Mary Steedman Bacon Anderson
Mary Steedman Bacon Anderson (January 1, 1948 – June 8, 1991) was an American thoroughbred jockey and model. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Toledo, Ohio by her father, a one-time big band pianist later involved in construction, and her mother who was a stay at home mother. She had one sister and brother.
While having no horses of her own as a child, she interacted with them at a neighboring farm. In high school, Mary found work as an outrider, helping in morning workouts and accompanying horses to the starting gate at Toledo's Raceway Park.
She saved her money and after graduation went to school in England, where she earned an instructor's degree from a riding academy. When she returned to the United States, she taught riding at a hunt club outside of Detroit. However, the lure of the track was in her and returned to it by galloping horses on mornings at Detroit Race Course.
At the Detroit track Mary Steedman met jockey Johnny "Pug" Bacon. They married soon afterward. They competed together at Hazel Park, now defunct, in Michigan. In 1972 the track ruled that husbands and wives could not ride against each other. Combined with added marital difficulties Bacon divorced her husband in 1972. Pug Bacon died in a 1977 auto accident.
In March 1969, Bacon gave birth to a daughter, Suzie, only hours after riding horses in the practice gate. She returned to riding two weeks after giving birth. Bacon won her first race June 5, 1969. She won 55 times in 396 races that first year. She finished in the money 160 times. In 1974 two weeks into the spring meeting at New York's Aqueduct Racetrack Mary for the first time ranked among the track's top ten jockeys.
With her notable good looks, charm and charisma Mary Bacon enjoyed significant attention from a variety of media sources.
She once graced the pages of the fashion magazine Vogue and modeled nationally for cosmetics giant Revlon after being chosen as their Charlie Girl ad campaign.
Four Junes after her first victory, Playboy presented Bacon as part of a collection of photographs the magazine titled, "Woman's Work", which appeared in their June 1973 issue which also featured its Playmate of the Year.[citation needed]
In June 1974 came a Newsweek cover for a story on women emerging in sports. The news magazine used 14 photographs inside to help illustrate its story. Bacon's was the only face to appear more than once.
In May 1979, she was seriously injured in a starting-gate accident at a small track in East St. Louis, Ill. Her mount flipped. The horse landed on her.
She sued for negligence, claiming that the gate had been unsafe. She won and was awarded a $3 million settlement. She never collected. The track declared bankruptcy and went out of business.
She was married to jockey Jeff Anderson in 1981 and remained with him until her death.
On June 10, 1982, Bacon went down in a spill at Golden Gate Fields in Northern California. She was unconscious and bleeding from the head when she was taken to the hospital. Preliminary examinations indicated a serious head injury and she remained unconscious for eight days.
In pain from lingering riding injuries and then because of cervical cancer, at the age of 43 Mary committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot in a motel Fort Worth, Texas June 7, 1991 on the eve of the Belmont Stakes. While discovered shortly after the gun was discharged she died in the early morning hours of June 8 at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.
Sixteen days later, her body was returned to New York and Belmont Park, where she had enjoyed much of her early success. Her cremated ashes were spread over the grave of Ruffian, perhaps the greatest Female thoroughbred in history.
Mary Steedman Bacon Anderson (January 1, 1948 – June 8, 1991) was an American thoroughbred jockey and model. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Toledo, Ohio by her father, a one-time big band pianist later involved in construction, and her mother who was a stay at home mother. She had one sister and brother.
While having no horses of her own as a child, she interacted with them at a neighboring farm. In high school, Mary found work as an outrider, helping in morning workouts and accompanying horses to the starting gate at Toledo's Raceway Park.
She saved her money and after graduation went to school in England, where she earned an instructor's degree from a riding academy. When she returned to the United States, she taught riding at a hunt club outside of Detroit. However, the lure of the track was in her and returned to it by galloping horses on mornings at Detroit Race Course.
At the Detroit track Mary Steedman met jockey Johnny "Pug" Bacon. They married soon afterward. They competed together at Hazel Park, now defunct, in Michigan. In 1972 the track ruled that husbands and wives could not ride against each other. Combined with added marital difficulties Bacon divorced her husband in 1972. Pug Bacon died in a 1977 auto accident.
In March 1969, Bacon gave birth to a daughter, Suzie, only hours after riding horses in the practice gate. She returned to riding two weeks after giving birth. Bacon won her first race June 5, 1969. She won 55 times in 396 races that first year. She finished in the money 160 times. In 1974 two weeks into the spring meeting at New York's Aqueduct Racetrack Mary for the first time ranked among the track's top ten jockeys.
With her notable good looks, charm and charisma Mary Bacon enjoyed significant attention from a variety of media sources.
She once graced the pages of the fashion magazine Vogue and modeled nationally for cosmetics giant Revlon after being chosen as their Charlie Girl ad campaign.
Four Junes after her first victory, Playboy presented Bacon as part of a collection of photographs the magazine titled, "Woman's Work", which appeared in their June 1973 issue which also featured its Playmate of the Year.[citation needed]
In June 1974 came a Newsweek cover for a story on women emerging in sports. The news magazine used 14 photographs inside to help illustrate its story. Bacon's was the only face to appear more than once.
In May 1979, she was seriously injured in a starting-gate accident at a small track in East St. Louis, Ill. Her mount flipped. The horse landed on her.
She sued for negligence, claiming that the gate had been unsafe. She won and was awarded a $3 million settlement. She never collected. The track declared bankruptcy and went out of business.
She was married to jockey Jeff Anderson in 1981 and remained with him until her death.
On June 10, 1982, Bacon went down in a spill at Golden Gate Fields in Northern California. She was unconscious and bleeding from the head when she was taken to the hospital. Preliminary examinations indicated a serious head injury and she remained unconscious for eight days.
In pain from lingering riding injuries and then because of cervical cancer, at the age of 43 Mary committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot in a motel Fort Worth, Texas June 7, 1991 on the eve of the Belmont Stakes. While discovered shortly after the gun was discharged she died in the early morning hours of June 8 at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.
Sixteen days later, her body was returned to New York and Belmont Park, where she had enjoyed much of her early success. Her cremated ashes were spread over the grave of Ruffian, perhaps the greatest Female thoroughbred in history.
Mary Steedman Bacon Anderson
Mary Steedman Bacon Anderson (January 1, 1948 – June 8, 1991) was an American thoroughbred jockey and model. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Toledo, Ohio by her father, a one-time big band pianist later involved in construction, and her mother who was a stay at home mother. She had one sister and brother.
While having no horses of her own as a child, she interacted with them at a neighboring farm. In high school, Mary found work as an outrider, helping in morning workouts and accompanying horses to the starting gate at Toledo's Raceway Park.
She saved her money and after graduation went to school in England, where she earned an instructor's degree from a riding academy. When she returned to the United States, she taught riding at a hunt club outside of Detroit. However, the lure of the track was in her and returned to it by galloping horses on mornings at Detroit Race Course.
At the Detroit track Mary Steedman met jockey Johnny "Pug" Bacon. They married soon afterward. They competed together at Hazel Park, now defunct, in Michigan. In 1972 the track ruled that husbands and wives could not ride against each other. Combined with added marital difficulties Bacon divorced her husband in 1972. Pug Bacon died in a 1977 auto accident.
In March 1969, Bacon gave birth to a daughter, Suzie, only hours after riding horses in the practice gate. She returned to riding two weeks after giving birth. Bacon won her first race June 5, 1969. She won 55 times in 396 races that first year. She finished in the money 160 times. In 1974 two weeks into the spring meeting at New York's Aqueduct Racetrack Mary for the first time ranked among the track's top ten jockeys.
With her notable good looks, charm and charisma Mary Bacon enjoyed significant attention from a variety of media sources.
She once graced the pages of the fashion magazine Vogue and modeled nationally for cosmetics giant Revlon after being chosen as their Charlie Girl ad campaign.
Four Junes after her first victory, Playboy presented Bacon as part of a collection of photographs the magazine titled, "Woman's Work", which appeared in their June 1973 issue which also featured its Playmate of the Year.[citation needed]
In June 1974 came a Newsweek cover for a story on women emerging in sports. The news magazine used 14 photographs inside to help illustrate its story. Bacon's was the only face to appear more than once.
In May 1979, she was seriously injured in a starting-gate accident at a small track in East St. Louis, Ill. Her mount flipped. The horse landed on her.
She sued for negligence, claiming that the gate had been unsafe. She won and was awarded a $3 million settlement. She never collected. The track declared bankruptcy and went out of business.
She was married to jockey Jeff Anderson in 1981 and remained with him until her death.
On June 10, 1982, Bacon went down in a spill at Golden Gate Fields in Northern California. She was unconscious and bleeding from the head when she was taken to the hospital. Preliminary examinations indicated a serious head injury and she remained unconscious for eight days.
In pain from lingering riding injuries and then because of cervical cancer, at the age of 43 Mary committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot in a motel Fort Worth, Texas June 7, 1991 on the eve of the Belmont Stakes. While discovered shortly after the gun was discharged she died in the early morning hours of June 8 at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.
Sixteen days later, her body was returned to New York and Belmont Park, where she had enjoyed much of her early success. Her cremated ashes were spread over the grave of Ruffian, perhaps the greatest Female thoroughbred in history.
Mary Steedman Bacon Anderson (January 1, 1948 – June 8, 1991) was an American thoroughbred jockey and model. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Toledo, Ohio by her father, a one-time big band pianist later involved in construction, and her mother who was a stay at home mother. She had one sister and brother.
While having no horses of her own as a child, she interacted with them at a neighboring farm. In high school, Mary found work as an outrider, helping in morning workouts and accompanying horses to the starting gate at Toledo's Raceway Park.
She saved her money and after graduation went to school in England, where she earned an instructor's degree from a riding academy. When she returned to the United States, she taught riding at a hunt club outside of Detroit. However, the lure of the track was in her and returned to it by galloping horses on mornings at Detroit Race Course.
At the Detroit track Mary Steedman met jockey Johnny "Pug" Bacon. They married soon afterward. They competed together at Hazel Park, now defunct, in Michigan. In 1972 the track ruled that husbands and wives could not ride against each other. Combined with added marital difficulties Bacon divorced her husband in 1972. Pug Bacon died in a 1977 auto accident.
In March 1969, Bacon gave birth to a daughter, Suzie, only hours after riding horses in the practice gate. She returned to riding two weeks after giving birth. Bacon won her first race June 5, 1969. She won 55 times in 396 races that first year. She finished in the money 160 times. In 1974 two weeks into the spring meeting at New York's Aqueduct Racetrack Mary for the first time ranked among the track's top ten jockeys.
With her notable good looks, charm and charisma Mary Bacon enjoyed significant attention from a variety of media sources.
She once graced the pages of the fashion magazine Vogue and modeled nationally for cosmetics giant Revlon after being chosen as their Charlie Girl ad campaign.
Four Junes after her first victory, Playboy presented Bacon as part of a collection of photographs the magazine titled, "Woman's Work", which appeared in their June 1973 issue which also featured its Playmate of the Year.[citation needed]
In June 1974 came a Newsweek cover for a story on women emerging in sports. The news magazine used 14 photographs inside to help illustrate its story. Bacon's was the only face to appear more than once.
In May 1979, she was seriously injured in a starting-gate accident at a small track in East St. Louis, Ill. Her mount flipped. The horse landed on her.
She sued for negligence, claiming that the gate had been unsafe. She won and was awarded a $3 million settlement. She never collected. The track declared bankruptcy and went out of business.
She was married to jockey Jeff Anderson in 1981 and remained with him until her death.
On June 10, 1982, Bacon went down in a spill at Golden Gate Fields in Northern California. She was unconscious and bleeding from the head when she was taken to the hospital. Preliminary examinations indicated a serious head injury and she remained unconscious for eight days.
In pain from lingering riding injuries and then because of cervical cancer, at the age of 43 Mary committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot in a motel Fort Worth, Texas June 7, 1991 on the eve of the Belmont Stakes. While discovered shortly after the gun was discharged she died in the early morning hours of June 8 at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth.
Sixteen days later, her body was returned to New York and Belmont Park, where she had enjoyed much of her early success. Her cremated ashes were spread over the grave of Ruffian, perhaps the greatest Female thoroughbred in history.
