King's Bishop no more after NYRA rename
The King’s Bishop, a Grade 1 race that has been a Travers Day staple will be renamed for H. Allen Jerkens, the trainer of the great thoroughbred. Jerkens, nicknamed "The Chief", died in 2015.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. >> The King’s Bishop, a Grade 1 race that has been a Travers Day staple will be renamed for H. Allen Jerkens, the trainer of the great thoroughbred who died in 2015.
The New York Racing Association announced Tuesday that the King’s Bishop will be renamed in honor of Jerkens to recognize the legendary late trainer’s contributions to the sport of horse racing.
The $ 500,000 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial, inaugurated as the King’s Bishop in 1984 and named for one of Jerkens’ many stakes winners, will be run on Travers Day, August 26, as one of six Grade 1 races contested on Saratoga’s centerpiece live racing program.
The other graded races scheduled for that day are the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers, the Grade 1 Sword Dancer, the Grade 1 Personal Ensing, the Grade 1 Forego, the Grade 1 Ballerina and the Grade 2 Woodford.
The Grade 1, $1.2 million Whitney scheduled for August 5 and the Travers highlight this summer’s meet, which will include 69 stakes worth $18.775 million in purses from open- ing day Friday, July 21, through Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 4.
Jerkens, known affectionately in the horse racing community as “The Chief,” counted King’s Bishop among his hundreds of stakes winners through a nearly 65-year career. Under Jerkens’ care, King’s Bishop set a track record in the sevenfurlong Carter and won the Fall Highweight in 1973 for Allaire du Pont’s Bohemia Stable.
“It is an honor for NYRA to be able to pay tribute to his accomplishments and contributions with the renaming of the King’s Bishop to the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial,” NYRA President and CEO Chris Kay said in a statement. “The Jerkens family, as well as his friends and countless fans, can look forward to celebrating the Chief’s legacy with the running of the Grade 1 Allen Jerkens each summer at Saratoga.”
After taking out his trainer’s license in 1950, Jerkens fashioned a stellar career that was punctuated by some of the biggest upsets in racing history, including two over 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat, with Prove Out in the Woodward at Belmont Park and with Onion in the Whitney at Saratoga.
Those famous exploits solidified his reputation as “the Giant Killer,” and he was named Outstanding Trainer in 1973. Two years later, he became the youngest trainer to be inducted into the National Racing Hall of Fame at age 45.
Jerkens, for whom the coveted Saratoga training title is named, amassed more than a dozen training titles on the NYRA circuit, including four at Saratoga, where he dominated from 1971-73 and tied for the title in 1978. In 2014, Jerkens was honored in the second annual “Red Jacket” Ceremony at the Spa, and was inducted into Saratoga’s “Walk of Fame.”
“He was a big part of New York racing for 50-plus years, so it’s a big deal,” son and fellow trainer Jimmy Jerkens said. “He’s certainly deserving of it, and if they were going to rename a race, it would make sense that they use the King’s Bishop because he trained the horse. T. J. Kelly had him as a 3-yearold and Mrs. du Pont, who owned Kelso, bought him and we got him after that, so we had him as a 4-yearold and a 5-year- old and he was a nice horse.
“It means a lot,” he added. “He’d probably be blushing right now.”
Jerkens trained 3,859 winners for nearly $104 million in earnings at the time of his passing on March 18, 2015 at the age of 85, with many of his biggest victories coming in New York, and at Saratoga in particular. Among his notable Spa runners are Hall of Famer Sky Beauty, who won the Adirondack, Alabama, and Go for Wand in three consecutive summers from 199294 en route to being named Champion Older Mare in 1994; 1995 Ballerina winner Classy Mirage; Kelly Kip, who won the 1996 Sanford and 1998 A Phenomenon Handicap, now the Alfred G. Vanderbilt; and November Snow and Society Selection, winners of the Test and Alabama in 1992 and 2004, respectively.