CONN MCCREARY (Jan 1939)

There is no evidence that Conn McCreary graduated from RHS. If he had stayed in school he would have graduated with the class of January, 1939.

His size, athletic ability and ambition required that his education had to be continued at a race track on the back of a thoroughbred horse .Conn started riding professionally in 1937 and won his first race at Chicago’s Arlington Park in 1938. His most outstanding year was in 1944 when he won the first two races of the Triple Crown on a horse named Pensive. In the third race, the Belmont Stakes, he finished second by half a length to Bounding Home. He won his second Kentucky Derby on Count Turf in 1951 and his second Preakness in 1952 on Blue Man.

McCreary rode four Hall of Fame horses, Devil Diver, Armed, Bric A Brac and Stymie. In addition to his Triple Crown races he won the Travers Stakes, the Jockey Gold Cup, the  Breeder’s  Futurity Stakes, the  Arlington Handicap and many, many more for a total of 1263 wins on 8802 mounts and a winning percentage of 14.2%.

At four feet eight inches and one hundred pounds, he was the smallest jockey in racing at that time. Conn retired from riding in 1960, and worked as a trainer and as a race track publicist.

He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1974.

DOB: Jun 17, 1921 St. Louis, MO DOD: Jun 29, 1979 Ocala, FL Age 58