Not Dead Yet: Ralph Neeves Comes Back to Life

On May eighth, nineteen thirty six, jockey Ralph Knaves was thrown from his horse and hit his head on a railing and was pronounced dead on the track, but just hours later woke up at the hospital. Here's a story behind how Ralph came back to life after dying on the track. Today on Daily Sports History. Before we tackle today's episode, let's take a brief time out and talk about Sports Social Pro. If your sports social media game is about as coordinated as a three legged race, fear not. We're here to help your online presence from bench warmer to MP skip the social media stress and score big with us at Social Media Pro. Learn all you need to know at Daily sportshistory dot com slash social. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day now. Ralph Knaves was born in Massachusetts. We would eventually move with his family to California, which gave him the opportunities that he may have never gotten before. The son of Portuguese immigrants. He would move to California when he was five, and by thirteen, he would be lying about his age to get odd jobs to help his family out. He always said he was too hungry and too nervous to steal, so any odd job he could get he would. And then one day a casting agent for a movie noticed he looked a lot like the actor Frank Dario, who was known for his roles in adventure, adventure and westerns, and also was the voice of lam Wick in Disney's Pinocchio. But because of the resemblance, they asked him to help be a stunt double for Frankie in his upcome movie Broadway Bill, where he played a jockey. And even though he didn't know how to ride, Ralph said he did, and he learned, and he decided to drop out of school to start earning money. And as a stunt double he would get paid ten dollars a day, and he got paid fifty dollars more every time he fell off a horse, and one time the director needed four takes, so he got two hundred extra dollars that day. But he took this journey of learning how to ride and be a pretend jockey to actually becoming a real jockey, and he won his first race a year later and signed a contract for fifteen dollars a month for three years with a five dollars a month raise after the first year, and later on he would be picked up by the owner of Sea Biscuit, Charles Howard, and given two hundred dollars a month for two years. And Ralph was known as an aggressive rider. He didn't have a whole lot of technique, but he had a lot of grit and wouldn't give up and would ride the horses hard and the jockeys he faced off against. Multiple times he would be suspended for careless riding, which is usually for allowing your horse to cut off other horses paths, riding too close to other horses, failing to maneuver your horse for a clear run, and impeding other runners, something that he was frequently known for as he was very cocky and confident and didn't care and did whatever it needed, whatever was needed to win. And in nineteen thirty six, the Bay Meadows had a famous patron, Bing Crosbie, and he was offering a five hundred dollars watch to whichever jockey had the most points at the end of the season, and by May eighth, with the season only two days away from being over, Ralph was leading and excited for his chance to meet Ben Crosby and get his watch. But this faithful day would change everything for Ralph. In the third race that day, he was mounted on a horse named Flink and they started the race out of the gate without incident, but as the race unfolded, something went wrong and Flankln's got spooked and bucked Ralph off of her, and while he was falling, he hit his head on the inside railing of the track crumbled to the ground, unconscious as the field ran around him. The track physician J. A. Warburton was the first on the scene, checking Ralph's pulse and shook his head while looking down, signifying that the young jockey was dead at only the age of nineteen. He called for a stretcher for them to carry him off the track. The tracker announcer announced over the pa that Jocky Ralph Knaves was dead and asked to stand in a moment of silent prayer. They loaded Ralph's body into the back of a pickup, taking him to the nearest hospital. As in those days there were no ambulances, and when Ralph arrived at the hospital, he had ripped pants and only one boot, tagged like a dead body, but one of Ralph's friends, doctor Horace Stevens, saw a flicker in Ralph's eyelids and gave him a shot of adrenaline into his heart, and Ralph eyes popped open and woke up as he was disoriented because the only thing he remembered was the horse was stumbling and he was falling back, and that's the only thing he could remember from before. But he also remembered if he didn't finish out his races, he may not get that watch from being crosby, So he immediately left the hospital, despite doctors and nurses trying to stop him, and got in a taxi to make his way back to the track, and he showed back up with only one boot in his bloody jockey uniform in front of all the other jockeys and twenty thousand people in the crowd saw him run out to the track to try to get on to his next mount, but officials at the race would not let him finish out the day as they didn't think it would be safe as they thought he was dead just hours earlier. In the newspapers headlines the next day as Naves called dead in a fall, denies it, but the next day. It allowed Ralph to ride a full slate of mounts. Although he did not win any of those mounts, he finished in the money each race, which allowed him to hold his position to win the season for the track and meet bing Crosby to get his five hundred dollars watch. Now, this moment was arguably the craziest moment in jockey history what made Ralph famous. But he continued his career and even served in the cavalry in World War II, where he actually sustained even more injuries and broke his back while riding his horse, and in nineteen fifty nine he would fall again in a race and need brain surgery. Despite all these injuries that he occurred throughout his career, he was able to win over four thousand races at a fifteen percent winning percentage and was voted in nineteen sixty to the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame, and in nineteen sixty four he would eventually retire with the nickname the Prince of Broken Bones, given to him after all his injuries and him continuously breaking bones due to his style of writing. Despite coming back from the dead one time before in nineteen ninety five, was sadly when Ralph actually passed away after battling cancer for multiple years, but he'll always be remembered as a great hard writer and is the only jockey in history to be cleared dead and return to write again. Now, Ralph Knaves really shows us what having a goal can do in motivating you. He wanted that watch so bad that he actually ran from the hospital onto the field despite everyone's advice to try to reach his goal of winning that watch and meeting Big Crosby. And sometimes we just need that goal to drive us, just like it did Ralph. And my goal for you is to go share this episode with a friend, hitting that little share button wherever your listen, and come back tomorrow for more daily sports history. H