NTWA | National Turf Writers Association

NTWA HONOREES

Walter Haight Award - For Excellence in Turf Writing

2007 Honoree - Dick Jerardi (Philadelphia Daily News)
by Jay Privman

This will be a momentous night. Not only because Dick Jerardi will, at long last, be receiving the Walter Haight Award for his distinguished, award-filled career as a Turf writer, but because Jerardi may actually put on a tie.

It’s a big deal. Jerardi doesn’t put on a tie for just anyone or anything. Oh, he’ll wear one for his occasional appearances on ESPN, but once taping wraps, the tie comes off faster than a porn star’s clothes. At the first Kentucky Derby he covered, in 1984, Jerardi wore a windbreaker on Derby day. I know. I sat next to him.

You see, when it comes to what Jerardi views as anything but the core, he simply does not care. He doesn’t care about his wardrobe, even after his paper used him as a foil years ago for a personal makeover. He doesn’t care what people think of him, even though racing journalists think quite highly of him, as evidenced by him receiving the Haight Award, which is voted on by his peers.

What he does care about, though, is getting it right. Through a combination of tireless reporting, an easygoing interviewing manner that both disarms his subjects and gets them to open up, and a gifted writing style, Jerardi has crafted some of the sport’s best stories for more than two decades, most recently for the Philadelphia Daily News, for whom he has worked since 1985. Jerardi has won an Eclipse Award, a David Woods Award for the best story on the Preakness Stakes, twice has won writing awards for his Breeders’ Cup coverage, and five times has been honored with a Red Smith Award for his work on the Kentucky Derby.

Jerardi has been racing’s Zelig. Even though he does not work in the racing hotbeds of California, New York, or Kentucky, there have been plenty of meaty subjects for Jerardi to chronicle. He was there for the rise and subsequent fall of both Garden State Park and owner Bob Brennan. He was the first to recognize eventual Kentucky Derby winner Spend a Buck as more than a regional phenom, and was right alongside owner Bob Levy for Bet Twice’s memorable Triple Crown battles with Alysheba in 1987.

Most recently, Jerardi has hit a reporter’s goldmine. In successive years, Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, and Barbaro came out of the Delaware Valley to become national stories. Because Jerardi had ingratiated himself with the connections of those horses early on, he invariably was lengths ahead of his peers when there was news to break.

Jerardi’s penchant for being in a newsworthy place dates back to 1972. While many of us might have hazy memories of the first Olympic men’s basketball loss by the United States, in the disputed gold medal game against the Soviet Union at the Munich games, Jerardi has a searing memory of it, because he was there, right behind the basket where Doug Collins made two free throws to put the U.S. up, 50-49, with seconds remaining. Minutes later, after twice missing shots but getting controversial reprieves from the referees, the Soviets won on a buzzer-beating shot by Aleksander Belov.

Jerardi did not have the traditional career path to the press box. He received a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, but Jerardi said that during college, “I majored in poker, and minored in journalism.” He was a professional horseplayer for many years. In 1978, convinced that Affirmed was a cinch in the Kentucky Derby, Jerardi flew from his hometown of Baltimore to Louisville the night before the race, slept in Standiford Field—“I wasn’t the only one there,” he said—and cashed big time the next day.

“I had to go,” Jerardi said. “This was in the days before simulcasting.”

A few months later, he met the woman who would become his wife. On their first date, Jerardi took Karen to Timonium.

“It seemed like the logical place to go to indoctrinate her,” Jerardi said. “I wanted to let her know what was going on, so there would be no confusion.”

That suave move worked. They’ve been together ever since, and have two sons: Brian, 25, and Michael 21.

Jerardi first started writing on a free-lance basis for the Baltimore News American in 1979. He was on his honeymoon in Florida, and wrote a story from Gulfstream Park. Subsequent stories, like on Desert Wine’s predicament over receiving Lasix for the 1982 Preakness, got him more notice. In 1984, a start-up paper in Baltimore called Sports First hired Jerardi to be its racing writer.

“With a young son, it was time to get a real job,” he said.

A year later, Jerardi landed his job with the Philadelphia Daily News, which was looking to expand its racing coverage because of the imminent opening of the new Garden State Park.

“The job does not happen if the racetrack does not open,” Jerardi said.

Garden State is gone, but Jerardi has gone on. He has covered every Kentucky Derby since 1987, and every Breeders’ Cup except for the first one, in 1984.

Jerardi has plenty to keep him busy. In addition to covering racing for the Philadelphia Daily News, he also writes a bi-monthly column on handicapping for Daily Racing Form, and is one of the partners—along with respected journalists like Andy Beyer and Randy Moss—who make the Beyer Speed Figures that now appear exclusively in Daily Racing Form after first being available through Bloodstock Research Information Systems and then late, lamented The Racing Times.

On television, Jerardi is best known nationally for his handicapping during occasional appearances on ESPN, most notably his advice before the 2005 Kentucky Derby to “remember the Giacomo.” He also, for nearly 20 years, has been co-host, along with track announcer Keith Jones, of the weekly show “Let’s Go Racing,” which is taped at Philadelphia Park, just 15 minutes from Jerardi’s home in Yardley, Pennsylvania. Jerardi also appears weekly on Comcast’s sports show “Daily News Live.”

And for nearly 20 years, he has done radio work on Philadelphia station WIP.

His expertise is not confined to racing. Jerardi is the lead college basketball writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, which focuses on the Big 5 teams in Philadelphia, including St. Joseph’s University, which went to the Elite Eight of the 2004 NCAA men’s college basketball tournament with NCAA Player of the Year Jameer Nelson, now with the Orlando Magic.

Jerardi has also covered the Olympics, National Football League playoffs, and National Basketball Association Finals.

It is racing, though, where he has made his greatest mark. Whether writing, making speed figures, gambling, or talking about the sport on radio or television, his opinion is both valued and respected. His peers, by virtue of recognizing him with the Haight Award, know it’s always nice hearing from Dick Jerardi.