Charlie Ferraro was in his 20's, he was a joker with a sense of adventure.  He was Johnny Ferraro's younger brother who worked at Johnny's pipefitting shop with Hirsch Jacob's who was just a teenager at the time after graduating from high school at 13. Charlie got Hirsch involved in pigeon racing in the local neighborhood.

Charlie and Hirsch connected with another pigeon racer named Isidor Bieber and Isidor saw Hirsch's talent and talked him into going into horse racing. The Jacobs-Bieber stall was the most profitable in the history of the sport!