Arthur Pickens

Who was Arthur Pickens?

Arthur Pickens was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey who won the most prestigious race in both the United States and Canada.

Pickens began his career working as an exercise rider in 1906. Two years later, nineteen-year-old Arthur Pickens became the youngest jockey to ever win the Kentucky Derby when he rode named Stone Street to victory over Bashford Manor Stable's heavy favorite, Sir Cleges. His age record stood for seventy years until Steve Cauthen won the 1978 running. In 1916 Pickens won two of the three races that would later be part of the Canadian Triple Crown series. His wins came aboard distiller Joseph Seagram's colt Mandarin in the 1916 Breeders' Stakes and in Canada's most prestigious race, the King's Plate. That year he also won the Coronation Futurity Stakes for the Seagram Stable.

Among his other accomplishments in racing, on May 28, 1918 Arthur Pickens rode four winners at Prospect Park Fair Grounds on Coney Island, New York. In winters he road at Oriental Park Racetrack in Havana, Cuba where in 1924 he was one of the tracks top jockeys.

Arthur Pickens died at age 55 in Maysville, Kentucky where he and his wife Lillian Webster Pickens made their home. He is buried in the Maysville Cemetery. Following its formation in 1955, Pickens was inducted in the National Jockey's Hall of Fame at Pimlico Race Course.