08/29/2026
Thank you to our follower Wendy Hunsicker for making us aware of this post by Horse Racing Legends.
This is an original 1957 photo of jockey Willie Knapp holding a photo of Man o’ War.
He was in New York helping to spark interest for the Derby Day contest sponsored annually by the Kentucky Club To***co Company aimed at finding a name for a two year old c**t sired by Your Host out of Rush Hurry by John P. Grier.*
Willie Knapp was born in Chicago on August 21, 1888. His father worked at Hawthorne Race Track and Willie became an exercise rider there at ten years old.
He was thirteen years old and weighed just 56 pounds when he won his first race at Lakeside Park in Indiana in 1901.
Knapp moved his tack to New York in 1905 after a successful riding campaign throughout the Midwest racing circuit. Willie Knapp was not contracted to any major stable and was considered a freelancer.
His first important victory was on James R. Keene’s Peter Pan in the 1906 Hopeful Stakes.
Willie Knapp would later earn the sobriquet of “giant killer” as he developed a reputation for engineering upsets involving a seeming “dark horse” over an important runner.
One of his first upset victories involved his ride on the nine year old Borrow for H. P. Whitney in the 1917 Brooklyn Handicap. This renewal of the race was a star-studded affair consisting of three Kentucky Derby winners: Old Rosebud, Regret and Omar Khayyam and top handicappers: Roamer, Stromboli and Regret's stablemate: Borrow.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan, Regret had taken the lead soon after the start and had repelled all challengers. At that point, her jockey Frank Robinson glanced back and saw stablemate Borrow running along in second place. Since it had been understood that Regret was the preferred winner out of the Whitney entry, Frank Robinson began to ease his filly as they neared the finish.
Well it may have been understood by most people. But clearly Willie Knapp on Borrow had other ideas. He set the whip down on the aged champion and he lept forward and quickly closed the gap between the Whitney runners. At the finish, it was Borrow with a nose in front. Whitney was beside himself in tears at Regret’s heartbreaking loss.
Also in 1917, Knapp was the regular rider for Willis Sharpe Kilmer’s Sun Briar who was that year’s Champion Two Year Old C**t and the Winter Book favorite for the Kentucky Derby.
Needing a work mate to prepare his beloved Sun Briar for the race, Kilmer authorized trainer, Henry McDaniel, to find a suitable runner. McDaniel had seen Exterminator turn in a very nice work at Churchill Downs and ten days before the Kentucky Derby he purchased Exterminator along with two fillies for $10,000.
Kilmer was less than pleased with the initial workout between the two horses. Further he had only authorized $700 for the purchase of any additional horse. The volatile Kilmer, who had made his fortune selling a home made elixir called Swamp Root, quickly dubbed Exterminator “that truck horse” and even less charitably “the goat.”
To his connections’ horror, Sun Briar broke down shortly before the Kentucky Derby and was subsequently scratched. McDaniel proposed running Exterminator in his stead. But Kilmer would have none of it declaring that the goat was unfit to carry his silks in such a prestigious race. Having seen some of Exterminator’s works, Col. Matt Winn, the proprietor of Churchill Downs finally persuaded Kilmer to enter the horse.
Exterminator was the longest shot on the board at 30 to 1 in the 1918 Kentucky Derby. That morning a heavy rain had fallen which left the track fetlock deep in mud. A less than enthusiastic Willie Knapp had the mount on Old Bones now that Sun Briar was scratched. After the start, Knapp kept Exterminator in fourth place until just after six furlongs where he slipped through on the rail. Dueling with front runner Escoba in the stretch, Old Bones pulled ahead by a length in the muddy going and claimed victory for his first start as a three year old.
Exterminator became one of Knapp’s favorite horses after that ride at Churchill Downs. His pet name for Exterminator was Shang. “He was the most intelligent, best‐natured horse I've ever seen. He knew where the grandstand was and he'd turn toward it and nod his head to the crowd on the way to the post.”
“When he was about 28 years old in the early 40's they brought him out of retirement to parade at Belmont Park on a war bond rally day. He stopped and faced the crowd as usual. I called out ‘Shang’ when I got to the barn. He stuck his old head out of the stall down the line and almost went crazy. He recognized me after 15 years.”
But Willie Knapp’s most notable upset took place in the 1919 Sanford Memorial Stakes when he rode the appropriately named Upset to victory over Man o’ War.
Let Willie tell the story of the 1919 Sanford Memorial Stakes:
Knapp describes his tactics: “I rode Upset when he beat Man o’War, the only time Big Red was licked. I laid a trap for him as he came up on the inside and I got him in a pocket. Rules forbid that today. If I had let him out of the pocket he would have won by six lengths.”
“We’d passed the quarter pole and we’re going to the eighth pole…when I heard something right behind me and I knew it was Big Red coming at me now. I looked back and there he was. Johnny Loftus was riding like a crazy man and he yelled at me, ‘Move out Willie! I’m coming through! So I yelled back at him, ‘Take off! Take off me bum, or I’ll put you through the rail. Then I set down to riding and we won.”
“You remind Willie that he’s often quoted as saying that if he’d known what kind of horse Man o’ War would become, he’d have…let Loftus through.”
“Willie snorts with laughter: if I’d ever said a thing like that I must have been drinking or kidding some green-pea sports reporter. Hell, I rode great horses and I always rode to win. If I had it to do over, I’d do the same. I’d win.”**
Willie Knapp retired in 1919 when he was denied a jockey license by the Jockey Club. No reason was ever given for the decision. Knapp turned his hand to training. He saddled his old friend Exterminator for five stakes victories along with Upset Lad to win the 1929 Florida Derby and Three Rings, the winner of the 1950 Queens County Handicap.
Willie Knapp died in 1972 at age 84 after being struck by a car one evening. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1969.
*this c**t was named Departing Guest who made 81 starts with 18 wins 11 seconds 13 thirds earning $32,559.
** David Alexander. A Sound of Horses: The World of Racing From Eclipse to Kelso pp. 125-126.
