The Redcoat Leader: Herald of the Post Parade

The outrider is an important functionary at any racetrack, and especially so at the oldest of them all, Saratoga. These mounted officials are tasked with ensuring the safety of thoroughbred horses and their jockeys, who assist in leading the entries from the paddock to the starting post, and quickly responding to catch a loose horse.

In Saratoga’s storied past, an outrider named Alexander Murray was part of the coterie that arrived each summer to conduct racing at the Spa. He was from Hamilton, Ontario and had spent part of his youth in England where horses and riding were a large part of his development. He won his first race on the local track at age 14, leading to a professional career, as both an exercise rider and jockey.

Young Murray displayed a distinct empathy for the horse, and developed a specialty in galloping bad-tempered horses in the mornings, skittish juveniles and moody fillies and mares. He realized as a youth that there is always a reason for a horse’s bad temper, and a cure for it, whether it be altering equipment or manner.

Jockey Murray’s riding opportunities came mostly on bush tracks and the wide range of county fairs that featured horse racing, and in Florida, New Orleans and Cuba during the winter. He would frequently travel between tracks on a bicycle, keeping jockey fit along the way. A nagging riding injury in 1916 forced him to appeal to management at New Orleans to let him lead the two-year-olds to the post, and he did so well that he was asked to also handle the sulky and savage horses as well.

Famous London tailor Thomas Pinque designed a garment to be worn by mounted hunters, which is still referred to as “riding pinks” even though this style coat is scarlet in color, and reserved for the master of the fox hounds. Mr. Murray adopted this classic frock coat along with a black velvet hunt-cap, white breeches and shiny boots when he was engaged by the Saratoga Association to be the herald of the post parade, and would become known henceforth by popular proclamation as “Redcoat” Murray.

When a nervous thoroughbred was uncomfortable having tack installed in the paddock, Redcoat Murray was summoned to bring his pony. This often times relaxed the balky horse, while he extended helpful advice and caused them to take a deep breath, as he had made an exhaustive study of bad-acting horses.

The wiry little chap in huntsman’s livery, who led the parade to the post would position himself fifteen yards beyond the starters, and further impressed fans with the way he could catch runaways, his horsemanship outdoing the best trick riding of rodeo stars. 

In the many decades before the conception of the Breeder’s Cup, the Belmont Futurity was an exclusive race that measured breeding quality and offered the largest purse in the nation. In the 1918 edition of this juvenile challenge, a chestnut colt Dunboyne broke away from the post twice, each time apprehended and returned by Redcoat Murray, eventually winning the race.

In 1925, though, he came out of retirement when Max Hirsch could find no jockey to properly handle Devastation. Murray won with him at New Orleans, the first time out, then went to Cuba to ride eight winners.

In Saratoga’s Green Island Stakes of 1929, a three-year-old named Seabright bolted during the parade, threw jockey Tony Pascuma to the turf, galloped past Redcoat Murray and raced two turns of the track before he was captured. Redcoat finally grabbed the blinkers, as the horse had lost his bridle, and brought the recalcitrant nag back down the stretch to the barrier.

In mid-August 1932, a two-year-old bay colt named Blarney Castle, carrying the purple and gold of Mrs. W. E. Martin, appeared particularly anxious to get going when he started for the post. He tossed Jockey Leischmann over his neck and roared out of the track via the Nelson Avenue gate. Redcoat Murray pursued the runaway up Nelson Avenue as far as Union Avenue, where he gave up the chase for the sake of those in their front yards, and pedestrians and motorists on the street, panicking at the clatter of horses’ hoofs. Redcoat cantered back to the track, and Blarney Castle may have been the only horse he failed to capture. The juvenile tired out and stopped on the Schuylerville Road, about five miles from the track.

Redcoat Murray would continue as an outrider at Saratoga and at the Metropolitan tracks into the 1940s, training his successor, Ken Force. A slipped saddle resulted in a fall at Aqueduct during September 1941, which convinced the Redcoat leader that this was a position for younger folks and it was his time to retire. He returned to Hamilton, where he passed away in 1953.

In 1939 Redcoat Murray told turf writer Frank Graham of the New York Sun, “There never was a man that loved horses more than I do. And I never saw a horse I couldn’t handle just by being nice.”