Fred W. Hooper, whose life spanned a century and touched many of the changes in the Thoroughbred industry over the last 60 years, died at the age of 102 on August 4 at his home in Miami. Hooper, a straight-talking Southerner who won the Kentucky Derby with Hoop, Jr., one of the first racehorses he ever purchased, bred more than 100 stakes winners, including three-time champion and millionaire Susan's Girl.

In his lifetime, Hooper held many jobs-cotton grower, boxer, barber, and cattleman, to name but a few-and his roots were far from the centers of racing. Born on October 6, 1897, on a cotton farm in Cleveland, Georgia, Hooper was from a young age an entrepreneur and a horse dealer. "When I was 14 years old, I decided to bring a carload of Western horses from Montana to Georgia," he once said. "They were wild to begin with. I broke them all."

Fred Hooper
Birthdate: October 6, 1897
Birthplace: Cleveland, Georgia
Residence: Hooper Farm (1,400 acres), Ocala, Florida
Family: Wanda (wife); Fred Hooper Jr. (son, died July 23, 2000); Kay Wheeler (daughter, Ormonde Beach, Florida); Robin Phillips (daughter, Virginia); Betty Green (daughter, Virginia); grandchildren; great-grandchildren
Occupations: boxer; cotton grower; horse trainer; barber; carpenter; steelworker; schoolteacher; potato farmer; Hereford cattle raiser; contractor (Hooper Construction Co.), built roads, dams, airports in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, racetracks
Member: Founding member, president, American Thoroughbred Owners Association, forerunner of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA); president, Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' Association (1971-'79); member of Florida Governor Robert Graham's Thoroughbred Advisory Committee; chairman of the board, Miami Heart Institute; founding member, Hooper Academy; member, Jockey Club; executive committee member, American Horse Council; honorary vice president, Thoroughbred Racing Associations; one of the founders of the Florida Stallion Stakes; director, National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame; director, Arlington Park; director, Illinois Thoroughbred Breeders Association
Instrumental in: bringing jockeys Laffit Pincay Jr., Braulio Baeza, Jorge Velasquez from Panama to United States; helped design main track, Hollywood Park; helped design grass course at Gulfstream Park; designed, reconstructed Arlington Park, Washington Park main tracks; one of first to transport horses via airplane (1949)
Awards: Thoroughbred Club of America Honored Guest (1981); outstanding breeder (1975, '82); Joe Palmer Award (1976); Eclipse Award of Merit (1991); owner of champions Susan's Girl (1972-'73, 1975), Precisionist (1985); Georgia Sports Hall of Fame (1985); Hollywood Hall of Fame (1985); Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' Association Hall of Fame (1987); Jockey Agents Benevolent Association's Man of the Year (1985); one of six individuals named "Horsemen of the Century" (1982)
Best horses bred and/or raced: Admiral's Voyage, Advance Man, Alhambra, Beat Inflation, Bright Bright, Copelan, Crest of the Wave, Crozier, Diplomatic Jet, Education, Ezgo, Flying Lassie, Greek Game, Hoop Bound, Hoop, Jr., If This Be So, Inflation Beater, Infusive, Journey At Sea, Leader Jet, Miami Mood, Miami Sun, Mia Mood, My Portrait, Noble Warrior, Ocean Drive, Olymar, Olympia, Pat's Joy, Pitching Wedge, Precisionist, Quasi Quilt, Selecting, Skillful Joy, Sky Gem, Special Goddess, Special Jet, Sportful, Susan's Girl, Tinsley, Tri Jet, Wavy Waves, Wedge Shot, Winonly

Hooper first experienced racing with his half-Thoroughbred cow horse named Prince, who could outrun even the fastest cattle through the woods. Hooper's father suggested some match races for the cow horse, and Prince won 49 of 55 races in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.

After graduating from Moler Barber College in Atlanta, Hooper headed to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to take advantage of a construction boom where he worked as a steelworker. Later he became a timber man, schoolteacher, and potato farmer.

Wiped out by a potato blight, Hooper talked his way into the highway building business using a crew of workers he knew from farms in rural Florida. Thus Hooper Construction Co. was born. He was basically a one-man operation and in later years would avoid partners and syndications in horse breeding. He began his racing operation in Alabama in the 1940s and met his first trainer, Ivan Parke, in the lobby of Lexington's Lafayette Hotel. Parke had been a leading rider as a teenager, and Hooper said, "I hired him as my trainer even though I didn't have a horse, and I found out how important a trainer can be." Hooper purchased five yearlings at the 1943 Keeneland sale for a total of $39,400 including a well-bred son of *Sir Gallahad III for $10,200. Hooper named him Hoop, Jr. for his son.

Call it beginner's luck, but Hoop, Jr. developed into a very nice colt. He placed second in the 1944 Pimlico Nursery Stakes and Bowie Kindergarten Stakes before his owner took him to his Florida farm for a rest for the remainder of the year because he had osselets.

At three, Hoop, Jr. was unplaced in his first start-Hooper thought his jockey rode poorly-and after that race Eddie Arcaro asked to ride him in the Wood Memorial Stakes. Hoop, Jr. won a division of that race and then was shipped to Churchill Downs to prepare for the Kentucky Derby.

Even early in his Thoroughbred career, Hooper was an independent and determined thinker. After rains hit Churchill the morning of the Derby, Hooper wanted to send the colt out for a gallop over the track. Parke disagreed but was overruled. Hoop, Jr. loved the wet surface and led throughout in winning the race.

Arcaro told Hooper after the Derby that it would be the most expensive race he would ever win, meaning that he would be hooked on the sport for life. He indeed was, and Hoop, Jr. would be his only Derby victor. But Fred Hooper would pile up many more winners and purses-more than $50-million in all-over the next 55 years.

Hooper's immediate success continued the following year with champion two-year-old colt Education, by little-known stud Ariel. The pattern of using modest stallions became one of Hooper's trademarks through the years, although his next great runner, Olympia, was a grandson of Hyperion by the fine sire *Heliopolis. Olympia was purchased from trainer Parke and proved to be a precocious juvenile, winning three stakes-including the Breeders' Futurity in 1948. He matured into a brilliant three-year-old and won the Flamingo Stakes, Wood Memorial, and Derby Trial en route to becoming the Kentucky Derby favorite. He led most of the way in the Derby before fading to sixth.

Foundation sire

Olympia nevertheless became the foundation sire of Hooper's breeding operation, siring 40 stakes winners (12%). So fast was Olympia that Hooper once accepted a challenge to meet Quarter Horse champion Stella Rose in a $50,000 winner-take-all match race at Tropical Park. Stella Moore led by two lengths at the furlong pole but Olympia put her away in deep stretch. It was rumored that trainer Ivan Parke had bet everything he had on Olympia, and Hooper covered some $93,000 in bets.

Olympia went on to become both a fine sire and broodmare sire. His daughters produced many of Hooper's best horses, including Crozier and Admiral's Voyage. Admiral's Voyage ran second to Jaipur in the 1962 Belmont Stakes and went on to become champion older male. He later sired Pas de Nom, the dam of champion sire Danzig.

Hooper was one of the first to import top horses from South America, bringing Argentine champion *Quibu to America in the late 1940s; Hooper later stood him at stud. One of *Quibu's daughters, Quaze, produced the best horse Hooper ever bred, three-time champion Susan's Girl, by Quadrangle.

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