Charlie Ferraro

The Man at the Beginning

Charlie Ferraro occupies a brief but extraordinarily important place in the history behind Buddy from Brooklyn. He belonged to the generation before Howard “Buddy” Jacobson, appearing at the beginning of the family story when Buddy’s uncle, Hirsch Jacobs, was still a Brooklyn teenager with no formal experience handling a Thoroughbred racehorse.

Charlie was the younger brother of Johnny Ferraro, who operated a neighborhood steamfitting and pipefitting shop in Brooklyn during the early 1920s. Hirsch had left school at thirteen and eventually found work in Johnny’s shop. There he bent pipes, assisted the experienced workers and earned a modest living while continuing to devote his free time to the pigeons he raised on the rooftops of East New York.

Charlie recognized that Hirsch possessed an unusual ability with animals. What may have appeared to others as a neighborhood boy’s hobby looked to Charlie like genuine competitive talent. That recognition set in motion a sequence of events that ultimately changed American horse racing.

A Brooklyn Character with Money and Nerve

Contemporary accounts described Charlie as a few years older than Hirsch, apparently possessing a healthy amount of spending money and a strong liking for competition. He was not the cautious type. He enjoyed action, wagers, sporting contests and the possibility of turning an unconventional idea into a profitable enterprise.

Charlie’s personality made him a natural counterpart to the more observant and disciplined Hirsch. Charlie could provide capital, confidence and opportunity. Hirsch supplied patience, training skill and an instinctive understanding of animal behavior. Together they formed a partnership in which each young man contributed something the other lacked.

Their relationship also illustrates the informal way businesses and careers often began in working-class Brooklyn. There were no corporate presentations, elaborate contracts or established professional networks. Partnerships emerged through neighborhoods, family shops, friendships, sporting clubs and the willingness to take a chance on someone whose abilities had not yet been recognized by the wider world.

The Pigeon-Racing Partnership

Around 1920, Charlie proposed that he and Hirsch form a pigeon-racing partnership. Charlie would pay for the birds and the expenses, while Hirsch would select, condition and train them. It was a simple arrangement, but it established the division of responsibilities that would later be repeated when they entered horse racing.

Pigeon racing was a serious neighborhood sport in early twentieth-century New York. Competitors transported their birds hundreds of miles away and released them at an appointed time. The birds then raced home, navigating by instinct toward their rooftop coops. Success required careful breeding, conditioning, nutrition, observation and an understanding of each bird’s individual temperament.

Hirsch excelled almost immediately. With Charlie financing the operation and Hirsch training the birds, the partnership reportedly captured many of the important pigeon-racing sweepstakes held along the Atlantic seaboard. During one particularly successful season, they won eight silver cups.

Those victories confirmed Charlie’s original judgment. Hirsch was not merely fond of animals; he possessed an uncommon ability to recognize their condition, manage their behavior and prepare them to compete. Charlie had identified a trainer before Hirsch understood that he was one.

From Brooklyn Rooftops to Havana

By the middle of the 1920s, Charlie was ready for a larger adventure. He invited Hirsch to accompany him on a winter trip to Havana, Cuba. At the time, Havana was an international playground where Americans encountered casinos, hotels, nightlife and Thoroughbred racing beyond the restrictions of Prohibition-era New York.

The two young Brooklyn men spent their afternoons at Oriental Park, Havana’s celebrated racetrack. Hirsch had previously visited Belmont Park, but horse racing had not yet captured his imagination. Charlie, however, was drawn to the excitement of wagering and ownership.

One afternoon Charlie reportedly won $1,500. Rather than simply pocketing his winnings, he decided to use the money to claim a racehorse named Demijohn. The decision was characteristically impulsive, ambitious and consequential.

Charlie now owned a horse, but he needed someone to train it. He turned to the young man who had successfully conditioned their pigeons.

“Training a Horse Couldn’t Be Harder”

When Charlie asked Hirsch to become Demijohn’s trainer, Hirsch initially believed he was joking. Hirsch reportedly protested that he had never handled a horse and knew nothing about professional Thoroughbred training.

Charlie answered with the reasoning that changed both their lives: training a horse could not be much harder than training a racing pigeon. Hirsch had already proven that he understood conditioning, recovery, behavior and competition. Charlie offered him financial security comparable to what he earned in the steamfitting shop, along with a percentage of the stable’s profits.

The proposal was unconventional, but Hirsch eventually accepted. He never returned to steamfitting. The teenage worker who had begun by caring for pigeons entered the Thoroughbred business and started teaching himself every aspect of horsemanship.

Charlie’s decision was therefore much more than the purchase of a single horse. He gave Hirsch his first opportunity to apply his animal-training instincts on a professional racing stage.

The Ferraro–Jacobs Stable

Charlie and Hirsch worked together for approximately three years. Charlie gradually acquired additional horses while Hirsch learned the demanding routines of racing stables, traveling to smaller meetings throughout the South and Midwest.

The early results were impressive. In 1926, the Ferraro stable won twenty-eight races and earned $27,515 in purses—a substantial total for a young and relatively inexperienced operation. The following year, the stable recorded fifty-nine victories and approximately $51,580 in earnings.

These achievements demonstrated that the pigeon experiment had successfully transferred to the racetrack. Hirsch’s meticulous observation, patience and willingness to experiment were already producing winners. Charlie’s investment had uncovered one of the most talented trainers the sport would ever know.

The partnership also showed that success in racing did not always originate in elite stables or inherited wealth. It could begin with two ambitious Brooklyn men, a claimed horse, limited experience and the confidence to ignore conventional expectations.

An Argument and a Separation

Despite their success, the Ferraro–Jacobs partnership did not last. The exact reason for its conclusion remains unclear. When Hirsch was later asked about the separation, he reportedly dismissed it as an argument over something he no longer wished to discuss.

Such disagreements were common in the racing world, where owners supplied money while trainers controlled daily decisions involving horses, entries, treatments and race selection. A winning stable could create as much tension as a losing one because success increased the value of the horses and raised the stakes surrounding every decision.

Charlie and Hirsch ultimately went in different directions, but the end of their partnership could not undo its historical importance. Charlie had already delivered Hirsch from a pipefitting shop into professional racing. The young trainer now had the experience and reputation necessary to continue on his own.

The Road to Isidor Bieber

After leaving Charlie, Hirsch trained for several other racing owners before joining forces with Isidor “Izzy” Bieber, a colorful New York gambler, sportsman and horse owner. The Jacobs–Bieber partnership became one of the most successful owner-trainer relationships in American Thoroughbred history.

Hirsch eventually developed champions, broke training records and entered the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He became famous for claiming inexpensive or overlooked horses and transforming them into major winners. His best-known success, Stymie, was claimed for $1,500 and retired as the leading money-winning Thoroughbred of his era.

The Jacobs family continued to influence racing for generations. Hirsch’s brothers and sons trained horses, his wife Ethel became a leading owner, and his daughter Patrice later became associated with Harbor View Farm and Triple Crown champion Affirmed.

Buddy Jacobson was born into this emerging racing dynasty in 1930. Although Buddy’s life would eventually move far beyond the racetrack, the professional world that shaped him can be traced backward through Hirsch Jacobs—and from Hirsch back to Charlie Ferraro.

Charlie’s Connection to Buddy Jacobson

Charlie Ferraro’s principal connection to Buddy was indirect but foundational. Charlie belonged to the earlier generation that created the racing environment Buddy later inherited. By recognizing Hirsch’s talent and placing him in charge of Demijohn, Charlie helped establish the career upon which the larger Jacobs–Jacobson racing network was built.

Buddy grew up surrounded by the consequences of that decision. His family’s conversations, relationships, business opportunities and social standing were intertwined with horse racing. The racetrack introduced Buddy to owners, trainers, gamblers, jockeys, financiers, businessmen and powerful New York personalities.

In this sense, Charlie functions as one of the story’s origin characters. He does not need to share the screen with the adult Buddy to affect Buddy’s life. Charlie’s importance lies in creating the opening through which the entire family entered the racing business.

A World of Overlapping Relationships

Early twentieth-century New York racing developed through tightly connected networks. Horsemen met one another in neighborhood businesses, pigeon clubs, betting circles, restaurants, racetracks and social organizations. Legitimate entrepreneurs, professional gamblers, laborers and underworld personalities could occupy the same social environment without necessarily performing the same roles.

The Ferraro shop represents this overlapping world. It was an ordinary Brooklyn workplace, yet it became a meeting point in the chain connecting Johnny Ferraro, Charlie Ferraro, Hirsch Jacobs, Isidor Bieber and the later Jacobs–Jacobson racing dynasty.

Charlie should not be reduced to a label or presented as responsible for everything that followed. His documented importance is more compelling: he was the adventurous sportsman whose friendships, financing and decisions connected several individuals at the precise moment when a historic racing operation was beginning to form.

Charlie Ferraro as a Motion-Picture Character

On screen, Charlie provides energy and movement during the film’s earliest period. He can be portrayed as witty, restless, persuasive and more worldly than the teenage Hirsch. He is the character willing to spend money, propose a partnership, travel to Havana and purchase a horse after a successful afternoon at the betting windows.

His scenes can contrast the industrial Brooklyn setting of Johnny Ferraro’s pipefitting shop with the pigeons flying above crowded rooftops and the sunlit excitement of Oriental Park. Charlie acts as the bridge between those environments.

Dramatically, his most important moment arrives when Hirsch refuses the idea of becoming a horse trainer. Charlie sees what Hirsch cannot yet see in himself. With a combination of humor, confidence and pressure, he persuades the future Hall of Famer to accept the job.

It is a small conversation with enormous consequences—the kind of seemingly ordinary decision upon which an epic story can turn.

Charlie Ferraro at a Glance

The First Turn in an American Racing Epic

Charlie Ferraro represents the moment when neighborhood talent met opportunity. His wager, his horse and his faith in Hirsch Jacobs helped begin a racing dynasty whose influence eventually reached Buddy Jacobson and the extraordinary events portrayed in Buddy from Brooklyn.