Shoemaker Vows To Make Recovery Shows Tenacity In Battle To Rid Himself Of Wheelchair

Bill Shoemaker, piloting his computerized wheelchair with puffs of breath, glides over the dusty straw of barn No. 50, checking the horses in his care.

As he has almost daily for nearly 50 years, Shoemaker awoke before dawn and came to the racetrack.

A Dodgers cap, white athletic shoes and gray scarf part of his sporty outfit, he guides his wheelchair to an area overlooking the backstretch at Hollywood Park. He watches with a studied eye as one of his horses works.

These are everyday tasks for a trainer, but for Shoemaker they are triumphs in many ways more inspiring than his 8,833 wins, four Kentucky Derby victories, and all the other records he set as thoroughbred racing’s greatest rider.

His love of horses, the track atmosphere and the give-and-take with trainers and jockeys hasn’t diminished with time.

“I know I better get up and do something,” Shoemaker said. “It’s a good life here.”

Shoemaker, whose accomplishments in his sport put him in a class with athletes like Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan, couldn’t even breathe on his own five years ago.

Paralyzed from the neck down by a car accident on April 8, 1991, his chances for anything approaching a normal life seemed remote.

But there he was at his barn earlier this week, eyes gleaming as he spun stories and laughed.

“He’s still his same old self,” said jockey Laffit Pincay Jr., who at his present pace would surpass Shoemaker’s all-time wins record around the year 2000. “He comes out, works, watches the races, jokes with the guys.

“I ride for him once in a while, and he doesn’t say much. He knows what happens out there, and he lets you make the judgments.”

Shoemaker, who rode in his first race in 1949 and continued for 41 years before retiring in 1990 to become a trainer, works with 20 horses now. Among the most successful have been multiple stakes winners Glen Kate, Diazo and Fire The Groom.

Shoemaker’s spirit is the same as always, although his body isn’t able to do much. And he’s doggedly determined to change that.

He can move his head, his shoulders slightly and, recently, his hands a little bit.

The 4-foot-11, 95-pound Shoemaker, who weighed about 2 pounds when he was born prematurely on Aug. 9, 1931, and wasn’t expected to live through the night, obviously was born with considerable fight in him.

“I guess that’s just always been my makeup,” he said, smiling.

Recalling the weeks following the accident in which the sport vehicle he was driving overturned, Shoemaker said it never occurred to him for a minute that he wouldn’t be able to still lead an active life.

And inspired by the activities of “Superman” star Christopher Reeve, the actor who was left a quadriplegic last year when a horse threw him, Shoemaker said he intends to get involved in helping raise money for research of spinal cord injuries.

“They’re getting closer and closer to solving spinal-cord injuries, and I believe they will,” he said.

After the accident, Shoemaker made a slow, but steady climb back.

“I was on a respirator at first, and then I started to go off it for a minute and a half, then 3 minutes the next day, then 5, then finally I was able to kick the machine,” said Shoemaker, who was able to breathe normally a few months after the accident.

Shoemaker, who’ll be honored today when the $700,000 Shoemaker Breeders’ Cup Mile is run at Hollywood Park, requires 24-hours-a-day care and employs two attendants. Recently divorced, Shoemaker also is looked after by daughter Amanda, who turns 16 this month and lives with him in his San Marino home, near Santa Anita.