FLEER, Texas, Nov. 27 Bill Hartack, who won the Kentucky Derby five times and rode 4,272 winners in a 21-year career as a jockey, has died. He was 74.
Hartack died Monday at a hunting cabin near Freer, Texas, the Web site of the Daily Racing Form reported. It was suspected that Hartack died of a heart attack.
Hartack was inducted into horse racing's Hall of Fame at the age of 27 in 1959. By then he had led the nation in winners in 1955-57. He turned that trick again in 1960.
He twice won the first two legs of the Triple Crown, taking Northern Dancer to wins at the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in 1964 and riding Majestic to wins in the races in 1969.
He also had Kentucky Derby wins with Iron Liege in 1957, Venetian Way in 1960 and Decidedly in 1962. He took the 1956 Preakness atop Fabius and the 1960 Belmont Stakes aboard Celtic Ash.
"I'd rank him up there right at the top with the best," trainer Dave Kassen, who rode against Hartack, told the Louisville Courier-Journal. "In my opinion, he was every bit as good as (Eddie) Arcaro."
Arcaro was the only other jockey to have won the Kentucky Derby five times.
Hartack raced from 1953 to 1974, winning 4,272 races in 21,535 rides.
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