Sonny Taylor retiring after 58 years at NYRA

Sentell “Sonny” Taylor, who has worked at the New York Racing Association for 58 years, will retire from the company following the races at Aqueduct this weekend, it was announced Thursday.

“I’m tired of coming over to Aqueduct,” Taylor, who lives in Floral Park, about seven minutes from Belmont Park, said by phone Thursday. “It’s gotten too much for me, back and forth to Aqueduct, especially going home at night.”

Taylor, 85, began working at NYRA in 1964 as an assistant clocker. He worked as the backup timer for Secretariat’s memorable 31-length victory in the 1973 Belmont Stakes. He has worked as a racing official since 1981.

“I have great memories with the people I worked with,” Taylor said. “I had fun for years and years. I had fun with the guys when they were clocking horses, especially coming up with a winner once in a while.”

Over his six decades at NYRA, Taylor became friends with racing luminaries such as John Nerud, Horatio Luro, Penny Chenery, and Cot Campbell. He also became friends with entertainers Cab Calloway and Count Basie.

Before he became a placing judge, Taylor hand-timed races with a stopwatch, his times becoming official if there was a malfunction with the electronic system.

In recalling his timing of the 1973 Belmont, in which Secretariat capped his Triple Crown by running 1 1/2 miles in a record 2:24, Taylor said “I kept looking at my stopwatch and not really believing the time. Then I looked on the board, which had the same time, I said to myself “My goodness, how can a horse run this fast and win by so far?”

Taylor also timed the Triple Crown triumphs of Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1977-78.

In 1981, at the suggestion of Alfred G. Vanderbilt, then NYRA chairman, Taylor moved into his role as placing judge.

“Sonny Taylor is a friend, a mentor, and an encyclopedia of racing and we will miss him,” Frank Gabriel, NYRA’s senior vice president of racing operations, said in NYRA press release. “There’s no one else like Sonny, and we look forward to honoring him in a way that highlights his many contributions to New York racing.”

A native of Chicago, Taylor attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., where he played college basketball, according to a NYRA press release. After working for the U.S. Postal Service, he joined the U.S. Army, serving in Germany.

Taylor said he will remain in Floral Park but will make trips to see family and friends.

“I’m going to visit an aunt of mine in Baton Rouge,” Taylor said. “She’s 102.”