Davidson, jockey of Shuvee, dies at 69

Jan 19th, 10
Jesse Davidson, the nation’s leading jockey in 1965 and rider of Shuvee when she captured the New York Filly Triple Crown in ’69, died on Saturday. He was 69.

Davidson won 3,035 races but was clouded by a conviction of fixing a race with three other jockeys at Bowie Race Course in 1975. He served a 4 ˝-month prison sentence and was suspended by the Maryland Racing Commission for five years. A judge reinstated his jockey license in 1985.

Davidson maintained his innocence and declined to talk about the Bowie incident in a Baltimore Sun story in 2003.

“That’s a chapter of my life I’d rather just forget about,” he said. “It’s out of my mind. I don’t talk about it to anybody.”

In 1988, Davidson suffered a career-ending injury in a spill at Laurel Park, injuring his kidneys when he fell into a post supporting the inside rail. He underwent four years of dialysis and eventually received a kidney donated by his sister.

Davidson stayed away from the racetrack until his grandsons, Brandon and Grant Whitacre, began their jockey careers in Maryland. Davidson’s wife, Nancy, worked in admissions for the Maryland Jockey Club.

A native of Manchester, Kentucky, Davidson began riding in 1957 and was a perennial leader at Charles Town and Shenandoah Downs in the 1960s. He piloted 319 winners in 1965 to win the national title.

Davidson rode Shuvee for most of her two- and three-year-old seasons for trainer Willard Freeman and Virginia owners and breeders Whitney and Anne Stone. He was aboard for her first stakes win in the 1968 Frizette Stakes and for the Filly Triple Crown wins in the 1969 Acorn Stakes, Mother Goose Stakes, and Coaching Club American Oaks as well as victories in the Alabama Stakes and Ladies Handicap.

 “His numbers were always good at Charles Town, Shenandoah Downs and the half-mile tracks in Maryland,” said Phil Grove, a steward for the Maryland Jockey Club who rode alongside Davidson. “He was very popular with the trainers and knew how to win at those tracks. Jesse was prone to accidents and got hurt many times during his career. He was a good race rider and he passed those skills along to Grant, a good heady rider who is really developing.”

Visiting hours are Monday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. EST at Slack Funeral Home in Ellicott City, Maryland, and the funeral will be there on Tuesday at 10 a.m.

Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times writer