Horseman, Pass By

For six decades, John Shear commanded a patch of one of the most hallowed pieces of real estate in American horse racing: the paddock of Santa Anita Park in Southern California.

In title, he was its captain. In temperament, he was its soul.

Shear is an Englishman by birth and a globe-trotting horseman by choice. His past and present were on display each race day when the horses arrived to be saddled.

Every 25 minutes, his walking ring teemed with sun-tanned owners — men in sports coats, women in perpetual summer dresses. Blue-jeaned grooms brought forth an endless thudding of horses — including great ones from John Henry to American Pharoah — who then were saddled by Hall of Fame trainers such as Charlie Whittingham and Richard Mandella.

Finally, the jockeys ambled in, among them legends like Willie “The Shoe” Shoemaker, Laffit Pincay and Mike Smith, their shiny riding boots stretching up to a kaleidoscope of pastel silks. In Shear’s world these men were royalty, and because he stood among them, so was he.

Shear’s job was to be the paddock’s traffic cop — to ensure the safety of 1,200-pound, high-strung thoroughbreds and the humans who stepped up to admire them. He did it with warmth and grace topped with a lighthouse smile, season after season, deep into his 90s.

Just 4 feet 11 inches tall, Shear doled out hugs and kept up the patter with the horse players and the horse lovers who surrounded his paddock. He knew their names, asked after their families.

After all, Santa Anita Park isn’t called “The Great Race Place” merely for its Art Deco grandstand and sculpted grounds that look like an extension of the Los Angeles County Arboretum across the street.

“It’s the people. I love horse racing.” Shear said. “Every day I was there, it was like being around family.”

He had everything he could want: a reasonable living, a community, a sense of purpose. His work mattered, sometimes enormously. A few years back, Shear was holding a rope across one of the gaps in the paddock fence when a horse got loose and thundered toward a 5-year-old girl. Shear jumped in front of the child and saved her, but the horse knocked him down and he fractured his pelvis. He spent seven weeks in the hospital.

“I knew I was going to get hit, but it was instinct. There’s a 5-year-old girl. I’m 90 years old. She hasn’t had her life, I’ve had my life,” he said.

Shear planned to work at least until his 100th birthday in January 2021. Things didn’t work out that way.

“Circumstances,” he said.

They included the pandemic, which shut down Santa Anita and everything else in March 2020. When the track reopened with no fans and just a handful of employees, Shear stayed home for safety’s sake.

In January, instead of celebrating his birthday at the racetrack as he had planned, the racetrack came to Shear.

As he stood and waved, more than a hundred cars rolled past in a drive-by birthday party. Inside were stable hands, thoroughbred owners, beer sellers, racing executives, irrepressible gamblers and Hall of Fame jockeys and trainers.

In April, Shear got vaccinated and Santa Anita welcomed back fans. He thought about going back, but at 100, he had grown used to the rhythms of life at home. Besides, he has respiratory problems and didn’t think he could wear a mask all day. He believed members of his crew needed the work more than he did.

One April afternoon, Shear’s son Mike drove from his home in San Diego to take his father to the track. John Shear caught up with his friends. Bet on a few horses.

“Was great to see so many familiar faces,” he wrote on Facebook. “I’ll be back for sure!”

But the spring meet ended in June and the next one wouldn’t begin until September, and to an man who had already been home for more than a year, the fall seemed impossibly far away. So Shear called his union rep and put in his notice.

He told the public in a tweet: “It’s Official. I have retired from work.”

The question is: Now what?

For a lot of people, work is a prelude to a hoped-for future — maybe a fly rod and a cabin by the river. But for Shear, the paddock was the cabin by the river. So now he is trying to figure out how to fill minutes, hours, days. He concedes he is stumbling from the gate.

Roofers and handymen are touching up his home. He is wearing out his beloved Chihuahua, Gracie, with extended playtimes. Shear and his wife, Diane, 78, are still getting used to the do-si-do of spending more time together. They take walks. They go out to dinner. The next day, they do it again.

Shear learned a few things in 60 years in the paddock: The horses come first. Keep your eyes open. Be nice to the patrons. Now he is learning a new lesson, namely that free time and freedom aren’t always the same thing.

It’s OK. Nothing is easy in this life. Shear considers himself lucky.

“Centenarian,” his Twitter bio says. “Enjoying retired life.”