Racing in the most exciting stretch drive in the history of the Kentucky Derby, two jockeys battled each other with hands and whips down the field and across the line. It was 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, when teenager Don Meade, of Plankinton, South Dakota, rode the winning horse across the wire. Not expected to succeed, Broker’s Tip came out of the gate in eleventh out of thirteen places to win his first and only race ever that day.
As Meade brought his horse through an opening on the inside, Herb Fisher, in the lead riding Head Play, moved to squeeze Broker’s Tip against the fence and the two jockeys started grabbing and pulling at each other. They fought and whipped and pulled all the way across the finish line. Still angry, Meade and Fisher continued to exchange blows in the locker room. For the rest of his life, Fisher believed he was cheated of the win.
Although the judges awarded Broker’s Tip the win by a ‘nose’, no official photograph caught that moment. Instead, the photographer, Wallace Lowry, lying on the ground close to the finish line, captured one of the most famous horse racing pictures of all time. Meade grabs at the shoulder of Fisher while Fisher clutches the saddlecloth of Broker’s Tip.
Born in Plankinton in 1913, son Arthur and Charlotte Meade and great-grandson of Aurora County pioneer George Saville, Meade started riding quarter horses at age twelve, weighing just forty-eight pounds and measuring less than five feet tall. Racing at the bush tracks in Nebraska, Meade received 50 cents a race, earning $2.00 if he won. In a 1974 interview for Sports Illustrated, Meade explained that when he left home at age thirteen, he was on his own and grew up fast. He raced for a time in Canada and later, in 1931, became the leading rider in New Orleans. Meade related how his big break came about in Maryland in 1932. The jockey for the last race of the day was caught drinking and “he couldn’t ride, and they put me up at that’s how I started riding for Col. Bradley.” Colonel E. R. Bradley was the owner of Broker’s Tip.
As a result of their fighting during the Derby race, both Meade and Fisher were briefly suspended from racing. With his winnings, Meade spent $8,000 to buy his parents a tourist camp in California. Twenty-five years later, they sold the camp for $150,000. Meade continued to race, winning the Florida Derby in 1935.
Unfortunately, three years later, Meade was forced to leave the track for breaking the rules on wagering. In his book, The Gold and Glory, Charles B. Parmer writes that Meade’s racing career would have ended, “but for the possession of a fighting spirit truly representative of the American character.” Colonel Bradley hired Meade to break colts on his Kentucky farm that summer. Now twenty-three years old, it appeared Meade had no future on the racetrack. He did not give up. Meade fought his suspension seven times, three of these times in person before the Florida State Racing Commission. His dogged determination earned him respect and reinstatement at his eighth appeal in 1938. Racing at Tropical Park that winter season, Meade became the leading rider in Florida. The sport’s pages speculated whether Meade would be allowed to race in New York later that year. With the help of endorsements from two millionaires, Meade’s New York application was successful. Maryland and New England followed suit, not without controversy. Less forgiving, Illinois never allowed Meade to race in that state.
As told in Parmers’, The Gold and Glory, Meade asked the reporter, in a 1939 interview, to say this to the public, “They’ve been swell! A fellow couldn’t ask for better treatment than I’ve had. You know how it is – a fellow makes a slip in a minute – it takes time to make up for it. I’m sorry for what happened – I’m trying to make good by riding as a fellow never rode.” That same day it was announced that Meade was America’s leading rider, “having won more races in the previous six months than any other jockey.”
When Don Meade died in 1996, his obituary in the Sun Sentinel summarized his racing career, “In 1945, Mr. Meade had posted 1,600 wins in 9,391 races, earning purses totaling $2.5 million. In 1939 and 1941, he won more races than any jockey in the country, and set the record for the most wins at Saratoga and Hialeah during a season. “
Meade met his future wife, Yvonne, during the time when he was suspended for breaking the rules on wagering. They raised five children and ran several businesses in California. For a while Meade was a horse trainer and handicapper and later owner of Don Mead’s Jockey Pub.
One of the best jockeys of his time, Don Meade earned his place in history from a single dramatic event captured on camera. With scrappy determination, this brazen kid from Plankinton, South Dakota, fought to the finish in the most infamous race of the Kentucky Derby.
It Happened Right Here: The Fighting Finish, by Ruth Page Jones. Published in the South Dakota Mail, Plankinton, South Dakota, May 1, 2014.
Note: To find the famous photo, enter the phrase “fighting finish photograph” in your web search browser.
RPJ Histories - Ruth Page Jones 