...
...another rider rammed him right after the start of the Cowdin Stakes at Aqueduct. Arcaro saw red. He wheeled his horse out, cracked him with the whip and went after the offender. "I must have done that next eighth in 10 flat," he says. He caught up with the other jockey, Vincent Nodarse, and al most put him over the fence. The stewards called Arcaro up to the stand, asked him if he had done it on purpose, and expected the usual denial. Instead Arcaro blurted: "I'd of killed the son of a bitch if I could...