Hungry Okie

He comes whooping and whipping out of the starting gate, a pale-faced kid who fights for the lead right at the start so that no challenger will spoil his view of the pot of gold waiting at the finish line. His body high and forward, weight over the horse's withers, boots in two of the shortest stirrups in racing, he is a jockey in a hurry. He is strong enough to ride all afternoon, and he applies the measure of cold cash, not sentiment, to his work. Shrugs Jockey Bob Ussery (rhymes with fussery): "If I ride in the Kentucky Derby, I want a real shot at winning. Otherwise, I'd rather ride six mounts at Belmont."

This frankly quantitative approach to riding is paying off handsomely this season for Robert Nelson ("Okie") Ussery, 23, who has risen from a dust-eater generally back in the pack of national rankings, as tabulated by the fact-finding Morning Telegraph, until he stands second only to the great Willie Shoemaker in booting home winners (224 v. 221) and total purses ($1,863,049 v. $1,128,474). It matters little to Ussery that he has had to ride 143 more races than Shoemaker to get his total, or that he has never won a major stakes event. He is often willing to resort to lackluster hayburners to fill out an afternoon's work: "Those stiffs will win now and then."

Raisin in the Sun. Bob Ussery learned to ride back home in Vian, Okla., a little farming town (green beans, cotton, corn) near the Arkansas border. His father was a clerk in the general store, had five children, a pump and an outhouse; his grandfather had a big black mare named Kate. When he was seven and weighed just 55 Ibs., Ussery was clattering across the Oklahoma flatland, perched like a raisin on the bare back of Kate, and celebrating a win over other mounted kids by riding straight into a water hole, Kate and all.

Bob Ussery early learned the value of a buck. Says he: "I always wanted to hoe cotton--those guys got $3 a day. But I wasn't big enough." So Ussery turned instead to picking spinach (10-c- for every 20 Ibs.). By seventh grade, he knew where easier money lay: "I couldn't ride and go to school too. I quit school."

The Slasher. Sprinting quarter horses over dirt tracks around the Southwest, Ussery learned to get a horse away fast at the start. By 16 he was ready for the thoroughbreds,, drove his first mount to victory in the 1951 Thanksgiving Handicap in New Orleans. Within months Ussery was a big-time jockey, with a reputation as a slasher who bulled his way through the field like a fullback. Ussery used the whip so much that some jockeys hated to mount the horse he had ridden because the animal tended to sulk. Not until last year, when he was set down for 30 days for whacking Eddie Arcaro's horse across the nose at Jamaica, did he finally realize that there is more to racing than muscle. Ussery still whips hard (cracks one jockey: "They run for Shoemaker because they like to; they run for Ussery because they have to"), but he now uses his head as well. Says venerable Trainer Jim Fitzsimmons: "The boy picks his holes right, and he doesn't get himself jammed up in the pockets. He'll be a great one if he doesn't get oversatisfied."

Ussery has salted away $100,000 in blue chip stocks, has earned more than $100,000 this year. At Saratoga last week, Ussery hunted for a winner so zealously that he rode in ten out of 14 races before finally crossing the finish line in front. Sums up Arcaro: "He's a hungry kid."

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