McHargue Quits Riding to Become a Racing Official at Hollywood Park

In 1978, when he was 24 years old, Darrel McHargue rode horses that earned $6.1 million. Riding day and night in New York and New Jersey the last two months of the year, McHargue barely broke the record that Steve Cauthen set the year before.

For his efforts, McHargue was voted the Eclipse Award as the year’s outstanding jockey.

McHargue had some good years after that, but he never approached 1978, gradually fading from the national scene, and on Wednesday, at 33, he announced his retirement, saying that he is going to pursue a career as a racing official. McHargue’s first assignment will be as a patrol judge during the Hollywood Park season that opens April 27.

McHargue, who was born in Oklahoma and reared in Florida, rode his first of about 2,500 career winners at Arlington Park in 1972. Two years later, he was winning stakes in California, and in 1975 he won the Preakness with the longshot, Master Derby. His career purses total more than $38 million.