Miami Herald Tribute to John “Aurora Flash” Oros

Posted on Tue, Apr. 21, 2009 John E. Oros | ‘Aurora Flash’ was leading jockey of 1939 BY BRUCE WEBER New York Times Service John E. Oros, who rode out of nowhere — well, actually Aurora, Ill. — to become for a time the nation’s leading jockey, died April 3 in Palm Harbor, Fla. He was 87 and lived in Palm Harbor. The cause was congestive heart failure, his son Thom said. In 1939, Oros was just 17 and in only his second year of professional racing when he overtook perhaps the most notorious jockey of the time, Don Meade, in number of victories to that point in the year. Meade, who won the 1933 Kentucky Derby on Brokers Tip, had been suspended for three years by the Florida Racing Commission for betting against his own mounts, He was reinstated in December 1938. In the first 15 weeks of 1939, Meade won 91 races at two prominent Florida tracks: Hialeah and Tropical Park. In the same period, Oros, who was 5 feet 2 inches tall and weight about 105 pounds, rode an astonishing 105 winners at Aurora Downs and other Chicago-area tracks, as well as at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans and at the race course in Bowie, Md. Time magazine noted the feat, comparing Oros to Meade as ”an obscure fellow-peewee” who had “quietly displaced him as the leading jockey of 1939.” And although Meade eventually passed him again, Oros rode a total of 966 races that year, winning 162 times and earning $162,676 in purses. Oros was born in Aurora on Dec. 5, 1921. His father, whose name was also John, helped run a grocery store and for a time worked in the coal mines of West Virginia. He sent money home from that job but also relied on other resources. Thom Oros said his grandfather’s success as a bookmaker and bootlegger led the family into racing. By the time young John (who adopted the middle initial E. to distinguish himself from his father and was sometimes called Johnny) was in his teens, the family owned a stable of horses. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade and rode his first winner, a horse named Miss Balko, at the Aurora track in 1938. His riding career lasted until 1946 but was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in the Army in the Philippines. In addition to Thom, who lives in Maitland, Fla., Oros is survived by his wife of 61 years, Ellen; a brother, George, who was also a professional jockey, of Palm Harbor; another son, John, of Oswego, Ill.; and three grandchildren. Oros Bros. Inc., a saddlery business established by George Oros in 1947 and run by the two brothers for decades, is still in the Chicago area, operated by Buzz Oros, George’s son. Oros’ sudden success in 1939 earned him a nickname — the Aurora Flash — and the attention of reporters. ”There ain’t any mystery about me or my riding,” he said in an interview with Time. “I don’t use no special tricks. I don’t whisper no sweet words in the horse’s ear. I just sit up there and hang on.”

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John E. Oros, his horse Miss Balko, a kiss after winning a race 12 May 1938.

Here is website link to OROS SADDLERY:

Tampa Tribune Tribute to John “Aurora Flash” Oros

Jockey took fast track to fame

By Andrew Meacham, Times Staff Writer

Published Thursday, April 9, 2009

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PALM HARBOR — John E. Oros, once the nation’s leading jockey, found opportunity in the smallest of creases.

In the middle of a thundering, straining pack of thoroughbreds, he made split-second decisions that paid off at the betting window. In 1939, the era of Seabiscuit and War Admiral, Mr. Oros won 162 races, more than any other jockey.

Time magazine called the Aurora, Ill., native the most promising rider in years, and gave him a nickname: “The Aurora Flash.”

He competed against jockeys such as Eddie Arcaro, Johnny Longden and his own brother, George, also a top rider in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Mr. Oros rose to prominence during the Depression, when crowds of 30,000 were not uncommon at some racetracks.

“We didn’t have the riverboats in those days,” George Oros said. “We didn’t have casinos, we didn’t have off-track betting or nothing like that. So all of this stuff was actually at the racetrack.”

The brothers later went into business together, creating a tack and saddlery shop that still operates. Mr. Oros retired to Palm Harbor in 1978.

He died April 3 of congestive heart failure. He was 87.

“He was so quick to think,” said George Oros, 86. “If he had a horse that came from behind, he wouldn’t rush him. He’d just use his head and let the horse settle in stride. If he had a horse that raced to the front, he rated him real good and just held him in stride.”

Once, at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, Mr. Oros won five races in a day.

He grew up in Aurora, the son of a Romanian immigrant. Before the Depression hit, John Oros Sr. was a railroad blacksmith. During Prohibition, he made his own beer and operated a speakeasy.

“We used to have to wash out the beer bottles on the weekends,” George Oros said.

He said his father also ran a pair of bookmaking operations, for which he was once arrested.

The boys quit school at the same time; John was 13, George 12. Their father had begun buying racehorses and stabling them at Aurora Downs. With their father’s encouragement, they taught themselves to ride.

John E. Oros won his first race at Aurora Downs in 1938, when he was 16, aboard a filly named Miss Balko.

He traveled to racetracks in New Orleans and Bowie, Md. A hungry sports media took notice.

“This winter, while still an apprentice, (Oros) outrode the most experienced riders at the Fair Grounds of New Orleans, then moved on to Bowie to lead the field there as well,” Time magazine reported in 1939, when Mr. Oros was 17.

In his first year, both Oros brothers rode under contract for their father, who demanded all of their winnings.

Both brothers won lots of races, sometimes against each other. They traded mounts and even purged together to make weight — John stood about 5 feet 2 and weighed just 110 pounds.

“I didn’t realize this but we were anorexics,” George Oros said. “We used to just heave and throw up.”

As John E. Oros’ success grew, he traveled to tracks outside the Midwest, including Saratoga, Churchill Downs and Pimlico. In the 1939 Arlington Futurity, he took a 27-1 long shot named Andy K wide to win by two lengths. He earned a share of the $40,000 purse, the second highest awarded that year.

He earned more than $162,000 in 1939 — about $2.5 million by today’s standards. He was just 17.

Mr. Oros was drafted in 1942 and served in the Army in the Philippines. He attempted a brief comeback in 1946, then had second thoughts because he feared getting injured. He had once been hurt in a fall.

“He said, ‘You hear the sound of thundering hooves coming up behind you. If you go down, those horses are going to come on top of you,’ ” said his son, Thom Oros.

When he was hospitalized in recent weeks, he perused a thick scrapbook his wife had put together. It contained articles about him from newspapers and magazines, black and white photos, and race programs that look like unvarnished pamphlets, their typefaces almost antique.

Thom Oros said he will try to carry out his father’s final wish: to have some of his ashes scattered at the Fair Grounds of New Orleans, at the finish line.

Andrew Meacham can be reached at  (7… or ameacham@sptimes.com.

BIOGRAPHY

John E. Oros

Born: Dec. 5, 1921.

Died: April 3, 2009.

Survivors: wife Ellen; sons John and Thom Oros; brother George Oros; and three grandchildren.

Service: 11 a.m. April 17. St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church, 2757 Alderman Road, Palm Harbor.

New York Times’ Tribute to John Oros – The “Aurora Flash”

<img class=”size-full wp-image-458″ title=”oros-21″ src=”http://danielparkman.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/oros-21.jpg” alt=”Then-16-year-old jockey John Oros gives his horse, Miss Balko, a kiss after winning his first professional race May 12, 1938. ” width=”165″ height=”116″ />

Then-16-year-old jockey John Oros gives his horse, Miss Balko, a kiss after winning his first professional race May 12, 1938.

<div class=”date”>April 11, 2009</div>
 
<div class=”byline”>By <a id=”up” href=”mailto:mhanley@scn1.com?Subject=Story.Response”>MATT HANLEY</a> mhanley@scn1</div>
<!– Article’s First Paragraph –><!– BlogBurst ContentStart –>The legend goes that the Oros racing family got its start when John Oros Sr. was running a hot dog stand near the race track in Aurora and saw a man celebrating with a fistful of winning tickets. Inspired, Oros decided the safest bet was to own the horses.

Allegedly from those stubs, a racing empire began.

 
<div class=”sidebar”>
<div class=”enlarge_pic”>» <a class=”enlarge_pic” href=”//www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/1522221,AU11_JOCKEY_P1.fullimage’, ‘fullimage’, ‘toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,width=650,height=650’)”>Click to enlarge image</a></div>
<div class=”caption”>Then-16-year-old jockey John Oros gives his horse, Miss Balko, a kiss after winning his first professional race May 12, 1938.</div>
<div class=”caption”>Now the truth might be a bit murkier and involve a little bootlegging. Either way, the indisputable fact is that in the 1930s, John Oros Sr. and his wife, Elizabeth, opened a prestigious stable with their two sons — John Jr. and George — as the best jockeys.</div>
John and George were so well-known that when John was drafted for World War II, the Racing Form wrote: “The Oros brothers are finally separated.”

Six decades later, time split up the brothers again. John Oros, 87, died April 3, at his home in Palm Harbour, Fla.

Although they both had their taste of success, even George admits John was the better rider. Of course, he was also smaller. Both men weighed about 105 pounds, but at 5-foot-1, John Jr. was 5 inches shorter.

The family grew up in the Pigeon Hill neighborhood on Aurora’s near East Side and attended St. Michael’s School. John went to East Aurora High School for one year — long enough so he could drop out the same year as his brother.

John rode his first winner at Aurora’s Exposition Park in 1938. A year later, he was in contention to be the top jockey in the country. Ironically, brotherly love may have slowed him down.

The story is that John was literally in a horse race with fellow jockey Don Meade for the points championship. On a damp, dismal day in Detroit, John went out to cheer for George, who was looking for his first win.

John cheered so hard he developed a sore throat and was in bed for a week. Although he had the most wins for the year — 162 — he lost the racing point total to Meade. Still, out of 966 races, John Oros finished first 162 times (once winning four races in one day) and in the top three 439 times — good enough for Time magazine to dub him “The Aurora Flash.”

Still just teenagers, the boys traveled the country — John rode at Belmont, Saratoga, Churchill Downs — and won thousands of dollars in prize money. They even finished first and second at a race at Arlington Park.

So, of course, it took a World War to break them up. John went to the Pacific; George to Europe. Somehow, after years apart, they were discharged in the same place on the same day and met up.

They came home, moved in next door to each other and raced a few more times. But it didn’t last.

They opened up Oros Brothers Saddlery, which still has a shop in Batavia. For years, the brothers worked 11 hour days side by side supplying muzzles, saddles, bridles and other tools of the horse racing trade.

John and his wife, Ellen, eventually retired to Florida in 1978, where he stayed active as an usher in his church and president of the local golf club. Of course, George soon moved to Florida, too. When John died last week, George was living just a mile away.

After the funeral Friday, George reminisced about his older brother, who had reached the finish line first one last time.

“I tell you one thing: I’m sure going to miss that old guy,” he said.

The Oros boys really are finally separated.</div>

Boston Globe Tribute to John Oros – The Aurora Flash – The Leading jockey of 1939 = 966 Races & 162 Winners @ Aurora Downs, MD & New Orleans

 

 

 ‘Aurora Flash’ John Oros, 87; became a top jockey at 17 By Bruce Weber, New York Times | April 21, 2009 NEW YORK – John Oros, who rode out of nowhere – well, actually Aurora, Ill. – to become for a time the nation’s leading jockey, died April 3 in Palm Harbor, Fla., where he lived. He was 87. The cause was congestive heart failure, his son Thom said. In 1939 Mr. Oros was just 17 and in only his second year of professional racing when he overtook perhaps the most notorious jockey of the time, Don Meade, in number of victories to that point in the year. Meade, who won the 1933 Kentucky Derby on Brokers Tip, had been suspended for three years by the Florida Racing Commission for betting against his own mounts; he was reinstated in December 1938. In the first 15 weeks of 1939, Meade won 91 races at two prominent Florida tracks: Hialeah and Tropical Park. In the same period, Mr. Oros, who was 5 feet 2 inches and about 105 pounds, rode an astonishing 105 winners at Aurora Downs and other Chicago-area tracks, as well as at courses in New Orleans and Maryland. Time magazine noted the feat, comparing Mr. Oros to Meade as “an obscure fellow-peewee” who had “quietly displaced him as the leading jockey of 1939.” Although Meade eventually passed him again, Mr. Oros rode a total of 966 races that year, winning 162 times and earning $162,676 in purses. Mr. Oros was born in Aurora. His father, whose name was also John, helped run a grocery and for a time worked in the coal mines of West Virginia. He sent money home from that job but also relied on other resources. Thom Oros said his grand- father’s success as a bookmaker and bootlegger led the family into racing; by the time young John (who adopted the middle initial E. to distinguish himself from his father and was sometimes called Johnny) was in his teens, the family owned a stable of horses. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade and rode his first winner, a horse named Miss Balko, at the Aurora track in 1938. His riding career lasted until 1946 but was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in the Army in the Philippines. Oros Bros. Inc., a saddle business established by George Oros in 1947 and run by the two brothers for decades, is still in the Chicago area, operated by Buzz Oros, George’s son. The sudden success in 1939 earned John Oros a nickname, the Aurora Flash, and the attention of reporters. “There ain’t any mystery about me or my riding,” he said in an interview with Time. “I don’t use no special tricks. I don’t whisper no sweet words in the horse’s ear,” he said. “I just sit up there and hang on.”

For further Equine Inspiration watch:

1- Sea Biscuit

2 – Dreamer

3- Black Beauty

Long may John Oros ride in the winds created by the wings of the angels in the clouds of the glory of the Master Architect of the Universe….a tribute to the man and his family, legacy & memories…

Thomas & Virginia Oros have been personal friends and biz associates of mine for over 14 years.

This blog is dedicated to their Patriarch John “Aurora Flash” Oros………Long may John Oros ride in the winds created by the wings of the angels in the clouds of the glory of the Master Architect of the Universe………a tribute to the man, his family, legacy and memories…..