NEWS
Owner Ethel Jacobs dies in Florida at 91
Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2001
Ethel D. Jacobs, North America's leading owner for three years and the widow of Racing Hall of Fame trainer Hirsch Jacobs, died on Friday of pneumonia at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach at the age of 91.The matriarch of the legendary Jacobs racing family, Ethel Jacobs owned the majority of horses trained by her husband during his remarkable run in the 1930s and '40s when he won 11 training titles from 1933 to '44. Three times during that run--in 1936, '37, and '43--Ethel Jacobs ranked as leading owner.
"She was a great sportswoman, one who loved racing so very much," said her son, John Jacobs, who trained classic winners Personality and High Echelon for his mother,and is now a bloodstock agent. "She was not only a great winner but a great loser as well. You would run a horse for her and if it lost, she wouldn't bat an eye, as long as the horse came back okay. She was a real lady--honest, with great spirit and a tremendous amount of dignity."
Ethel Jacobs continued to race a handful of horses until her dying day through Harbor View Farm in Florida, which is owned by her daughter, Patrice, and her husband, Louis Wolfson, who bred and campaigned two-time Horse of the Year and 1978 Triple Crown winner Affirmed. She made one final outing to the track this summer, on Travers Stakes (G1) day at Saratoga Race Course. As had been her custom throughout her life, she made copious notes on her racing program and dutifully registered the top three finishers and the time of every race on the card.
"She was frail and that was the only time she was able to come out to the races, but there she was writing in her program like she always had," John Jacobs said.
Perhaps the most esteemed horse campaigned by the Jacobses was 1945 champion handicap horse Stymie, who was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1975. Claimed by Hirsch Jacobs for $1,500 after losing to maidens in his third career start, Stymie went on to win 35 of 131 starts and retired as the world's leading money-earner with $918,485. The Jacobses honored the horse by naming their Sparks, Maryland, breeding operation Stymie Manor, which was sold in the mid-1980s.
Despite saddling 3,596 winners from over 7,000 starters during his distinguished career, Hirsch Jacobs never had a classic winner. Just three months after his death in February 1970, Personality--a colt owned by Ethel Jacobs who was the son of two horses she bred in partnership with Isidor Beiber, champion and leading sire Hail to Reason and three-time champion distaffer Affectionately--won the Preakness Stakes (G1) and later was named Horse of the Year. Three weeks later, High Echelon, who was also bred by Jacobs and Beiber, won the Belmont Stakes (G1) for Ethel Jacobs.
"That was such a great honor," John Jacobs said of the family's classic victories. "It was the darndest thing though, all she kept saying was how happy she was for me and how proud she was. After the race she told me, 'Your daddy taught you well.' "
Two other horses campaigned in the salmon pink and green silks of Ethel Jacobs were inducted to the Hall of Fame--Affectionately in 1989 and multiple stakes-winning filly Searching in 1972.—Victor Ryan
