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Late Turf writer Hirsch remembered during tribute

Posted: Friday, June 05, 2009 4:46 PM

by John Scheinman
 
Lovingly invoking his positive outlook and lifelong passion for Thoroughbred racing, representatives from the Daily Racing Form and the racing world gathered on Friday morning at Belmont Park to memorialize the life of late racing columnist Joe Hirsch.

Hirsch, the executive columnist for the Daily Racing Form from 1974 until his retirement in 2003, died in January of complications from Parkinson’s disease, which he battled for the last 20 years of his life.

Hirsch, a friend and mentor to both writers and subjects in racing, founded the National Turf Writers Association and became its first president.

“To give Joe a Triple Crown to cover was like giving Picasso a brush …Tiger Woods an eight-foot putt,” said Racing Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who approached the podium to speak wearing Hirsch’s trademark dark sunglasses despite the cloudy, rainy weather outdoors.

Under television monitors showing pictures of Hirsch throughout his career, from caricatures drawn by Peb to late in his life, a procession of racing luminaries rose to recall his optimism, wisdom, skill, and humor.
 
Many of the stories told revolved around dinners.

Jerry Bailey recalled an evening at a restaurant in Florida during which the jockey tried to resist Hirsch’s entreatment to eat the soufflé, a specialty dessert of the house. Bailey begged off, saying he did not want to spend the next day in the sweatbox, but Hirsch said, ‘You will have this soufflé. It wouldn’t hurt a baby.’”

Bailey ate the dessert and the next day wound up sweating to lose weight before the races.

The saying, “‘Dessert wouldn’t hurt a baby’ — Joe Hirsch” was emblazoned on the napkins at the buffet at the event.
 
Jay Hovdey, who took over as executive columnist at the Daily Racing Form after Hirsch’s retirement, was one of several speakers who became emotional recalling their late friend.

“I’ll keep this brief, in case he’s watching,” Hovdey said. “He would think there are better things to do the day before the Belmont Stakes (G1), but we need to do this. In the positive, romantic sense, Joe was his work.”

John Scheinman is a Maryland-based THOROUGHBRED TIMES correspondent