Eric Guerin

Sport: Horse Racing

Induction Year: 1984

Induction Year: 1984

Eric Guerin won nearly 2,700 races as a jockey to earn a niche in the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame, but he is best remembered for a race in which his horse finished second.

Guerin lost only one race in 21 races aboard Native Dancer, but that race—a second-place finish behind Dark Star in the 1953 Kentucky Derby—prevented the gray colt from joining an elite group of triple crown winners.

Native Dancer was the nation’s champion two-year-old in 1952 and three-year-old in 1953, but Guerin was familiar with him earlier because he had gone to work for owner Alfred Vanderbilt and was with Vanderbilt when he bred Native Dancer.

“After the second time I rode him, I knew he had something very special,” Guerin recalled when he was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 1984. “It was just like driving a Cadillac. You never had to make him do anything. All you had to do was ask.”

“If he had to, he could make three or four different moves. He was a very unusual horse.”

Guerin can’t help wondering how much money Native Dancer would win these days, with pots so much higher than they were 40 years ago.

The 1953 Kentucky Derby remains on of the biggest disappointments in Guerin’s 34-year riding career.

“He got bumped going around the first turn and got bothered quite a bit,” he recalled. “He just couldn’t get up, and got beat a head.”

Native Dancer had the same effect on horse racing that Johnny Unitas had on pro football and Arnold Palmer had on pro golf. At a time when televised racing coverage was in its infancy, Native Dancer made the telecasts popular with his magnetic appeal.

“He was a gray idol,” said Guerin. “The first television star.”

After his loss in the Kentucky Derby, Native Dancer bounced back to win the Preakness and Belmont. But the race that stands out most vividly in Guerin’s memory was the 1954 Metropolitan.

“It didn’t look like he had a chance turning into the stretch,” he recalled. “He was sixth or seventh, and must have been eight or nine lengths back. What he did in that last quarter was unbelievable. I didn’t think he could catch them, but he did. When I saw the film later on, I got nervous as hell.”

Guerin had plenty of success on other horses, too. He won the 1954 Belmont with High Gun, becoming the first Jockey to score back-to-back victories in the Belmont since Eddie Arcaro did it in 1941 and 1942. He also won the Kentucky Derby on Jet Pilot.

Other than Native Dancer, he said he also got a lot of questions about the Derby win.

“The track came up slow that day, and he had speed,” he recalled. The horses went the first quarter in a leisurely 24 seconds. “He was setting a slow pace,” Guerin said, “and everybody was keeping a tight hold on their horses behind him. They didn’t think he could go that far. But when he got to the quarter pole, I had a lot of horse left.”

At 5 feet, 4 inches, Guerin was unusually tall for a jockey. He was born in 1924 at Maringouin, La., a small community near Baton Rouge. Guerin was a regular rider at the Fair Grounds track in New Orleans in the 1940s. He won many important races there, including the Thanksgiving Handicap in 1942, 1946 and 1968, the 1945 New Year’s Handicap with Fox Brownie, the 1946 Louisiana Handicap with Flareback, the inaugural Kenner Stakes with Nearway and the 1956 New Orleans Handicap with Find.

He started riding in 1940, at the age of 16, and retired in 1974 after nearly 2,700 victories in more than 20,000 mounts. His horses won over $17 million in purses, finishing in the money in nearly 4,00 races.

Guerin ranked among the top five riders in the nation five years in a row.

Like many jockeys, Guerin fought a weight problem throughout his career. It was estimated that he lost his body weight (115 pounds) once every 50 days when he was riding. Projected over a 34-year career, that adds up to a weight loss of approximately 12 tons.

Strict dieting and daily sessions in the jockeys’ room hotbox kept Guerin in the saddle—and contributed to his education.

“I did a lot of reading to pass the time,” he recalled in 1984. “I read anything.”

At the age of 60, Guerin was an assistant trainer for Richard Niemenski at New York’s Belmont Park when he was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. He was still spending plenty of time in the saddle.

“I’ll ride five or six horses a day,” he said “It keeps me fit.”

“I’ve always been able to tell when a horse was going bad, or something was wrong with him. That helps me with what I’m doing now.”

Guerin, who went to Tropical Park in 1941, knew he was fortunate to have the opportunity to ride a great horse such as Native Dancer. “That’s something that happens once in a jockey’s lifetime—if he’s lucky,” he said.