'Gentleman's cowboy': At 80, Jinks Fires keeps working

Most days at 3:30 a.m., the majority of the country is asleep and will remain so for the next few hours. But in Hot Springs, Ark., William “Jinks” Fires is usually waking up and getting ready to start the day.

The trainer is heading to the racetrack, where he’ll spend a few hours riding the ponies and training horses, just like he’s done since 1966. Fires, who turns 80 years old on Thursday, says he has no plans to slow down, even at an age where most have retired.

“Unfortunately, a lot of my classmates who I graduated with have passed on because they retired and just quit doing anything …” Fires said. “It’s just something that I set my mind to do and I do it and I keep doing it. I seem to be very healthy.”

Fires’ daughter, Krystal, said that she can’t see him slowing down any time soon, as he is in excellent health and loves what he does.

“It’s like he’s 60 still,” Krystal Fires said. “He’s a very young 80, stays working.”

Fires’ career with Thoroughbreds began after a stint as a rodeo rider, during which time he appeared in the pages of the Wisconsin State Journal. Dated July 27, 1963, the below photo shows him taking a spill off the back of a bronco, and the story describes his torn ligaments that resulted from the fall.

Eventually, the rodeo circuit led him to racetrack, when he met an owner in Memphis, Tenn., who saw that he was a good size for a jockey at 105 pounds and asked him to help with his young horses when the rodeo season was over. Having nothing else to do, Fires accepted the invitation.

“I went and broke all the yearlings, and when they turned 2 they went to the racetrack at Oaklawn Park,” Fires said.

After that, he moved up to Chicago, where he was working as a trainer until disaster struck. As reported by the Northwest Arkansas Times on April 13, 1970, a fire destroyed the stables of the Washington Park Racetrack, where Fires was working, killing 11 horses he was caring for. He spent the next six years in other jobs in the racing industry.

Eventually, Fires got back on his feet and found trainer work back in Arkansas. He built up a reputation as honest and dependable and was able to pick up more and more clients, including Bob Yagos, who began working with Fires about 30 years ago.

“I had just got into horse racing, and I had a couple trainers who I really wasn’t too happy with,” Yagos said. “I asked around to find a trainer that I could trust, and everyone pointed me to him.”

Yagos said his time with Fires has been nothing but joy, but one moment in the partnership’s history stands out: the career of Archarcharch, who Fires found for $60,000 at the 2009 Keeneland September sale.

The son of Arch broke his maiden in November 2010 at Churchill Downs, then got his first stakes win in the Grade 3 Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn, then won the Arkansas Derby in April 2011, a victory that Fires called one of the highlights of his career.

The colt moved on to the 2011 Kentucky Derby, where his career ended when he fractured his leg leaving the gate, though Fires was quick to point out that “he still beat four horses.”

Regardless of the result, Yagos said the trip to the Kentucky Derby was one of the high points of both his career and Fires’.

“After all these years, he finally got to make it to the top,” Yagos said. “Instead of watching everybody else, he was there and had all of his family around him. That was a special moment.”

Fires, who has attended the Kentucky Derby almost every year since 1961, when he watched from the top of a barn as Carry Back won the race, said the experience of having a horse in the race meant a lot to him, as most of his family came to the race.

Fires has carried much of his family into the racing industry with him, including many of his siblings. But when Krystal Fires wanted to become a jockey, her father was not pleased with the idea.

“I tried to keep her away from the racetrack,” Fires said. “I wanted her to go on to school and make some kind of a business. It used to be pretty tough for women to be around the racetrack -- and it still is -- but I just wanted her to finish, go on to college and do the whole deal.”

“He’s very protective,” Krystal Fires said.

The plan to keep her away from the racetrack didn’t work, as Krystal, who did go to college, now works as a hospitality coordinator for the Breeders’ Cup. All told, Fires and his wife, Penny, have four children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Fires has built a reputation in the industry as a “gentleman’s cowboy,” as Krystal put it. He is known for his big cowboy hats, holding doors open and general politeness and professionalism.

“He is one of the nicest, kindest people you’re going to meet,” Krystal Fires said. “He would do anything for you. I’ve been around the racetrack all my life, and I have never once heard anything bad about my father and that is very hard to do in the racing business.”

He also has a side hobby, making keychains out of the nameplates from bridles, which he then gives away to friends and family.

“I’ve probably got a dozen of them,” Yagos said. “Every time we get a good horse, he makes me one for it.”

If it wasn’t for his generosity with the keychains, especially after one big race, when he gave them out to some of his friends before they got on a flight, Fires joked that he might have been a richer man.

“One of my friends brought me a magazine and some lady had seen them, she didn’t say exactly what it was but she said she saw someone with them on an airplane,” Fires said. “She started making them a little bit different style, had somebody put a flower on the end of them, that sort of stuff. Then it showed she made $4 million.”

Even without that money, Fires said he’s happy with where he is in life, although he wished that things would get back to normal quickly and pandemic restrictions would soon be over.

“For an 80-year old, I can still get on the horse everyday and do everything,” Fires said. “I guess it’s a good laugh.”