Eugene “Gene” Jacobs

A Member of a Remarkable Racing Family

Eugene “Gene” Jacobs was born in New York City on November 9, 1912. He belonged to a Brooklyn family that would exercise an extraordinary influence upon twentieth-century American horse racing.

Gene’s older brother, Hirsch Jacobs, rose from racing pigeons on Brooklyn rooftops to become one of the most successful Thoroughbred trainers in history. Hirsch developed champions, repeatedly led the nation in victories and was eventually inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Another brother, Sidney “Sid” Jacobs, also became a successful trainer. Together, the Jacobs brothers formed the professional foundation of a family racing dynasty that extended to their children, nephews and later generations.

Gene’s sister Florence married Joseph Jacobson. Their son was Howard “Buddy” Jacobson, whose rise from stable worker to nationally prominent trainer—and whose later fall into scandal, murder proceedings, prison and escape—forms the center of Buddy from Brooklyn.

Learning Under Hirsch Jacobs

Gene entered racing through the operation of his older brother Hirsch. Like most aspiring horsemen of the period, he did not begin with an impressive title. He learned through the physical routines of the stable: grooming horses, walking them after exercise, observing their behavior, maintaining equipment and performing the countless jobs required before and after every race.

A racing stable was an unforgiving classroom. Horses had to be fed, examined, exercised and cared for every day regardless of weather, fatigue or personal inconvenience. The smallest change in appetite, movement or temperament could signal a problem. Gene learned to notice such changes and to understand that success on race day was built through disciplined work performed when the grandstand was empty.

Hirsch’s operation provided an especially valuable education. Hirsch became famous for improving modestly priced horses, managing large numbers of runners and finding opportunities that other trainers overlooked. Gene absorbed those practical lessons before establishing an independent stable of his own.

Establishing His Own Stable

By the mid-1940s, Gene was training independently. Although his surname connected him to the celebrated Hirsch Jacobs, Gene had to earn the confidence of owners and prove that he could produce winners under his own name.

Gene developed a durable career that lasted for more than four decades. He trained horses for established owners including Herbert A. Allen Sr., Louis Lazare and Perne L. Grissom. His stable competed at the major New York tracks and at important racing centers in Florida, New Jersey, Maryland and elsewhere.

His record included victories in sprint races, juvenile stakes, route events and major races for older horses. This range demonstrated an ability to condition different types of Thoroughbreds rather than relying upon one exceptional horse or one narrow training specialty.

Gene remained an active and respected professional through dramatic changes in the racing industry. He began during an era dominated by rail travel, newspaper coverage and large urban crowds and continued into the age of televised racing, modern veterinary practices and increasingly national stable operations.

Sheilas Reward: A Champion Sprinter

Gene’s greatest early success came with Sheilas Reward, a powerful sprinter who became one of the leading American racehorses of the early 1950s.

Under Gene’s care, Sheilas Reward earned recognition as the nation’s champion sprint horse in both 1950 and 1951. Repeating a championship requires more than speed. A trainer must maintain a horse’s physical condition, select suitable races, manage recovery and preserve competitive desire through a demanding campaign.

Sheilas Reward won important events including the Fleetwing Handicap, Interborough Handicap, Select Handicap, Bay Shore Handicap, Long Branch Handicap and Queens County Handicap. These victories established Gene as far more than the younger brother of a famous trainer.

By producing a back-to-back national champion, Gene secured his own place within the Jacobs family’s racing legacy.

A Career Spanning Five Decades

Gene continued winning important races long after the championship seasons of Sheilas Reward. His major victories extended from the late 1940s through the 1980s, an unusually long period of relevance in a profession known for physical strain, financial uncertainty and constant competition.

Among the races credited to his stable were the Lamplighter Stakes, Champlain Handicap, Lawrence Realization Stakes, Salvator Mile Handicap, Donn Handicap, Seminole Handicap, Garden State Stakes, American Derby, Florida Derby, Fountain of Youth Stakes, Champagne Stakes, New York Stakes, True North Stakes and multiple editions of the Saratoga Special.

His better-known horses included Sheilas Reward, Colonel Mike, Explodent, Favorable Turn and Victorious. Each represented a different stage of Gene’s career and demonstrated his capacity to remain competitive with successive generations of horses, owners, jockeys and rival trainers.

Longevity of this kind required adaptability. Training methods changed, medications and regulations evolved, tracks opened and closed, and ownership patterns shifted. Gene continued finding winning opportunities while preserving the practical horseman’s outlook he had learned in his family’s barns.

The Young Buddy Jacobson

Gene’s importance to the Buddy Jacobson story extends beyond family connection. He was one of Buddy’s earliest employers and teachers.

Buddy was drawn to the racetrack while still a boy. Published accounts state that he began working in Gene’s barn at approximately eleven years old. His duties would have placed him close to the horses and to the daily decisions of a functioning racing stable.

Buddy could observe how horses were entered, claimed, exercised and prepared. He encountered jockeys, grooms, owners, veterinarians, bettors and rival trainers. He also learned that racing was not merely a sport. It was a business in which knowledge, timing, nerve and reputation could produce either fortune or ruin.

By nineteen, Buddy was working as a groom for Gene in Florida. Those formative years gave him the experience necessary to pursue his own trainer’s license and eventually establish an independent operation.

Uncle, Employer and Mentor

The relationship between Gene and Buddy would naturally have combined family affection with the rigid hierarchy of the barn. At home, Gene was Buddy’s uncle. At the racetrack, he was the experienced professional responsible for valuable horses, employees, owners and racing decisions.

A young worker could not depend upon family status to excuse laziness. Horses required punctual care, and the racing world quickly exposed anyone who lacked discipline. Gene’s barn gave Buddy a place to learn, but it also required him to earn responsibility.

Buddy eventually developed methods, ambitions and a public personality quite different from Gene’s. He became unusually aggressive in claiming horses, attracted large numbers of owners and rose rapidly through the national standings.

Even as Buddy built his own identity, the fundamentals of his career remained connected to those early mornings spent working under Gene.

Different Paths Through Racing

Gene and Buddy represent two different approaches to survival and success within the same profession. Gene built a long career that extended steadily across decades. Buddy’s rise was faster, louder and more controversial.

Buddy led American trainers in victories during the 1960s and became known for managing a large claiming operation. His blunt manner, relentless activity and willingness to challenge established customs produced both success and hostility.

Gene remained connected to the traditional rhythms of the stable while Buddy expanded his ambitions beyond racing into Manhattan real estate, modeling, restaurants and nightlife. The nephew who began in his uncle’s barn eventually entered a world far removed from morning workouts and shed rows.

Their contrast adds depth to the film. Gene represents the road Buddy might have continued following: a lifetime spent around horses, defined primarily by racing accomplishments rather than tabloid notoriety.

A Family Living in the Same Competitive World

The Jacobs family was not a collection of distant relatives who happened to share an occupation. Its members repeatedly crossed paths at the same racetracks, entered horses in the same racing programs and competed for many of the same owners and purses.

On some afternoons, more than one Jacobs family trainer could saddle a winner on the same card. The family’s presence became part of the texture of New York racing, connecting the barns of Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga with winter campaigns in Florida.

Competition could coexist with family loyalty. Brothers, nephews and cousins might exchange knowledge, recommend workers or help someone enter the business while still attempting to defeat one another on race day.

Buddy inherited this mixture of cooperation and rivalry. Racing gave him a family identity, but it also taught him that every relative, friend and associate could become a competitor once the horses entered the starting gate.

Gene During Buddy’s Rise and Fall

Gene lived long enough to witness the entire arc of Buddy’s public life. He saw his nephew progress from barn worker to leading trainer, wealthy property owner and Manhattan personality.

He also witnessed Buddy’s racing career give way to scandal. The 1978 murder of restaurateur Jack Tupper, Buddy’s conviction in 1980, his escape from custody and his recapture in California transformed a respected racing name into a national true-crime story.

For members of the Jacobs and Jacobson families, the case was not simply newspaper entertainment. Buddy was a nephew, cousin, father and former stable worker whose actions and conviction affected relatives who had spent decades building their own reputations.

Gene’s presence in the story provides an important reminder that Buddy’s life did not unfold in isolation. Every victory, controversy and catastrophe reverberated through a large family whose history was inseparable from horse racing.

Retirement and Final Years

Buddy Jacobson died on May 16, 1989, while imprisoned in New York State. Gene retired from horse training on September 1 of that year, closing a professional career that had endured from the 1940s through the closing years of the 1980s.

Gene died in Kew Gardens, Queens, on May 20, 1999. He was eighty-six years old. His death came ten years and four days after Buddy’s.

By then, Gene’s career belonged to a fading era when New York racing occupied a more central position in American popular culture and successful trainers became familiar figures in newspapers throughout the country.

Gene Jacobs as a Motion-Picture Character

In Buddy from Brooklyn, Gene can serve as the audience’s introduction to the working reality of horse racing. Through his stable, viewers encounter the dawn routines, shed rows, hot walkers, grooms, jockey agents, owners and claiming procedures that shaped Buddy’s earliest ambitions.

Gene should be portrayed as more than an expositional family member. He is an accomplished trainer with pressures of his own: valuable horses, demanding owners, fragile animals, rival barns and the responsibility of supervising an intense young nephew.

Scenes between Gene and Buddy can reveal the qualities that later define Buddy’s adult personality. The boy is observant, impatient, competitive and eager for greater authority. Gene may recognize his talent while also seeing the recklessness developing alongside it.

Their relationship creates a dramatic bridge between the honorable traditions of the Jacobs racing family and the more dangerous world Buddy eventually chooses to enter.

Eugene “Gene” Jacobs at a Glance

The Barn Where Buddy’s Journey Began

Gene Jacobs built a respected racing career spanning five decades. His additional place in history comes from opening the stable door for a determined Brooklyn boy named Buddy Jacobson—and helping begin one of horse racing’s most dramatic and controversial personal stories.