Anthony DeSpirito

Who was Anthony DeSpirito?

Anthony "Tony" DeSpirito was a champion American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey who found instant fame when he won the national riding title in 1952 as an apprentice in his first full year of racing.

Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Tony DeSpirito was the son of a millworker. He left school at an early age to work as an exercise rider at Rockingham Park in Salem, New Hampshire. There are conflicting newspaper reports of his birth year but the United States Social Security Death Index records him as being born in 1935. DeSpirito rode his first race as an apprentice jockey in 1951 at Narragansett Race Track in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.