FL FL - Albert Snider, Florida Keys, 6 March 1948

[Richard]

Albert Snider, Missing 6 March 1948, Florida Keys

Albert "Al" Snider was a jockey who had been doing pretty well in 1948. He was the regular rider of Citation, a bay thoroughbred horse from the Calumet Farms.

Al and Citation had an impressive string of victories at Hialeah race track in Florida. After winning the Everglades Handicap by a length, they went on to win the Flamingo Stakes by six lengths.

Citation was chosen to run in the 1948 Kentucky Derby and was the favorite over the other five horses. Al Snider was scheduled to ride Citation in the Derby.

Not only was it believed that they would win the Derby, but many predicted that they would go on to win the Preakness and Belmont stakes as well. Those three races make up what is called horse racing's "Triple Crown". Only a few horses and jockeys in history have achieved that honor.

Anyone who knows the history of racing knows that the great horse Citation did indeed become a Triple Crown Winner, after coming in first at the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont in 1948. But Citation won those races with a substitute jockey up - a substitution necessary because Al Snider had gone missing only days before the Kentucky Derby.

After getting Citation to the starting gate of the Kentucky Derby, Al Snider decided to go deep sea fishing with a group of friends to relax. On 6 May 1948, they chartered a yacht and went out to fish along the Florida Keys - in one of the corners of the famed Bermuda Triangle. They never returned. Subsequent searches turned up no trace of the yacht, Al Snider, or his friends.

With Snider's disappearance, jockey Eddie Arcaro was offered the opportunity to ride Citation in the Kentucky Derby. Arcaro was not certain if Citation was the right horse for him, but finally agreed. Citation won the Derby three and a half lengths ahead of the second horse. And with Arcaro up, went on to win the Preakness and Belmont stakes.

Eddie Arcaro shared his winner's purse from the Kentucky Derby with the widow of Al Snider and the gesture was matched by Citation's owner, Warren Wright.

So, in the end, Al Snider won a Derby purse, even though he was not around to ride in the big race.

 

[Claudette]

Bizarre story - kind of was expecting that his disappearance was tied to racing and was surprised to see the Bermuda Triangle was involved. That is a huge shame he didn't get to witness the win of the Triple Crown!!

 

[Claudette]

Where can I find weather from the past? Not having any luck...

 

[Richard]

Note the different date of death listed as 5 March 1948.

Not a lot of biographical information published on Al Snider. A Neice of his recently stated that he had a wife and daughter and that he had probably been born in Canada.

Stories of Citation usually only mention Al Snider's death/disappearance in passing and details are sketchy in most accounts.


----------------------

From Wikipedia...

Albert Snider (Birthdate not found - March 5, 1948) was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey....

... Signed on to ride for Calumet Farm, Al Snider was made the jockey for future United States' Racing Hall of Fame inductee, Citation. In 1947, he rode the colt in his two-year-old season, notably winning the Belmont Futurity Stakes en route to Citation being voted the U.S. Champion 2-Year-Old Colt....

1948 promised to be a great year as Al Snider prepared to ride Citation in the U.S. Triple Crown series. At Hialeah Park Race Track, he rode the colt to victory in the 1948 Seminole and Everglades Handicaps. Then, after winning the Flamingo Stakes, on March 5 Snider used a day off to go fishing in the Florida Keys. While out on the water, a sudden storm came up and Al Snider apparently drowned....


References


May 17, 1948 TIME magazine article titled Man on a Horse

Florida Sportsman article by Donald Wood on the drowning of Albert Snider


LINK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Snider

 

[Richard]

Citation 1948: Big Cy of Calumet Farm


By Jenny Kellner



Seven years after Whirlaway carried the devil’s red-and-blue silks of Calumet through a sweep of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes, a leggy bay 3-year-old colt bearing the same colors stepped onto the track at Havre de Grace for the $29,000 Chesapeake Stakes.

Five days earlier, Citation had suffered only the second loss of his career, finishing second in the Chesapeake Trial under new jockey Eddie Arcaro, replacing, Albert Snider, who had drowned in March on a fishing trip in the Everglades....


LINK:


http://www.belmontstakes.com/history/citation.aspx

 

[Claudette]

Interesting how back when it happened it was considered a drowning, nothing more, but here we talk of how it happened in the Bermuda Triangle and of course that brings up all kinds of crazy (false) theories. At least it did with me, as soon as I saw those two words!

 

[Cubby]

Where can I find weather from the past? Not having any luck...

http://www.wunderground.com/history/

hth

 

[KarlK]

Interesting how back when it happened it was considered a drowning, nothing more, but here we talk of how it happened in the Bermuda Triangle and of course that brings up all kinds of crazy (false) theories. At least it did with me, as soon as I saw those two words!

Well officially speaking the Keys are not part of the Bermuda Triangle, which extends from Miami to Porto-Rico to Bermuda. Not that it really matters.

 

[Richard]

Al Snider has been missing for over 66 years.

 

[KarlK]

Interesting how back when it happened it was considered a drowning, nothing more, but here we talk of how it happened in the Bermuda Triangle and of course that brings up all kinds of crazy (false) theories.

The Keys are not even in the Triangle anyway.

 

[palisadesk]

Foul play was suspected by some. It's mentioned in this documentary about Citation:

[video=youtube;1803k520Mi0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1803k520Mi0[/video]

Start at around 13:00, can't get it to pause at the exact spot.

It appears that others were missing with him, and this isn't mentioned in most sources. Also, a bottle with a note from him was allegedly found.

This article does mention that others were lost along with Snider:

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1998-04-30/sports/9804290513_1_citation-skiff-fifty-years

 

[palisadesk]

Found this interesting article about Snider's disappearance as well:

http://strangeco.blogspot.ca/2014/06/the-jockey-who-rode-into-oblivion.html

It strikes as highly suspicious, to say the least.

 

[Richard]

It has been 70 years since Al Snider went missing...

 

[Richard]

Albert Snider (October 22, 1921 – March 5, 1948)

Albert Snider
Occupation Jockey
Born October 22, 1921
United States
Died March 5, 1948
Career wins Not found
Major racing wins
Arlington-Washington Lassie Stakes (1940)
Stars and Stripes Handicap (1941)
Gallant Fox Handicap (1944)
Remsen Stakes (1944)
Diana Handicap (1945)
Top Flight Handicap (1945)
Everglades Stakes (1946, 1948)
Potomac Handicap (1946, 1947)
Belmont Futurity (1947)
Jennings Handicap (1947)
Pimlico Futurity (1947)
Pimlico Special (1947)
Sysonby Handicap (1947)
Seminole Handicap (1948)
Flamingo Stakes (1948)
Significant horses
Armed, Hoop Jr., Citation, Fervent

 

[PayrollNerd]

Found this interesting article about Snider's disappearance as well:

Strange Company: The Jockey Who Rode Into Oblivion

It strikes as highly suspicious, to say the least.

A 15' skiff on the ocean? Isn't that just asking for trouble? It doesn't matter how calm the seas are, there are rouge waves all the time. Not to mention wake from a much bigger boat. Was the message in a bottle saved and tested for DNA?

Article written Monday, June 2, 2014
Early in March 1948, jockey Al Snider, the regular rider of Calumet Farm's magnificent colt Citation, and two friends, trainer C.H. "Tobe" Trotter and businessman Donald Frazier, set sail from Miami for a week-long fishing trip in the Florida Keys. On the afternoon of March 5, the trio left their yacht, which was anchored in Sandy Key, to go fishing in a 15-foot skiff. They planned to return within an hour. They carried with them reserve fuel, a jug of water, life-jackets, 75" of rope, extra spark-plugs, a bailing pail, oars, and an anchor. Friends left behind on the yacht could see the skiff about a mile away. Then darkness began to fall, and the men were lost to view. Not long after that, the captain of a passing boat saw the three men. There was no sign of any trouble, and the sea was calm. The skiff was a half-mile from land, and in shallow water—no deeper than four feet. If the boat ran into trouble, they could easily swim, or even wade ashore. Snider and his companions were never seen again. A week later, a search party found the skiff, but not the slightest trace of the three men was ever found. Another oddity was that the boat was completely empty--oars, seat cushions, everything was gone.

Although their disappearance was officially ruled as an ordinary “accident at sea,” no one really knows what happened to the trio. If they were swept overboard by the sudden storm that blew in over two hours after they were last seen, they were close enough to land to make it odd that their bodies—or even life-jackets or clothing—never turned up. And why would they still have been out fishing in the darkness, hours after their planned return to the yacht? Lawrence Boido, one of the friends who remained on the yacht, later commented, "I just can't figure what they were doing for the two hours or more before the storm hit."

There were some far darker rumors about the tragedy. Snider was said to have been an honest rider who could not be bribed into fixing a race. To this day, some believe that Snider’s refusal to "pull up" Citation in certain key races made him some very dangerous enemies. (I'm friends with an eighty something fellow who worked at Calumet during the Citation era, and who knew Snider personally. When I once asked him what he thought had happened to Snider, he instantly replied matter-of-factly, "Why, the gangsters got him. Everyone knew that.") Tommy Trotter, the son of one of the other missing men, talked of getting “vague phone calls” from Cuba the evening of the disappearance. Years later, Snider’s daughter Nancy, who was just six when her father vanished, remembered being pulled out of school afterward because of fears for her safety.

Four months after the men disappeared, a barnacle-encrusted bottle washed ashore in the Keys. It had a message inside which read: "Help. One dead. No Joke. Al S." Sick hoax or baffling clue? No one knew.

 

[Richard]

Foul Weather? Foul Play? – 1948 Disappearance of Citation’s Original Jockey Still Unsolved
One of the strangest unsolved cases in thoroughbred racing gets colder every year, more than 70 years after Citation’s original jockey went missing.

Television could make something of this one: three men disappeared from their skiff after setting off to fish in the Everglades at dusk the night of March 5, 1948. One was Al Snider, 28, the first ever to ride Calumet Farm’s Citation in a race. He won nine races aboard Citation and a week prior to disappearing, had won the Flamingo Stakes with the champion colt by an impressive six lengths.

LINK:

Foul Weather? Foul Play? – 1948 Disappearance of Citation’s Original Jockey Still Unsolved

 

[Richard]

From his obituary dated February 2020:

Thomas E. (Tommy) Trotter, a longtime racing official who once saddled the great Forego with a 138-pound impost, has died in Florida at the age of 93.

A fourth-generation horseman, Mr. Trotter was born Sept. 21, 1926, in Louisville, Ky. He was the son of C.H. (Tobe) Trotter, a trainer who mysteriously was lost at sea in 1948 when on a fishing trip near the Florida Keys with jockey Albert Snider (Citation's winning rider a few days earlier in the Flamingo Stakes at Hialeah) and Canadian businessman Don Fraser.

Mr. Trotter, 20 years old at the time, was working in the racing office at Tropical Park and joined in a massive search for the three men. After two weeks, Mr. Trotter gave up the futile search, well after officials said the men were presumed dead. A small fishing boat that had been towed behind a yacht they took from Miami to the Keys was eventually found, but their bodies were never recovered...

LINK:
Tommy Trotter Dies; Longtime Racing Secretary Piled Weight On Racing Greats - Horse Racing News | Paulick Report

 

[PayrollNerd]

From his obituary dated February 2020:

Thomas E. (Tommy) Trotter, a longtime racing official who once saddled the great Forego with a 138-pound impost, has died in Florida at the age of 93.

A fourth-generation horseman, Mr. Trotter was born Sept. 21, 1926, in Louisville, Ky. He was the son of C.H. (Tobe) Trotter, a trainer who mysteriously was lost at sea in 1948 when on a fishing trip near the Florida Keys with jockey Albert Snider (Citation's winning rider a few days earlier in the Flamingo Stakes at Hialeah) and Canadian businessman Don Fraser.

Mr. Trotter, 20 years old at the time, was working in the racing office at Tropical Park and joined in a massive search for the three men. After two weeks, Mr. Trotter gave up the futile search, well after officials said the men were presumed dead. A small fishing boat that had been towed behind a yacht they took from Miami to the Keys was eventually found, but their bodies were never recovered...

LINK:
Tommy Trotter Dies; Longtime Racing Secretary Piled Weight On Racing Greats - Horse Racing News | Paulick Report

I wonder if he left any stories documented, or passed down verbally, to the next generation.

 

[Richard]

Albert Snider​

BIRTH 22 Oct 1921 Calgary, Calgary Census Division, Alberta, Canada
DEATH 5 Mar 1948 (aged 26) Florida, USA
Lost at Sea off the Florida Keys

Albert Snider (Not found - March 5, 1948) was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey.

Al Snider rode at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Kentucky and Chicago's Arlington Park in 1940 and 1941. Among his significant wins were the Arlington-Washington Lassie Stakes and the Stars and Stripes Handicap. In his best finish in an American Classic, Snider rode owner Fred W. Hooper's colt Hoop Jr. to second place in the 1945 Belmont Stakes.

Signed on to ride for Calumet Farm, Al Snider was made the jockey for future United States' Racing Hall of Fame inductee, Citation. In 1947, he rode the colt in his two-year-old season, notably winning the Belmont Futurity en route to Citation being voted the U.S. Champion 2-Year-Old Colt. That year Snider also won the Pimlico Special aboard Calumet's colt, Fervent.

1948 promised to be a great year as Al Snider prepared to ride Citation in the U.S. Triple Crown series. At Hialeah Park Race Track, he rode the colt to victory in the 1948 Seminole and Everglades Handicaps. Then, after winning the Flamingo Stakes, on March 5 Snider used a day off to go fishing in the Florida Keys. While out on the water, a sudden storm came up and Al Snider apparently drowned. A search party found no trace of his body but reportedly found his skiff eight days later on an island 10 miles south of Everglades City.

Calumet Farms head trainer Ben Jones hired Eddie Arcaro to replace Snider on Citation and they won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes, making him only the eighth horse in history to win the U.S. Triple Crown. Winning jockey Arcaro, one of Snider's friends, gave Snider's widow a share of his Kentucky Derby purse money.

LINK:

Albert Snider (1921-1948) - Find a Grave Memorial

Albert Snider (Not found - March 5, 1948) was an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey. Al Snider rode at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Kentucky and Chicago's Arlington Park in 1940 and 1941. Among his significant wins were the Arlington-Washington Lassie Stakes and the Stars and...

www.findagrave.com

 

[Richard]

Missing for over 75 years...


Albert Snider, age 26
Missing since 5 March 1948