Ted Atkinson

Ted Atkinson was a Canadian-born American Thoroughbred jockey, born Theodore Frederick Atkinson in Toronto on 17 June 1916 and raised in upstate New York. He began racing in 1938 and was noticed nationally in 1941 when he rode War Relic to an upset of the Triple Crown winner Whirlaway. For twelve of his twenty-one years in the sport he was the contract rider for the Greentree Stable of the Whitney family, and in 1944 and 1946 he led North America in both wins and earnings, becoming the first rider to earn more than one million dollars in a season. Riding Capot in 1949 he was second in the Kentucky Derby and won the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, and he rode all ten wins of the unbeaten Tom Fool in 1953. He retired in 1959 and served as an Illinois state steward.