Letter to the Editor: John Fulton

John Fulton:

In my first year as a trainer, 1973, I sent a horse of mine named Big Whippendeal from Monmouth Park to Belmont for a Grade II 1 1/2-mile stake race for 3-year-olds in September and Mr. Jerkens let me come into his barn to prepare for the race. Barry Weisbord and Alan Goldberg were walking hots for him and that is where we met. 

Mr. Jerkens and I were stabled next to each other at Hialeah that year and we spent afternoons grazing horses together. I listened to every word that he said and learned a lot from him. I think that he liked me because he saw that I had almost all of my horses in ice tubs on a daily basis and that was a therapy that he used a lot. 

Back to Big Whippendeal, he hadn’t run for a while so I wanted to get a good work into him for a race at that distance. I brought the jockey out and asked him to go a good, steady mile on the turf. He totally blew the work, going seven furlongs at more or less a two minute lick. 

I returned to the barn distraught and was talking to the Chief about what happened. He told me that, if it was his horse, he would walk him a bit and take him back to the track to work again, but since I was only 20-years-old and just beginning, I had better not as they would run me out of town if he did not perform well. I ran the horse off of that work and he led all of the way only to be caught by Amen 11 in the last stride. We finished second. If the horse were in the hands of the Chief he would have won. 

I have been around a lot of great trainers, but I don’t know of any other who understood his horses as well as Mr. Jerkens. There was never a routine with his horses, it was just tremendous instinct that we haven’t seen in very many trainers in my lifetime. Awesome horseman and a very kind person, who loved to help people starting out in the industry.