Burley Cocks: A trainer of horses and horsemen
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Almost exactly 30 years ago, Thoroughbred Times Editor Mark Simon launched an ambitious book project that would profile the leading trainers of the second half of the 20th century. Don Clippinger, by then the former editor of the Thoroughbred Record, was given the assignment of editing the book and wrote the profile of W. Burling Cocks. Now the National Steeplechase Association’s communications director, Clippinger knew Cocks well from his time at the Philadelphia Inquirer and spent several days with him at Hermitage Farm in Unionville, Pa., in the summer of 1990. For a number of reasons, the book never was published, but condensations of several chapters appeared in the pages of Thoroughbred Times in the 1990s. Burley Cocks retired in 1993 and died at Hermitage on Feb. 8, 1998 at the age of 82. Barbara “Babs” Cocks died on Nov. 26, 2015 at the age of 96.
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The Belmont Park racing fan, in his early 30s and thus a bit younger than the average patron on a midweek afternoon in October of 1982, paused before a large-screen television on his way to cash his tickets. A few moments earlier, on one of those glorious autumn afternoons at Long Island's western edge, Zaccio had humbled four rivals in the 59th running of the Temple Gwathmey Steeplechase Handicap. Ridden by young Ricky Hendriks, the two-time Eclipse Award champion had spotted his opponents--including two other stakes winners--a minimum of 13 pounds and still blew them off with ease, winning by 3 1/4 lengths.
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The 1982 "American Steeplechasing" says "Zaccio never looked better than at Belmont Park, October 8, where he captured the Temple Gwathmey with Ricky Hendriks aboard."
D'Orio photo
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In Belmont's winner's circle, Mrs. Madeleine Huntington Murdock, better known as Bunny, had accepted the Temple Gwathmey Cup, entrusted to the winning owner for a year. At her side was W. Burling Cocks, arguably the best-respected and best-liked trainer of steeplechase horses in the last half of the 20th century and the person who had selected the *Lorenzaccio gelding as a yearling. It was Cocks—at the time, a steeplechase horseman for half a century—who had developed Zaccio into a three-time champion and who had nursed him back from accident and injury.
The trophy presentation was completed, and the race patron knew he would be cashing some relatively small tickets. Zaccio had gone off as the prohibitive 3-to-5 favorite, and the $2 win mutuel was worth only $3.20. Still, the patron expressed no dissatisfaction as he paused on Belmont's first-floor grandstand and watched as Zaccio cruised to the lead and then suddenly burst away from his opponents in the stretch. The patron smiled as he turned to go collect his 60 cents on the dollar. "It's like a gift," he said to no one in particular.
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Indeed it was a gift, a commanding performance by a champion at the top of his game. But Zaccio's Temple Gwathmey victory, as well as many others, represented gifts of a different kind. To be sure, Zaccio was a talented racehorse, the best one that Burley Cocks ever trained, and he was installed in Thoroughbred racing's Hall of Fame in 1990. But the most notable gift is the one that Cocks has for training horses. It is a gift that he has nurtured through seven different decades, starting on a bleak day in 1932 when he rode his first race (and was disqualified) and continuing into the century's final decade.
He has won just about every American steeplechase race that is worth winning, and he preceded Zaccio into the Hall of Fame by five years. He has collected other awards, however, that speak more about the man's character than his talents with horses. He received steeplechasing's F. Ambrose Clark Award in 1973 for his contributions to the sport and the New York Turf Writers Association's award for outstanding contributions to racing in 1982. In addition, he was honored with South Carolina's Palmetto Award, with which the state's governor designated him a "Palmetto Gentleman," in 1985. Although he is based most of the year in Unionville, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles west of Philadelphia, he has spent each winter in South Carolina since the 1940s.
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Burley Cocks
Photo courtesy of Barbara Vannote
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Those awards have been bestowed upon the mild-mannered Cocks not so much for the excellent horses that he has sent out from his Hermitage Farm, but for the top horsemen who have departed its gates and made their marks both over fences and on the main track. As much as he is a trainer of horses, his legacy most certainly will be that he has been an exemplary trainer of other horsemen. The dedication of his F. Ambrose Clark Award, noted in the 1973 edition of Steeplechasing in America, identified many who had come under his influence.
"While Burley has conditioned many top jumpers and encouraged a multitude of owners to test the waters of the infield sport, his greatest contribution to the world of steeplechasing is the way he has taught and encouraged a series of young men to follow in his footsteps, first as riders and eventually as trainers. Such men as Charlie Cushman, `Mike' Freeman, Ronnie Houghton, Doug Small Jr., Jonathan Sheppard, and Mike Smithwick are typical of those who passed through the Cocks `school.' Each has achieved a measure of success that speaks volumes for the value of the Cocks influence."
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Burley Cocks and Jonathan Sheppard in the paddock at Rolling Rock in 1980.
Douglas Lees photo
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Although some of those names are not known widely outside of the steeplechase world, they contain two Hall of Fame trainers in Smithwick and Sheppard, and Freeman trained the great Shuvee, a member of racing's Hall of Fame.
The list was not meant to be in any way complete, though, and among those omitted were Louis C. `Paddy' Neilson III and Charles C. Fenwick Jr., both champion jockeys over timber fences who now train steeplechase horses, particularly for the post-and-rail races. Neilson, who walked away from a career as a bond broker to train full-time in 1987, both trained and rode the 1989 Maryland Hunt Cup winner, Uncle Merlin. Fenwick, who trained Dogwood Stable's steeplechase horses into the 1990s—including 1987 champion Inlander (GB)—rode Ben Nevis II to a victory in the 1980 Grand National at Aintree, England.
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The 1973 listing also passed over a former Cocks rider and assistant trainer who had overseen the operation's younger horses. When William H. Turner Jr. was ready to go on his own in 1966, Cocks put him together with the Hickory Tree Stable of clients James and Alice Mills. Subsequently, Billy Turner would hook up with Tayhill Stable and a rocket ship named Seattle Slew. Under Turner's painstaking care, Slew became the first undefeated Triple Crown winner in 1977.
The Cocks `school' did not let out after this group of horsemen. Among the more recent graduates is Thomas Skiffington, a champion steeplechase jockey who has developed into one of New York's leading trainers while concentrating on grass horses. Hendriks, who rode into the 1990s, was to follow Skiffington to New York.
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Tommy Skiffington,
riding for Burley Cocks
and the Valentines.
Douglas Lees photo
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As noted by Charles T. Colgan, executive vice president of the National Steeplechase Association, Cocks "was always willing to give them more than a leg up on a horse." Indeed he was. "He imparted his knowledge willingly," Neilson said. "He's had a very positive impact on everyone who has been fortunate enough to come in contact with him."
He also gave to his students a part of himself, something that only can be described as character. "One of the things he imparted to us was to be a gentleman and a sportsman," Neilson said. "He taught us that the horse and the sport were more important than the monetary rewards."
Certainly, both "gentleman" and "sportsman" ably describe Burley Cocks. But the grandfatherly appearance and the soft voice can be deceiving. Deep inside is the spirit of a true competitor—one who possesses sufficient commitment to earn a plaque on the wall at the National Museum of Racing in Saratoga Springs, New York. "Beneath that quiet exterior lies the heart of a lion, but a very nice lion," Neilson said.
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Nature or nurture?
A bit of both?
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Ricky Hendriks gives a nod to Hall of Fame conditioner Burley Cocks for his tools for training.
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Ricky Hendriks calls Hall of Fame trainer Burley Cocks a master of his trade, someone he admired and learned from. Today, Hendriks figures a lot of what he learned at Cocks’
Hermitage Farm
is helping him make his own training operation a success.
“Mr. Cocks had this amazing ability,” with horses as well as with people, Hendriks maintains. “One thing he could do – he could look at a horse’s leg. Not touch them, just look – from outside the stall, from sitting in his truck, and tell if there was an issue.
“I don’t know if it was intuition, or his eyesight, or something else, but he would say to a groom or a rider, ‘hey, I think that horse has some heat in that tendon,’ or ‘there’s a little swelling just come up,’ and, sure enough, you’d go and feel the leg, and he was right.”
Hendriks is one in a long line of horsemen to graduate from under Cocks. Their careers bisected at just the right time to serve both: Cocks trained 1945-1993, the five-time leading trainer conditioning winners of more than $4.5 million. He died at 82 in 1998.
Hendriks’ race riding career overlapped Cocks’ training career: he rode 1980-1990, taking his first ride for Cocks in 1981 and getting his “big break,” he says, with the mount on eventual Hall of Fame hurdler Zaccio in 1982. Their best season was 1986: Hendriks won champion jockey, the same year Cocks broke the trainers’ title streak of Jonathan Sheppard, another former assistant and star pupil.
Hendriks took up training in 1991, and to date has $5.7 million in earnings.
“Mr. Cocks was very humble,” Hendriks says. “He wouldn’t talk at you and tell you everything, but he’d sure tell you if you asked. Mostly, you learned from watching him, seeing how he’d choose his spots for the horses, how he’d make sure a maiden was ready to win when he entered him. None of that was by accident.
“His ability was almost magic.”
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Ricky Hendriks and Burley Cocks in September of 1989.
Douglas Lees photo
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Hendriks, 56, first went to work for Cocks way back when he was 15. “I’d drive my parents’ pickup through the back field to get to Hermitage,” Hendriks recalls skirting the law – not old enough for a drivers’ license – by staying off the county roads south of Unionville where his parents’ farm and Cocks’ Hermitage Farm abutted. Hendriks was coming off a dominating pony race career – partner to the almost unbeatable Red Raven and Twin Nora. His father, trainer Dick Hendriks, encouraged him to tap the neighbor’s knowledge.
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Ricky Hendriks (left) and Bernie Houghton battle in a pony race at the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup Races in 1975.
Ricky rode Dom Falini's Winky, a legend in Unionville for both his racing prowess and his foxhunting ability. Bernie rode Neighbourhood Gossip. Ricky and Winky won the race.
Douglas Lees photo
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“I got the ride on Beauhill for him that next spring at Fair Hill (May, 1981.) The horse got in real light in the starter handicap,” so Cocks decided to give the 7-pound bug rider a chance, Hendriks says. Cocks legged him up on Betty Moran’s Irish-bred; riding to orders, Hendriks controlled the pace from mid-race and won by nine.
Hendriks honed his homestretch skills working for Paul Fout the next summer at Delaware Park. “Mr. Fout was really good,” he recalls. “He helped me with my finish (style.) I’d recommend that to any young riders coming along these days – go work at the flat track for a season.”
So he was primed for the big break that came in August. Hendriks was at Saratoga working for Frank Whiteley – of Ruffian fame. He’d school ’chasers after morning training hours, and the young rider got a few pick-up mounts for Skip Brittle, Leo O’Brien and Jonathan Sheppard.
The 1982 Turf Writers was the mother of all pick-up rides.
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Cocks’ first-call, Gregg Morris was making a sharp move with Betty Lanahan’s Sugar Bee in the Aug. 26 allowance hurdle, fourth race on the card. Sugar Bee had collared leader Netherby at the last but stumbled on landing, unseating Morris.
Hendriks, a dozen lengths back with the Sheppard-trained Useful Information, was able to avoid the mess at the last and finished second. Morris broke his arm in the spill, leaving dual-champion Zaccio open in the Turf Writers.
Cocks sought out Hendriks in the jocks’ room to take the mount in the eighth race, the day’s feature. The young rider who’d begun the summer with a 5-pound allowance, and the veteran champ were a match made in heaven: Zaccio put on a jumping clinic in the 2 3/8-mile Turf Writers, overtaking early leader Running Comment on the top turn and holding off the determined Give A Whirl by a neck at the wire.
(watch the finish
here
)
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“Best jumper I ever sat on,” Hendriks says of Zaccio. By year’s end, his BMW sported a vanity license tag – ZACCIO.
Hendriks kept the ride, returning six weeks later to win the Temple Gwathmey at Belmont and sealing Zaccio’s third-straight NSA championship.
“Mr. Cocks said ‘I guess you better come work for me’,” Hendriks recalls the announcement he figures kickstarted his career. “He was a man of few words.”
In the shedrow, on the training track, in the schooling field and on the racecourse, Hendriks says Cocks was generous with his knowledge, never one to “coach” his staff, but instead allowing them to learn by doing, hands-on assistants in the longest-lived informal steeplechase school in the nation.
“When Mr. Cocks entered a horse to run, he was ready to win. They never ‘needed a race’,” Hendriks listed a few of the lessons he gleaned from the master. “We schooled a lot at the farm, fast, in company. He’d put a watch on you. He wanted it fast.”
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Ricky Hendriks and Burley Cocks at the trophy presentation for the 1982 Colonial Cup, won by Zaccio.
Chronicle Independent photo
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Cocks started young horses on the schooling playground at Springdale in Camden, South Carolina. There were schooling fields filled with inviting logs and baby hurdles, National fence rolls, full hurdles and a variety of stuffed brush. A great place for a horse to learn by doing, Hendriks says.
During winter training, Hendriks tried to replicate Cocks’ amazing ability to spot leg issues. “He never wore glasses, even,” Hendriks says. “I guess it was intuitive. I’ve tried to train myself to do it.
Cocks kept a training board in the tackroom, something Hendriks does, too. Cocks used a chalkboard; Hendriks uses a dry-erase board. Like Cocks, Hendriks transfers daily training information to a notebook. “The more horses you have, the better records you keep,” Hendriks says. “I learned to do night checks from him, too. He’d never say anything about it, but I know he’d go down there after everything was done. That was his quiet way of doing things.
“I was thinking about it the other day when I was in the barn – a lot of what I do was because of what he did. I like the thought of carrying it on for him.”
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Ricky Hendriks, riding for Burley Cocks and the Valentines, at the Virginia Fall Races.
Douglas Lees photo
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