INDUSTRY GIANT JOE HIRSCH DEAD
Joe Hirsch, the longtime executive columnist for Daily Racing Form, died in New York City at the age of 80 on Friday morning.
According to a release from his longtime employer, he was at St. Luke’s Hospital at the time of his death. He had been in a long-term care facility in New York after breaking his hip in a fall at his Manhattan apartment last spring. Hirsch suffered for many years from Parkinson’s, courageously going about his daily rounds on the backstretch and writing his Daily Racing Form column while battling the disease. He retired from the Form in 2003. Click here to read a brief biography and here for industry comments about Hirsch.
A funeral service will be held 10 a.m. Sunday at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, 630 Amsterdam Avenue and 91st Street in Manhattan.
Hirsch (pictured, left, with actor John Forsythe/photo courtesy of Daily Racing Form) had friends and admirers throughout the racing world, and was a global ambassador not only for the Daily Racing Form during his 50-plus years there but for the racing and breeding industry. He won numerous awards during his career, including the prestigious Lord Derby Award from an association of racing writers in England, the Eclipse Award of Merit, and Honor Guest of the Thoroughbred Club of America. Hirsch was also the founding president of the National Turf Writers Association.
Some will recall that Joe, a lifelong bachelor, was roommates with the flamboyant New York Jets quarterback of the late 1960s, Joe Namath. The quarterback was owner of a nightclub called Bachelor’s III (Hirsch was one of the three bachelors it was named after), which was said to be frequented by bookmakers and undesirables. It got Namath in hot water and he briefly retired from football rather than divest himself of the club.
During his career at the Form, Hirsch’s coverage of the Triple Crown races set the standard for other writers. Starting with "Derby Doings," he chronicled the daily activities of all Triple Crown race contenders for weeks on end, providing detailed information for the rest of the industry. In his "spare time," he wrote a number of books, including a colorful biography of trainer Horatio Luro, The Grand Senor.
He has been memorialized with a race named in his honor in the fall meeting at Belmont Park, the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational, as well as a journalism scholarship at the University of Kentucky. The press boxes at Churchill Downs and Saratoga are also named after Hirsch.
Hirsch had the respect of racetrack management, horse owners and breeders, trainers, jockeys, his fellow journalists and the racing public. No one was more helpful to young journalists new to the racing beat than Joe Hirsch, who would go out of his way to welcome them to the game. No one was more of a gentleman, either.
All of us who worked around Joe have our favorite stories. Many of them involved the tales he would tell at the countless dinners he organized and invited his fellow writers to. Joe loved great food and the camaraderie of other racing people almost as much as he loved the sport itself.
One of my earliest experiences with Joe came at the 1988 Preakness. Louie Roussel, the co-owner and trainer of Risen Star, was standing on a milk crate, surrounded by dozens of writers and televsision cameras. Many of us had our tape recorders in the air to catch Roussel describe in detail problems Risen Star had experienced with his feet and how a specialist was brought in to treat him and put on a new set of racing plates. Roussel went on for several minutes about the situation.
I was standing directly behind Hirsch, who was holding a small notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. When Roussel was done, he wrote two words — “new shoes” in the notebook. The next morning, when the Form arrived at Pimlico and I read Joe’s must-read “Preakness Doings,” he had a lengthy explanation from Roussel about Risen Star’s foot problem. By that time, I had transcribed my tape of Roussel’s press briefing and was stunned to find that Joe had it nailed almost word for word everything Roussel had said. He was amazing.
Joe Hirsch was a thorough reporter and an outstanding writer who cared deeply about the game. Moreover, he was a good friend to so many of us in this industry. We’ve missed him since he left the racing beat in 2003, and mourn his passing. He was one of a kind.
Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report
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Tags: daily racing form, joe hirsch, Paulick Report, Ray Paulick
January 9th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Elsewhere I was pointed to what is apparently Joe’s last article (http://www.ntra.com/content.aspx?type=news&id=10581).
As I commented where I saw the link initially, I really enjoyed this article. Specifically the races Joe chose to highlight, John Henry in the Million, Tiznow vs. Giant’s Causeway, and most of all a race I worry will be forgotten since it’s not the most famous race nor the most famous horses - You and Carson Hollow in the Test. That was as good as racing gets. Shows how purely Joe Hirsch loved this sport. Thanks to Joe, wherever and if ever he might be, for helping immortalize that race by mere mention from a man so legendary.
January 9th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
RIP to a legend.
January 9th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I had the pleasure to meet Joe in New York. We corresponded occasionally years ago. He had the kindest, most encouraging words about my work which touched me deeply, coming from such a talented and wordly man.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
You are right that he was one of a kind Ray. I used to love to read his columns in the Old Morning Telegraph. Very enlightening. That kind of coverage seems to be a thing of the past, and it’s too bad. The Form isn’t what it used to be but neither is racing.
January 9th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Joe Hirsch was the cream of the crop from the time I first went to a track in the early ’60s. Jim McKay last year, and now Joe Hirsch. I mourn the loss of these legends, and the times that shaped them to be the gentlemen they were.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
[...] « INDUSTRY GIANT JOE HIRSCH DEAD [...]
January 9th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Pure class, Joe was…I only regret that our life spans did not coincide; it would have been a pleasure to read his “live” columns about racing in the Telegraph - with not a word about the industry dying, as it is today, in an opera bouffe swoon of bathos, disintegration and acrimony.
January 10th, 2009 at 4:50 am
A funny thing happened when I first got credentials for the Saratoga press box.
For one of the first times in my life, I found myself intimidated. When Joe Hirsch walked into the press box I felt a palpable change in the room.
It was like toeing the pitching mound to face Babe Ruth, being an aspiring songwriter trying to get that other man in black, Johnny Cash, to sing my song, or hitting the saddle with John Wayne in “The Searchers.”
When a mutuel friend finally got me over my block, I discovered Joe was all the substance he was supposed to be: funny, insightful, possessed of an incredible knowledge of racing, and willing to share all he had. And he had stories about the good, the bad, and the ugly. Not too much of the last, though. For Joe, racing was about the good.
Anyone involved in the sport who didn’t know Joe may not realize it, but they, as well as we who did, are much poorer today.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I met Mr. Hirsch in Saratoga Springs in 2002 through my husband, who was driving Mr. Hirsch about town for the racing season. Although I didn’t get to know him well, he made a very strong impression on me. He was very gracious, kind, and thoughtful. It was easy to observe that he was very respected and highly thought of by his peers and racing industry personalities.
Racing has lost one of it’s most classy thoroughbreds. Joe was a sure bet.
January 11th, 2009 at 1:05 am
I agree that Joe Hirsch was a marvelous guy. No question. A great character, a fantastic reporter, an unequalled fan of the sport. A prince. All that and he deserves more from what I’ve seen of his writing. But at the same time his death was being reported, it was also being reported that eight - 8 - horses died on the Polytrack at Turfway - in 21 days - and another three - 3 - died in 5 days on the Pro-Ride at Santa Anita. Weren’t synthetics supposed to be safe? Was it just a lot of BS? Please investigate.
January 11th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Noelle … No one likes to see horses injured and especially no one wants them euthanized because of an injury sustained in a race or in training. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission is investigating the rash of injuries at Turfway Park, and Santa Anita officials (and I presume the California Horse Racing Board) is looking very closely at the track at Santa Anita. However, I read this past week about a number of breakdowns clustered together on a conventional dirt track that is considered a very safe surface. There are times where injuries cannot be explained; this may or may not be one of those times.
You are correct: synthetically engineered surfaces were sold as safer than conventional dirt, and many horsemen still believe that to be true; others feel they cause just as many (though slightly different) problems.