In the late 1930s and early 1940s, The Maryland Horse regularly offered a column from American Trainers Association (ATA) President Preston Burch. Burch offered advice to fellow trainers, as well as updating them on the priorities of their organization. In September 1940, however, he turned his space over to ATA Secretary-Treasurer Janon Fisher, Jr., with the warning that Fisher’s ideas might “leave a disagreeable taste in some mouths.”

Fisher, who was also president of the Maryland Horse Breeders’ Association, offered a list of concerns. In particular, he noted that, “living conditions offered at race tracks for stable employees are absolutely awful. Not only are the places designated for men and boys crowded, unventilated and dirty, but the sanitary conditions of the toilets and latrines are something which no self-respecting trainer should put up with . . . These unfortunate conditions would not be put up with by any group or organization except a disorganized one such as the trainers are.”

In the same column, Fisher wrote, “We don’t want much - a safe track to run over, fair purses, fair, impartial officials and clean, sanitary living conditions.” If these basic needs were not met, Fisher predicted, “We can foresee the time when all trainers will form a strong, influential body which, should the occasion arise, will be able to dictate to racing officials and even racing commissions.”

At the time, Fisher could not have known that to the north, at Rockingham Park in Salem, New Hampshire, a foundation was being laid for such a body. The very same month his editorial ran, a little known organization known as the Horse Retirement Fund was rechristening itself as the Horseman’s Retirement Fund. Earlier that year, trainer Philip Beiber (he was also the brother of Isidore Beiber, the principal owner for future Hall of Fame trainer Hirsch Jacobs) had convinced New England horsemen and racetrack officials to contribute to a fund that would “retire” Thoroughbred racehorses no longer capable of earning money at the track. Beiber’s idea, however, immediately proved to be controversial, and his fund and its supporters quickly reorganized priorities. It would now be centered on helping horsemen.

The fledging group organized a meeting at the Whitman Hotel in Jamaica, New York, on October 15 to explain its new direction. Eugene Gilmartin, a young lawyer from Rhode Island, made the presentation. He was accompanied by an ex-member of the Rhode Island Racing Commission, James H. Hagan, Jr.

Burch, writing in November for The Maryland Horse, said, “Although (Gilmartin) claims not, this movement seems to me to be a growth from the Horse Retirement Fund . . . As there seemed to be considerable agitation against Beiber’s organization, it was voted to disband same and donate the funds on hand to the new organization, called the Horseman’s Retirement Fund.

Burch continued, “The main purpose of the new association seems to be horsemen’s relief and the establishment and maintenance of a home for horsemen . . . The meeting here was very sparsely attended, and there was very little said except Gilmartin’s talk and a few questions which he answered.”

Gilmartin also addressed the National Association of State Racing Commissioners. A transcript of his speech was printed in The Blood-Horse of January 25, 1941. He began by saying, “The horsemen believe this movement to be the greatest undertaking by the horsemen in the history of the Turf, and we will be very cautious in our movements and give serious thought to all suggestions that in the end we will have a successful organization . . .”

He continued, “The horsemen feel now is the time to form a National Beneficial Association that will care and provide for the horsemen regardless where they may be living and/or racing . . .

“A charter was obtained from the secretary of state in the state of Rhode Island on September 26, 1940, and at the present time we are functioning as a temporary organization with a temporary constitution and by-laws and with temporary officers. The permanent organization will be formed at the Miami Biltmore Hotel, Monday, February 3, 1941.”

The Blood-Horse editor, Joe Estes, however, sounded a warning to the fledgling organization. He wrote, “The large number of new organizations of persons interested in various phases of racing is strongly indicative of a new consciousness of community of interest. The manifestation of this urge toward an organization is, we believe, most significant and important development.”

But Estes also wrote that, “the days are now limited in which the American Turf can continue its uncoordinated growth without dissension . . . it ought not be overlooked that the real laborers of racing, the stable hands, are the ones which have not been yet invited to join an organization and hence are the ones which are the most susceptible to recruiting by organized labor.”

Estes noted that one released statement from the Horseman’s Retirement Fund stipulated that only owners, trainers and racing associations would be eligible for active membership. Grooms, exercise riders, jockeys and other stable help would not be offered a chance to vote on how the new organization’s rules might be written.

He said, “We are going to have organizations from now on, whether we like it or not. If we are going to have them, let us do our best to make them sensible and serviceable.”

• Unrealized Vision

At the February 3, 1941, meeting in Miami, the Horseman’s Retirement Fund changed its name to the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. The group outlined five priorities:
• horsemen’s benevolence,
• a horsemen’s retirement home,
• reduced fees on horse insurance,
• a better working relationship with racing associations and racetracks, and
• an identification and membership system for stable employees.

The HBPA, perhaps opting for name recognition, voted James E. (Sunny Jim) Fitzsimmons president. The Blood-Horse also reported that issues concerning the retirement of horses “had been dropped entirely.”

Though something that taken root from Philip Beiber’s Horse Retirement Fund, it was hardly what its creator had envisioned. Beiber’s plan to purchase and retire “worthless” horses suffered from a lack of clarity, as well as industry support. Beiber felt that some horses in training, either from unsoundness or advancement of age, presented too great a danger to other horses and riders. At first, the Horseman’s Retirement Fund proposed to pay $100 for racehorses that had outlived their potential to earn money at the track. With the formation of the HBPA and the focus turning to the above-mentioned goals, Bieber altered his plans, as well. By the summer of 1941, he proposed to offer $200 to the owner of any mare that was ready for retirement. However, the mare would not be allowed to be bred to any Thoroughbred stallion. Therefore, her lameness or lack of class would not be passed along to future generations.

Estes objected. On August 9, 1941, he wrote, “We still hold the opinion that paying money to the owner of a worthless horse for the privilege of removing the horse from the race track will do nobody any good except the owner who pockets the money. But the boys seem to think they can make enough of a dent in the racehorse population for the effect to be seen. We hope they keep going long enough to find out.”

In order to make sure their message wasn’t misrepresented by other publications, the New England branch of the HBPA created their own magazine, the Horsemen’s News, and during the summer of 1941, this magazine reported that the notion of purchasing unfit and unsound Thoroughbreds would be done “as funds permit.”

The issue of horse “retirement” had always been a moral, as well as a political, nightmare for the Thoroughbred sport. If Beiber’s intentions were good, the HBPA’s implementation of them drew bitter criticism. Horace Wade, writing for the Green Race Special, said, “The other afternoon the HBPA purchased several horses to “retire,” paying their owners $100 apiece, and the moguls of the association promptly proceeded to “retire” them permanently. By the simple method of sending bullets smashing through their brains . . .

“The fact that a mare is unable to win a race at Suffolk Downs does not indicate she is incapable of producing a foal to carry on to heights she failed to attain . . . Many more horses will be purchased by the HBPA to be destroyed in the same cruel fashion.”

The following spring, New England-based turf writer David Alexander reported in The Blood-Horse on the horrific story of a gelding named Stavka, a Thoroughbred discovered starving to death two years after his retirement in 1940. Stavka was “crawling with chicken lice. He was so weak he could hardly stand.”

The horse had been found by George Reilly, an agent of the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Reilly brought a photograph of Stavka to the Harold Simmons, the national secretary-treasurer of the HBPA, advising Simmons that “all horses retired by that organization be destroyed outright.”

Simmons said, “It is very dangerous to give old horses away . . . Their owners pet them and feed them for a while. But they are like kids with new bicycles. When the paint wears off, they tire of them and neglect them.”

Alexander wrote, “Some day the home for old turfmen and old horses (the HBPA) envisions may become a reality. The case of Stavka indicates that such a home is needed.”

But Beiber’s original vision for a Horse Retirement Fund was short-lived. The issue of caring for lame, useless horses eventually faded into the shadows as the new horsemen’s group began to strive for greater membership and a stronger voice in addressing the sport’s future.

• First Leaders

Early on, the HBPA benefited greatly from the gypsy life most horsemen led. Its first two divisions, in New England and Chicago, were filled with trainers who shipped southward for the winter months. As a result, word spread about the fledgling organization and during the winter of 1942. President Fitzsimmons and other HBPA officials sought to form new divisions in both Louisiana and Florida.

Fitzsimmons, however, would eventually step back from his role as president. He was still the full-time trainer for a pair of powerful operations, Belair Stud and Wheatley Stable. There simply was not enough of him to go around. Fitzsimmons later said, “I was the president once, but I was kind of a joke as president. There was no election as far as I ever knew. We had some tough times getting started, but we made it. We proved that we could get along with people and get the job done while working for the best interests of all people in racing.”

With American forces now engaged in World War II, the HBPA, not coincidentally, voted former cavalry officer Major Tom McCreery as new president. A New York-based trainer and breeder, McCreery also figured to help bring that state’s horsemen into the HBPA fold. Fitzsimmons was made chairman of the board. Though he consistently scoffed at his achievements while president, the HBPA’s membership increased tenfold - from 400 to 4,000 - during its first three years.

McCreery’s tenure also had positive effects. In the summer of his first year as president, the New England division, widely regarded as the strongest of all HBPA branches, was able to organize a community buying effort that gave local trainers a considerable break in price for all feed and hay. A strike over purses at Suffolk Downs was also settled in favor of the horsemen (though the strike was not declared by the HBPA, so many of the protesting members were HBPA members that Suffolk management blamed the organization).

The group’s first field representative, Eugene Gilmartin, enlisted in the Navy, and his post was filled by Horsemen’s News editor, Walter E. Hapgood. In the summer of 1942, David Alexander wrote, “(Hapgood) has already made the News into a mellow, chatty, and informal paper similar to the house organs of large business concerns . . . He is a shrewd businessman who knows how to drive a hard bargain for his principals.”

Alexander also said, “There is no question that the HBPA is today the strongest horsemen’s organization that has ever been formed in America.”

While the organization continued to expand its reach, problems did manifest inside the HBPA. At one point during the McCreery era, the New England HBPA, by the far the greatest of fund-raising divisions, refused to turn over the money they had collected to the national office. The New England branch was unhappy or, perhaps more accurately, unclear, as to how their funds were being spent. McCreery decided to expel them.

Tom Shehan, who eventually followed Hapgood as the editor for the Horsemen’s News’s successor, The Horsemen’s Journal, wrote, “Imagine, if you can, the reaction of the New Englanders when they received official notice to that effect? After all, wasn’t it in New England where the HBPA was born?

“The national office said, ‘But that didn’t mean that the New England division owned the HBPA.’

“Communication was not McCreery’s best game,” Shehan wrote. “Fortunately, there was one member of the New England directorate . . . (who) was also devoted enough to the HBPA concept to seek and receive, grudgingly, its permission to explore both sides of the controversy.”

Shehan was referring to Leo O’Donnell, the “man of the moment so often in the early years of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association that it can be said that he contributed as much to its early progress as anybody.”

Ironically, O’Donnell was also the first man to sign on to Phil Beiber’s Horse Retirement Fund in 1940. Perhaps best known as a racing official and steward, O’Donnell first helped to form the Michigan branch of the HBPA, as well as the one in Maryland. His skillful management of the New England HBPA’s dispute with the national office brought about a reconciliation between the offended parties.

O’Donnell was elected president of the HBPA in the winter of 1946. By this time, the organization had branches in every region of the United States. Shehan wrote, “O’Donnell made stability his first objective. He established a national office in Boston . . . Dues and assessments were collected on time, and before long the HBPA had enough money in its treasury to pay the expenses of its officers and representatives to attend national meetings and conventions.

“As a result, the racing world began to hear how the horsemen’s official representatives felt on all matters important to horsemen.”

In the spring of the 1947, the National HBPA offered strenuous objection to a proposal made by the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of the United States, Inc. The TRA proposed that when a trainer signed an agreement as to his/her stall allocations at any given track, the trainer was also agreeing to purse structures as well as purse distributions.

The HBPA fired back with a open letter, published in The Blood-Horse of April 5:

“The proposed ‘Code of Standards’ attempts to bind a horseman to the acceptance of any purse distribution by the track merely by the acceptance of stall space, at a track by an owner or trainer, when as a matter of fact you well know that an application for stalls is made many months in advance of the issuance of the condition book. When an owner or trainer makes such an application for stalls, he has no idea what such purse distribution will be.

“Do you think this is fair when one of the parties which you attempt to bind to a contract must necessarily be ignorant of what he is to receive in purses?

“There are several other provisions of this code that are just as unfair to owners and trainers of this one.”

Noted turf writer Joe Palmer summarized the debate this way: “There are some sections of the Code of Standards which indicate that somebody forgot that when you make rules for people, you also have to give them reason why they should observe these rules. If, for instance, you are going to tell horsemen that they have no voice regarding the size of purses or the condition of racing, then you also need to assure them that purses will be in accord with the times, and that the conditions will be satisfactory. Although in many if not most individual disputes, I find myself in sympathy with the tracks, a blunt, ‘We’re going to do it and you’re going to like it,’ is neither tactful nor fair.”

Palmer’s article suggested the National HBPA had already achieved one of its most critical goals: the organization was capable of making reasonable demands on behalf of its membership.

The HBPA’s battle with the TRA over their Code of Standards would eventually lead to the common practice of basing purse money on a fixed percentage of mutual handle.

Further support followed. By the end of O’Donnell’s term as president in 1951, 12,000 members would belong to the HBPA. Though far from the organization Philip Beiber had envisioned, no other horsemen’s group had ever lasted as long or could lay claim to carrying such influence.

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