Braulio Baeza, born on 26 March 1940, knocked in more than 4,000 winners in a glittering career. But his sweetest victory, by his own admission, was Roberto's win in the 1972 Benson and Hedges at York where they lowered the colours of mighty Brigadier Gerard for the only time in his star-studded 18-race career.
He never returned to ride in England.
"The Queen was in the Royal Box and everyone was excited. She waved to me after we'd won," he recalled. "I felt on top of the world." At the time he was the epitomé of the laid-back, laconic Mr Cool. "I had plenty of horse left," he drawled, before sipping an orange squash and dashing home to race at Saratoga the next day.
Baeza was to ride the unbeaten Linda’s Chief, but the combination was surprisingly beaten by an imposing chestnut colt recording his first stakes win – Secretariat, who of course went on to become a giant of American racing.
It must have been a memorable couple of days for the popular lad who was always going to be a jockey. His father and grandfather had been jockeys and as he grew up he lived across the road from the Juan Franco racecourse in Panama City. He rode his first winner there when he was 15 before moving to the U.S.
I was among the vast York crowd stunned at The Brigadier's defeat and Baeza, almost unheard of over here but one of the top jocks in the USA, never got the credit he deserved as everyone looked for excuses for the defeat of their hero.
Baeza had met up with Roberto only that morning and a quick spin convinced him he was on a "very sharp" horse. Trainer Vincent O'Brien told him about the colt and the track and "just left it to him." Baeza didn't hang about. They quickly picked up and maintained a majestic rhythm all the way to the line. It was the little Panamanian's first – and last – ride in England.
Derby winner Roberto was easy to back at 12-1, but, getting 11lbs weight-for-age from Brigadier Gerard, he made virtually all the running and Joe Mercer and the 3-1-on shot never got in a blow. Mercer got to within a length in the closing stages but he knew that was it and eased back for a three-length defeat.
Roberto was named after Roberto Clemente, one of the stars of owner John Galbreath's Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. Galbreath suggested Baeza for the ride when Lester Piggott began playing musical chairs and decided, in view of some doubt about Roberto taking part, to accept the ride on Barry Hills' Rheingold. O'Brien was happy to go along with Galbreath's suggestion.
I still remember the deathly hush that descended over the Knavesmire – and I can still see O'Brien and his team high up on a high front corner of the county stand celebrating an amazing victory.
However, back to Baeza, or as he was known to close on 40,000 racegoers that afternoon "Who?" Not one of us ever forgot his name after that first running of the International in which Rheingold and Lester trailed in fourth of five.
Life in the U.S. had not been all happy hoopla for Braulio Baeza when he moved up to New York. He was lonely. His wife Carmen, and their new baby daughter, were still in Miami waiting for the word to move. He had no one to chat to at night in his hotel rooms and trailers, so he watched hours and hours of television. Quiz shows, Jack Benny and I Love Lucy were some of his best classrooms for conversational English.
On the track was no easier, even though he will tell you everyone was nice to him. Many of the other riders resented a little punk kid coming in from Panama and taking their best horses away from them. It was very useful that Braulio had learned to ride in Panama. He knew how to look after himself in a race and also how to give as good as he got.
In 1963, he rode Chateaugay to victory in the Kentucky Derby. It was the first of a string of top-class horses he rode. From 1965, he made the list as the leading money-earning jockey in the US four years in a row.
In 1966, Buckpasser won 13 successive races with Braulio and clinched the Horse of the Year honours. He wasn't an easy ride, doing just enough, but the Panamanian handled him with infinite cool. The wild and tempestuous Dr. Fager, Arts and Letters, Ack Ack and Shuvee were followed by Susan’s Girl, Foolish Pleasure and so many more.
After his York victory, Braulio’s battles with his weight began to be a problem. He wasn't able to ride as many horses because he couldn't make the weight. He often considered retiring but then another good horse would come along and this would give him the incentive to continue battling.
But in the summer of 1976, at the height of the Saratoga meeting, Braulio woke one morning to discover that after having jogged for miles in his plastic suit to lose weight the night before, he still had eight pounds to lose before the first day. With a heavy heart, he called the clerk of scales and told him that he was going to ride no longer. He was just 36.
And so ended the riding career of one of the finest jockeys who ever lived. He was pure poetry on a horse: efficient, elegant and always spectacularly in rhythm with the horse. Just about everyone reckoned him to be "one of the nice guys." He won a total of 3140 races in the United States and another 873 in his native Panama for a total of 4013 lifetime wins.
Oh, and of course, the one in England when he shattered the Dick Hern-trained Brigadier Gerard's brilliant run of success. Of all the 4,000 winners he rode, this was the one that has always stuck in his mind.
Over 40 years later he was still talking about it. “First sixteenth [of a mile], no one was taking the lead, so I just let him go.” It was as simple as that.
