Bowling Green's Frank Smothers, a World War II and Korean War veteran, turned 90 last month shortly before the start of another year serving as the jockeys' room custodian at Kentucky Downs in Franklin. Smothers plans to resume his duties again next year when live racing returns to the facility. (Reed Palmer Photography/Kentucky Downs)

Frank Smothers first set foot in the jock’s room at a race track as a teenager back in 1943, and in many ways the 90-year-old veteran of two wars has never really left the sport.

Smothers, who turned 90 just before the start of last month’s meet at Kentucky Downs in Franklin, just logged another year as that track’s jockeys’ room custodian as Kentucky’s oldest racing official. He plans to be back again next year, too.

“Every year they say, ‘Are you coming back next year?’,” Smothers said. “I’d say, ‘If the good Lord’s willing, I’ll be here.’

“… I’ve earned a reputation of being an honest, fair, get-along person. That’s why every owner has asked me if I’m coming back.”

Smothers, of Bowling Green, has been the jockeys’ room custodian at Kentucky Downs since 1993. Before that, he spent three decades in the same capacity on the southern California horse racing circuit at tracks including Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, Del Mar and Pomona.

“My job is making sure the jocks are there on time, the valets go out and saddle the horses on time, and they get down to the finish line and unsaddle them on time and get back to the jock’s room. And the jocks, they’ve got to check in with the clerk of scales for the next race.

“I mean, it’s a routine that every minute you don’t just stop and piddle. You get with it.”

Smothers got into horse racing as a teen. First he tried to enlist in the United States Navy by fudging his age by a year, but the 15-year-old was sent home as too small and too light to serve. Almost immediately after, Smothers – who grew up on a cattle farm in Washington state – was offered a chance to train as a jockey.

He was riding by the end of 1943, but not for long. Drafted into the U.S. Army in late 1944, Smothers served as a combat engineer in the Pacific Theater in the Philippines, Okinawa and in postwar Korea. He stayed on in the reserves after his return stateside in 1946, and went right back to the track.

Called up again just a week after the outbreak of the Korean War, Smothers again saw military service overseas before returning to horse racing for good. But having contracted malaria during his military service, Smothers found it more difficult than ever to manage his weight.

“Reducing with malaria is a tough thing to do,” Smothers said. “Because you get so weak, that malaria hits you right in the gut. You can’t do no riding, you can’t hardly exercise horses in the morning.”

Smothers stayed with it, riding everything from thoroughbreds to quarter horses in races across the country. He finally quit riding in 1960, but was hanging around the old Tanforan Racetrack in San Francisco in 1962 contemplating a comeback when an old friend offered another option.

“He said come over the the jock’s room. I’ve got a job for you that will pay you more than if you were trying to ride,” Smothers said. “And I wasn’t there half a day and I got the job. I became custodian of the racing silks, and that was it. I had that job for 30 years.”

When Smothers retired in 1992, he and his late wife, Runelle, moved back to near her Glasgow hometown and settled in Bowling Green where their daughter, Rachelle, was a student at Western Kentucky.

Smothers heard that Dueling Grounds, the former name for Kentucky Downs, was holding live racing and approached Dr. Arnold Pessin, then the manager and a partner at the track, about getting back into the industry. Smothers knew Pessin already from his years in California.

“He said, ‘What are you doing here? I said, ‘Well, I’m retired and not doing much. But you’ve got a meet here that’s only six days and covers a couple weeks. You wouldn’t happen to need an old retired one, would you?’ “

Pessin said he had filled the staff for that year’s meet, but asked Smothers to come back the following year. That’s a tradition every owner has followed since Smothers returns season after season to oversee the jock’s room.

A familiar face, Smothers had already spent years working alongside legendary jockeys in California. He regularly played chess with five-time Kentucky Derby winner Bill Hartack. With Hall of Famer Bill Shoemaker, it was days and days of racehorse rummy. And with Jorge Velasquez, the jockey most famous for riding Alydar in three legendary Triple Crown races against Affirmed, the game was checkers.

“That’s the first thing when he would come popping through the door at the jock’s room at Santa Anita or Hollywood or wherever the stakes race that he would come for, he’s say, ‘Frank, get the checker board,’ ” Smothers said. “When I moved back here, the first time I saw him I said, ‘Ah, I’ve got a checkerboard but we ain’t got no time to play.’ “

Smothers, affectionately known as “Sarge” in part due to his former Army rank but mostly his demeanor, takes his job seriously at Kentucky Downs.

Every morning on race day, Smothers arrives early at the track to make sure the racing board is fixed in the jockeys’ room so that the valets will know which horses they will be saddling and the jockeys know which races they’ll be riding that day and what the weight limits are for that race. From there, Smothers has to constantly be on watch to make certain that those valets and jockeys are where they’re supposed to be, doing what they need to do at the time it has to happen to keep the racing card on schedule.

“I do my job, but I don’t let my authority be the boss,” Smothers said. “Me, I’m the boss. And if you guys do right, you won’t even know I’m around you. But if you don’t do right, your rear end is mud. And they all know it.”