Hillsdale, the four-year-old bay colt that is suddenly the hottest piece of horseflesh in U.S. racing, flashed across the finish line to win the $177,150 Santa Anita Maturity. In a box near the finish line, a huge bulk of a man broke down and cried for joy. At 3:30 next morning, flushed with triumph and celebration, Clarence Whitted ("Big Smitty") Smith, 40, wandered out to Hillsdale's barn, delivered a rambling oration to his horse.
"The horse seemed bored, but Smitty seemed happy, so what's the difference?" said an onlooker. Says Smitty: "You gotta have guts. That's what makes horses and athletes great. Guts is sports and sports is my life."
Big Smitty runs his own $2,500,000-a-year engineering firm in Detroit, but he is seldom there. He fishes in Bimini, skis in Norway, once slept with Hillsdale in a Santa Anita stable. His need for guts came early. He was a promising athlete in his youth—a rugged bull of a kid who was forever picking fights with his grade-school classmates, later channeled his energies into football in Massillon, Ohio. His athletic promise faded tragically when, at 15, he came in contact with a high-tension wire. The accident mangled his left hand, severely creased his skull, left him incapacitated for two years. Since then, Big Smitty has flung his vast enthusiasm into an overwhelming admiration for other athletes.
Helping Hand. Fighters are his particular passion. "If I hadn't grabbed that wire, I'd have probably been a third-rate pug myself," he says cheerfully. Joe Louis and Billy Conn are among his cronies, and Carmen Basilic, onetime middleweight champion, is a hero. "Oh, that Basilio!" he enthuses. "Did you see the way his lamp went out in that last Robinson fight? Why, he's all guts. That little bastard will never go hungry as long as I'm eating."
Smitty's generosity is as big as his 6-ft.-5-in., 240-Lb. frame. By promoting boxing bouts in Detroit (1958 loss: $60,000), he finds work for a ragtag stable of fighters, gives them handouts and a chance to show what they can do. His payroll bulges with ex-pugs. One of his engineers is a former light heavyweight. A once promising middleweight serves as an office manager. A prelim fighter is carried as a janitor.
A Winner. The only things Smitty loves as much as boxers are horses. "Give me the big horse and the big fighter," he cries. Smitty bought his first horse in 1947 with $700—a no-good hayburner named Roscoe Goose. In the next ten years he had more than a dozen others, none of them first-rate until, in late 1957, he bought Hillsdale for $25,000. No one was impressed. Two of Smitty's friends turned down the chance to buy a share in the horse. Jockey Eddie Arcaro politely declined the chance to ride him. But here and there, Hillsdale, a handsome horse of undistinguished bloodlines, began to win. Since September the big colt has not been beaten, has whipped such headliners as Jewel's Reward and Round Table. In all, Smitty's $25,000 horse has won him a tidy $265,000.