BOOK SIGNING FOR STORY OF BROWNTOWN RACING LEGEND SATURDAY; HINOJOSA RODE IN GOLDEN AGE OF HORSE RACING

Special to El Rrun-Run

He was a native of El Ranchito, just up the river on the western outskirts of Brownsville who started out riding barefoot and without a saddle on his father's ranch. 

Before he was done and died, Herberto Hinojosa had ridden in race tracks all across the country racking up an impressive record that spanned 40 years. As a boy, he rode the South Texas racing circuit and at one time was the favorite jockey for the gambling races held by smuggling king Juan N. Guerra at his El Tlahuachal Ranch along the river outside Matamoros.

There, he witnessed Guerra dispense violence against this enemies and at one time was even present when a Matamoros Police Chief was gunned down while he was in the passenger seat of the same car. 

Yet, from these humble beginnings, Hinojosa – over a 40-year career – won 3,334 of the 25,160 thoroughbred races he rode, and his mounts earned just under $18 million. He won 13 percent of his races, placed first, second or third in 39 percent of them, and won multiple graded stakes races, according to Equibase, the horse racing industry data base.

While researching sports figures, Doubleday Bar of Champions owner Manuel Hinojosa of Port Isabel, said kept running into the name Herbie Hinojosa, who raced during the 1950s, ‘60s and 70s, Hinojosa (no relation to the author) later settled in a residence in the Southmost barrio where he lived until his death in December 2019.

He found that Hinojosa rode alongside and against racing greats like Eddie Arcaro, Bill Shoemaker, Ronald Blum, Ismael “Milo” Valenzuela, Bill Hartack, Braulio Baeza, Manuel Ycaza, Angel Cordero and Don Pierce among others. 

The book is filled with the ups-and-downs of racing, from numerous broken bones and concussions to fatal falls of many jockeys. Herbie Hinojosa's own son was one of those fatalities.

And racing through pain from spills and injuries. In one instance he rode a horse to victory the day after having appendicitis surgery and had to be helped onto the saddle by his trainer and an assistant.

This Saturday, author Hinojosa – an architect and artist – is throwing a book-signing party on Kentucky Derby Day to honor sports legend Hinojosa, who rode in the Preakness Stakes and rose to the upper echelons of thoroughbred racing during the sport’s golden age, according to news reports on his life.

“Rode Hard, The Rise and Fall of a Jockey Legend,” is available on Amazon and will be available for purchase starting at 4 p.m. on Derby Day at the Doubleday Bar. Book signings will be held before and after the Kentucky Derby, Hinojosa says on the invitation. “We encourage you to wear your Kentucky Derby attire,” meaning hats for women.

Herald reporter Gary Long reported that the event will be kind of a stand-in for live wagering on the race, which in a non-pandemic year would be offered at Valley Race Park in Harlingen.

“We’ll have a leader board and food and refreshments,” Hinojosa told Long. “Everyone is invited.”

“I called all of them up and they all had good things to say about Herberto Hinojosa,” Manuel Hinojosa said. “Herbie was a national icon and a hometown Brownsville guy put in this huge theater” that was horse racing at the time. “He did it on his own. The unbelievable stories he told to me, I checked them all out and they all checked out.”

The former jockey spent the final years of his life at his Southmost residence.

Author Hinojosa told Long he was “overwhelmed with information” for the book, and spent 30 hours a week writing it for weeks on end. When he first met Herbie Hinojosa, he knew nothing about horse racing. The book ends in the mid-1960s, although Hinojosa’s career continued into the 1990s. In his later years, he tutored modern-day jockeys like Chris McCarron and Julie Krone.

“I loved it. I couldn’t wait to write about it,” he said. “Those jockeys worked hard. They got up early and were on the racetrack first thing in the morning working out the horses. You had to be in the jockey room by 11 a.m., and the races were over by 5 p.m. It all started all over the next day. It was a hectic life.”

Herbie Hinojosa started riding races at age 8. He grew up between his father’s ranch in El Ranchito, Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville before dropping out of Longoria Elementary School to pursue a riding career that took him first to quarter horse tracks in New Mexico and Arizona, and eventually to the best thoroughbred tracks in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Long wrote that at his peak, Hinojosa would fly to multiple cities within a few days of each other to ride in stakes races with big purses, of which the winning jockey earned a 10 percent of the share. At the height of his earning power he made more money than other sports stars of the day, Johnny Unitas, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and others.

“I was looking for people to nominate to the RGV Sports Hall of Fame and here was this guy who is one of the biggest celebrity sports figures ever produced by the Rio Grande Valley and we didn’t even know it. He was living in Southmost just miles from where I was, and nobody even knew,” Hinojosa said.