In the final part of his acclaimed series, Steve Dennis looks back on the infamous battle between Brokers Tip and Head Play – or, to speak more accurately, their jockeys …
Ali-Frazier. Hagler-Hearns. Tyson-Holyfield. No explanation needed; everyone knows what to expect. So add to the list of fight-night legends the names of Don Meade and Herb Fisher, the protagonists in the most unexpected, most astonishing Kentucky Derby finish of them all.
“Through the last three-sixteenths of a mile, the contest was not a horse race so much as a hand-to-hand combat between the jockeys,” went the report in the Blood-Horse, couched in the regretful, reproving tone of a teacher recounting a schoolyard scrap, holding by the ears those jockeys – Meade riding Brokers Tip, Fisher aboard Head Play – as they stood in defiant disgrace.
“I grabbed him first,” said Meade, after removing his gumshield. “But I only grabbed him to protect myself.” Over in the blue corner, Fisher wearily unlaced his gloves and confirmed that version of events. “I went in to tighten things up on Meade,” he told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Thus the 1933 Kentucky Derby left a dirty thumbprint on the pristine pages of the history books, albeit the type of dirty thumbprint that compels rather than repels the gaze. And like many such knock-down-drag-out contests decided by the panel of judges, when Brokers Tip was declared the winner on points there were plenty of dissenting voices insisting that Head Play had been robbed.
Nothing about the preamble suggested this would be a Derby to remember. Nine horses were scratched from the race on the day, leaving Ladysman and Pomponius as short-priced coupled favourites in a 13-horse field.
Seven-race maiden
Head Play was 5-1 third-choice after his victory in the Derby Trial a week earlier, but there was little to recommend 17-2 shot Brokers Tip, especially as he came to Churchill Downs a seven-race maiden. The only factor in his favour was his owner-trainer pairing of Edward R Bradley and Herbert J Thompson, who had combined for a then-record three Derby victories with Behave Yourself (1921), Bubbling Over (1926) and Burgoo King 12 months earlier.
Head Play stalked the pace under Fisher until moving to the lead after half a mile. He was still there at the three-sixteenths pole, while behind him Meade had dropped the improving Brokers Tip to the fence to deliver a challenge. It may be myth and legend, but Charlie Corbett (on Charley O) reportedly called out to Fisher as his mount began to fade. “Watch the inside!” he yelled, and Fisher took the advice.
As per his confession above, Fisher angled Head Play towards the rail to cut off the threat of Meade and Brokers Tip. Meade reached over to fend Fisher off. That’s how fights start; this one had started.
Fisher took hold of Meade’s saddle. Meade grabbed at Fisher’s silks. A furlong to run in the Kentucky Derby and the race to win, yet the riders on the leaders only had eyes for each other. Over to the naughty boys (Meade was just 19, and would later come to be known as the ‘Bad Boy’ of the sport for his frequent infractions).
Everyone for themselves
Meade: “I couldn’t push him away from me because he had ahold of me, so I had to get ahold of him. So from there down to the wire, that’s what it was – grab and grab and grab. It was more or less everyone for themselves in those days, a man-to-man thing that he couldn’t help and I couldn’t help.”
Fisher: “When I put Meade in tight quarters he reached over and grabbed my saddlecloth at the eighth-pole and held on to me. I tried to shake him loose by squeezing him against the fence and he just held on to me. I was so amazed to think that he had the nerve to have ahold of me that I lost my head, I blowed my top.”
Meade: “If he’d just ridden his horse, he’d have won by two or three lengths.”
Through the last sixteenth, neither jockey was riding a finish, being too embroiled in the push and shove with each other to galvanise their mounts. Head Play and Brokers Tip crossed the line in lockstep, at which point, as a parting shot, Fisher reached across and slashed Meade across the head with his whip.
The newsreel footage does not assist in distinguishing the winner, but the stewards were sure and gave the race to Brokers Tip by a nose. Suspicion went abroad that their deliberations were biased in favour of the popular, charitable Bradley, and for the rest of his days Fisher – and others – claimed that Head Play had won.
Frustration and rage
He immediately went to the stewards to state his case, claiming foul against Meade, the pot railing against the kettle, but they sat stone-faced to his entreaties and made the result official, and Fisher wept with frustration and rage.
He had dried his eyes before he reached the jockeys’ room, where he waited for Meade to return in triumph from the victory rituals and then began round two, the pair trading punches until they were dragged apart by valets. Both jockeys were suspended for 30 days for rough riding, with Fisher given an extra five days for restarting the fight behind closed doors.
There may have been no photo-finish camera in those days but there was nevertheless a photo of the finish, and Wallace Lowry’s famous single-shot capture of the two jockeys flailing away at each other – published under the banner headline ‘Fighting Finish’ – is one of the great images of any sporting contest.
The progressively unsound Brokers Tip never won again, becoming the only horse ever to record his sole career success in the Kentucky Derby. Head Play won the Preakness on his next start with Charley Kurtsinger replacing the suspended Fisher, another pinch of salt in his war-wounds.
Meade and Fisher refused to speak to each other for more than 30 years after the Derby but were eventually persuaded to shake hands and make up. The feud was over but their fight lives on, Meade-Fisher, the bantamweight brawlers who topped the bill on an unforgettable Derby day.
• Visit the Kentucky Derby website and the Kentucky Derby Museum website
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