A burlap feed sack. Cut two holes. Run an overgirth through the holes. Two ropes for reins. Helmet? Hell, the 9-year-old boys weren’t wearing shoes. Hop on the barren mares, race around the makeshift half-mile track in the middle of a Barbados field. Do it so often that the mares would flee when the boys, ropes and sacks in tow, would come to fetch them every afternoon.
And if you watch Eddie King melt one of Mark Hennig’s horses around Clare Court or soothe one once around the main track at Saratoga, you’ll know this was the greatest riding academy in all the world.
“I learned how to ride on the broodmare farm. There was no saddles. No saddles,” King said. “The lady said you can clean as much stalls as you want, and you can ride all the barren mares you want. We would ride them all day long, all day long. Racing. Fearless. We were fearless”
King is still fearless. The 71-year-old exercise rider says he’s retired these days, working from May to Thanksgiving. The rest of the year, King heads home to Barbados, to check on his investment properties, do some sailing, maybe catch a fish or two or go back to Garrison Savanah where it all began. Every May, he returns, gets on the pony for a few days, joggers for a few weeks and then he’s back in full swing. The full swing of 58 years on the racetrack.
After learning balance racing those barren mares and position when a trainer tied King’s hands behind his back at a local show horse stable, King got his jockey’s license at 14 and set out on an eight-year odyssey as a jockey. Barbados Saturday, Martinique Sunday, Trinidad Monday. Leading apprentice in two countries. Won races for Saffie Joseph Jr.’s father and his grandfather.
Always too tall to be a jockey, King relented to the grind and took off to Florida in 1984. He landed in the evening. By morning, he was galloping horses. For Jim Levitch at Hialeah, readying Friendly Bob for a free-running clash with Devil’s Bag in the Flamingo Prep. Devil’s Bag won but was never the same, at least in King’s mind. From there, Chicago and two years later, New York.
Dating a woman from Barbados who was going to school in New York, King followed her east. And stayed the course. He and Arlene have been married ever since, bought a house in Laurelton, near Belmont Park, raised two kids. Eddie Jr. worked as Hennig’s assistant and now works in the racing office. Andre was allergic to horses, never went near them.
As King rides past these days, his disciples yell out, “The King.” Yeah, The King.
“I could have been something or else,” King said. “Put it this way, the Class of ’68, there’s nobody else around. I’m still here. Who aren’t dead wouldn’t go near a horse. I’m still here. And I think I can hold myself with anybody out there. Anybody out there.”
Hennig knows it. Just on personality alone.
“His attitude is so good,” Hennig said. “The other morning a guy didn’t show up and Eddie says, ‘Bring that horse out here. I’ll get on him.’ Doesn’t matter, he’ll get on nine, 10 a day, always with that attitude.”
Horses have been picking up on that attitude forever.
Influent for Howie Tesher. In 1997, the son of Ascot Knight won the Maker’s Mark Mile, the Fort Marcy, the Caesars International, the Bowling Green and the Man o’ War.
“I would get on him at 5 in the morning,” King said. “We would jog him in the barn, 10 minutes one way, 10 minutes the other way and every 10 days we’d bring him to the track and two-minute clip him. He hardly ever breezed. Won everything.”
Champion English Channel for Todd Pletcher.
“He was a character. You hang that bridle on him, he would run on anything, he would have run on that road,” King said. “For me, he wasn’t hard. He was a very small horse, and he wanted to run with his head up in the air. He was uncomfortable for a lot of people. They tried draw reins, eventually I tell them just take the draw reins off. The last year and a half, I just threw his head away and let him gallop.”
And his favorite, Bishop Court Hill, winner of the Grade 1 Carter.
“I could do anything on him. I understand him and he understand me,” King said. “Everybody was tough on him, after a while, I could loop the reins and he would go around there and I’d be like, ‘Whoaaa,’ and he’d pull up. He was like a cart pony, so he was. I think I could ride him in a race and do better than the jockeys, that’s how much confidence I had in that horse. Out of all of them, he was my favorite. And, plus, he was named after a place in Barbados.”
Maybe there’s another Influent or English Channel or Bishop Court Hill out there for King. Or maybe not. Doesn’t really matter.
“How do you describe the racetrack? It’s the camaraderie. It’s like family. Everybody here knows me. Everybody respects me. I get all the kind of respect from the trainers to the hotwalkers to the grooms,” King said. “I’m friendly with everybody. As you see, ‘Hey, Eddie King. Hey King.’ I shout to everyone. It’s not like going to work. I never think of it like work, it’s a game. You can’t beat it. It’s a good life.”
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