Robert Z. “Bobby” Adair
October 28, 1943 – May 16, 2015
Robert Z. “Bobby” Adair, of Springville, California, passed away Saturday, May 16, 2015, at his home on the ranch he shared with his wife of 51 years, Linda (Coffman) Adair. Bobby had been diagnosed with cancer in early March. He was 71 years old. Bobby was retired from a career as a quarter horse jockey, and was a member of the American Quarter Horse Association Hall of Fame.
Robert Zane Adair was born October 28, 1943 in Hugo, Oklahoma, the second son of Joe H. Adair and Ruth Nell (Neill) Adair. He attended school in Boswell, Oklahoma, until the family moved to Hagerman, New Mexico in 1959 where he completed his junior and senior years, graduating from Hagerman High School in 1961.
Raised on a ranch, always surrounded by horses, Bobby knew from an early age that he wanted to be a jockey. But his schoolteacher father insisted that he graduate from high school before leaving for a racetrack. Immediately after getting his high school diploma, Bobby headed 95 miles west to Ruidoso Downs to get his start as soon as possible.
In the summer of 1961, he worked as a groom at Ruidoso Downs where he met young trainer Donald Stewart who gave him his first opportunity to gallop horses and was instrumental in helping Bobby get his jockey’s license. Bobby won his first race in 1962 at Garfield Downs in Enid, Oklahoma. Early in his career he rode at a number of bush tracks in Oklahoma and Texas, including Blue Ribbon Downs, Del Rio, Laredo and La Bahia Downs in Goliad. He also rode at Centennial Race Track in Littleton, Colorado, Rillito Park in Tucson, Turf Paradise in Phoenix, as well as tracks in Burwell, Nebraska and Park Jefferson, South Dakota.
He also established himself in New Mexico, riding numerous winners at Ruidoso Downs, Sunland Park, La Mesa Park in Raton and Albuquerque. In the course of his career he raced at numerous venues across the country from upstate New York to Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas and the State of Washington.
However after first arriving in 1963, Bobby spent the bulk of his riding career in California, establishing himself as the leading rider multiple times at Los Alamitos and Bay Meadows Race Course, as well during numerous race meets in Pomona and elsewhere on the fair circuit.
It was at Los Alamitos where Adair was the undisputed riding king, and was known simply as “The Master.” He held every important riding record at the track including most wins, most stakes victories and most wins in a single meet. Among the great horses he rode to wins were Go Derussa Go, Band of Angels, Native Empress, Charger Bar, Easy Treasure, Viking Anne, Don Guerro, The Plan, Osage Rocket, and Bobby’s Angel (named for Bobby by owner Ivan Ashment).
But it was aboard the legendary Kaweah Bar that he won 32 races and scored some of his most memorable triumphs, including the 1972 Los Alamitos Championship when the palomino gelding was six years old, and not expected to win.
Adair won the Champion of Champions race twice, the Kindergarten Futurity and the Los Alamitos Championship four times each, and many other stakes races, all over California and the United States.
In the course of his 22-year career in horseracing, Adair was the nation’s leading quarter horse jockey for five consecutive years, and was the first jockey to be inducted into the American Quarter Horse Association Hall of Fame. He won some 3,000 races, including nearly 200 stakes wins.
In December, 1984, Bobby sustained a career-ending injury—a shattered right shoulder as a result of a fall. It occurred in a fog-related collision involving several horses in a race at Los Alamitos Race Course.
Despite having a relatively short career as a rider, and a career that ended over 30 years ago, Bobby still ranks 8th in wins among the more than 550 jockeys who have raced at Los Alamitos, and still ranks 4th in stakes victories.
Bobby Adair was highly respected by his peers, and had hundreds of friends and thousands of fans throughout the industry. He was a friend of many in both the quarter horse industry as well as thoroughbred racing, including AQHA Hall of Fame inductee, the late Blane Schvaneveldt, and thoroughbred trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who had his start in quarter horse racing.
Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, who enjoyed a successful Quarter Horse training career before moving to thoroughbred racing, spoke of Bobby minutes after he won the Kentucky Derby with American Pharoah on May 2, Baffert said during the post-race interview with NBC:
“I just want to say, I have a good friend who's having trouble right now, Bobby Adair, whom I idolized as a young boy—I wanted to be like Bobby Adair. This is for you my man."
On Friday, Los Alamitos Racecourse owner Ed Allred announced that starting in April 2016, the track will host a new $60,000 race named the Bobby Adair Stakes for 3-year-olds and upward at 350 yards.
Bobby retired from riding after the 1984 accident. Following his retirement, Adair worked for Los Alamitos, Santa Anita and Hollywood Park as an outrider.
But for all of his accomplishments as a jockey and all of the individual accolades—the wins, the records, the stakes races—none of those achievements were greater than the simple pleasure he took in just his love of horses themselves. Bobby loved everything that horsemanship can mean—being around horses, working with them, raising them, training them, team roping and just plain riding.
As he said in his speech when he was inducted into the Quarter Horse Hall of Fame, “I ride every day. I want to ride every day. I love to ride every day.”
Although his injury left him with chronic, severe pain in his right arm, which he could never again raise above shoulder level, he continued competing in his favorite sport, team roping—only as a heeler, because he could not raise his right arm high enough to be a header.
He loved roping, and he was successful, winning numerous roping competitions all over the west, including the US Team Roping Championship at the national finals in Oklahoma City, in 1997.
Bobby met Linda Coffman in the winter of 1963 and they were married on May 14, 1964. Throughout their lives together, Bobby and Linda were inseparable, joined together in their love of horses and everything that entailed. That included supporting each other as they competed in their respective events, and raising their daughter, Julie—a national collegiate rodeo champion—to be as devoted to all things equestrian as they were.
Bobby and Linda celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary a year ago this month in Springville.
Bobby Adair was preceded in death by his father, Joe Adair, and his brother, Joe Adair, Jr. He is survived by his wife Linda Adair, their daughter Julie Adair Stack and her husband John Stack of Rowland Heights, California, his mother, Ruth Nell Adair of Roswell, New Mexico, his brother Buddy, of Westbrook, Texas, and brother Rod Adair and his wife Dana, of Roswell. He is also survived by many nieces, nephews, cousins, and many, many friends, as well as one surviving aunt, Geraldine Hughes, of Boswell, Oklahoma.
Funeral services were held at The Lighthouse Chapel in Springville, California at 11:00 AM, Friday, May 22, with a reception following at the Veterans’ Memorial Building in Springville.
Pallbearers are Johnny Lambrecht, Jim Kropf, Joe Vick, Ray Nebergall, Shaun Hadley, Danny Cardoza and Kenny Hart. Honorary pallbearers are Bill Adair, John Cluff, John Creager, Bill Glober, Larry Kleve, Judd Morse, Brad O’Neill, Brad Payne, Robert Treasure, and Charlie Smith.
In lieu of flowers, Linda and Julie request that contributions be made to The Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund (PDIF), a public charity in Elmhurst, Illinois that provides financial assistance to some 60 former jockeys who have suffered catastrophic on-track injuries, or to the United Pegasus Foundation in Tehachapi, California, which saves former racehorses from slaughter.
Funeral services were under the direction of Myers Funeral Services of Porterville, California. An on-line guest book can be reached through http://www.legacy.com/funerals/Myers-Porterville/