11/04/2025
June 4, 1923. Belmont Park, New York.
The horse crossed the finish line first.
The crowd cheered.
Then someone noticed: the jockey wasn't moving.
Frank Hayes had won his first race as a professional jockey.
He'd been dead for the last quarter-mile.
This is 1923. The Roaring Twenties. Horse racing was America's most popular sport—bigger than baseball, bigger than boxing. Fortunes were made and lost on a single race. Belmont Park was one of the country's premier tracks, drawing thousands of spectators every race day.
Frank Hayes was 35 years old—old for a jockey, especially one just starting out professionally. He'd worked as a horse trainer and stable hand for years, occasionally riding in amateur races. But he'd never won anything significant.
On June 4, he got his shot.
The horse was named Sweet Kiss—a chestnut mare with a spotty racing record. She was owned by a woman named Miss A.M. Frayling, who'd hired Hayes specifically for this race. Sweet Kiss was a 20-1 longshot. Nobody expected her to win. Nobody was paying much attention to her at all.
Which is why it took so long for anyone to notice something was wrong.
The race was a steeplechase—a grueling event where horses jump over obstacles while maintaining speed. It's physically demanding for both horse and rider. Heart rates spike. Adrenaline surges. Bodies are pushed to their absolute limits.
As the gates opened and the horses burst forward, Hayes and Sweet Kiss settled into the pack. Nothing unusual. Nothing to draw attention.
Somewhere around the halfway point—witnesses would later disagree on exactly when—Frank Hayes suffered a massive heart attack.
His heart stopped. He died instantly.
But his body didn't fall.
In horse racing, jockeys crouch low over the horse's neck, gripping with their knees, leaning forward to reduce wind resistance. It's a position that, under the right circumstances, can hold a body in place even without conscious muscle control.
Sweet Kiss kept running.
She'd been trained to run this course. She knew the jumps, the turns, the rhythm. Horses are creatures of routine and instinct. Without Hayes actively steering her, she simply... continued.
Over jumps. Around turns. Through the final stretch.
And she ran well. Better than she'd ever run before, actually.
In the final furlong, Sweet Kiss surged ahead. Past the other horses. Past the favorites. Down the stretch toward the finish line with a dead man on her back.
She crossed first.
The crowd erupted in surprise—20-1 odds! The longshot had won! Those few people who'd bet on Sweet Kiss were suddenly very wealthy.
Track officials approached to congratulate Hayes as Sweet Kiss slowed to a walk, her sides heaving, foam at her mouth from the exertion.
Hayes didn't respond.
He sat perfectly still in the saddle, hunched forward in racing position, hands still gripping the reins.
"Hayes? Hayes!"
Someone reached up to touch him. His body was rigid. His face was pale, lips slightly blue.
Frank Hayes was dead.
The celebration stopped instantly. Confusion rippled through the crowd. How long had he been dead? Had he died at the finish line? Before?
Officials carefully removed his body from the saddle—rigor mortis hadn't set in yet, but his muscles were stiff from the racing posture he'd held even in death.
A doctor examined him quickly: heart attack, probably during the race itself. Given the body's condition and witness reports, Hayes had likely died with at least a quarter-mile still to run.
Which meant Sweet Kiss had won the race carrying a co**se.
The racing authorities faced an unprecedented question: Did the win count?
Technically, horse and jockey had crossed the finish line first. Hayes had been in the saddle from start to finish. There was no rule that said the jockey had to be alive.
After heated discussion, they declared it official: Sweet Kiss had won. Frank Hayes was credited with his first—and only—professional victory as a jockey.
But the story gets stranger.
Sweet Kiss never raced again.
Miss Frayling, traumatized by what had happened, refused to race the mare after that day. Sweet Kiss was retired immediately—her final record: one race, one win, one dead jockey.
Other jockeys began referring to her as "the horse that carried a ghost to victory." Superstition ran deep in racing culture. No one wanted to ride a horse whose last victory came with a dead man in the saddle.
Sweet Kiss lived out her days in peaceful retirement, never again feeling the thunder of race day or the weight of a jockey on her back.
As for Frank Hayes, his story became racing legend—the only jockey in recorded history to win a race while dead.
Newspapers picked up the story immediately. "DEAD JOCKEY WINS RACE" became a headline across the country. It was morbid, bizarre, almost unbelievable. But dozens of witnesses confirmed it.
Hayes' family was devastated, of course. But there was also a strange kind of consolation: he'd died doing what he loved, and he'd won. After years of training horses and dreaming of victory, he'd finally gotten it—even if he wasn't alive to celebrate.
The racing world struggled with the implications. Heart attacks weren't uncommon in the sport—the physical stress was enormous, the adrenaline constant. But usually, if a jockey had a medical emergency, they'd fall. The horse would stop or veer off course. Someone would notice.
Hayes had died in the exact position, at the exact moment, that allowed his body to remain stable enough for Sweet Kiss to finish the race.
It was a confluence of timing so precise it seemed almost supernatural.
Over the decades, Hayes' story has been retold countless times—often embellished, sometimes doubted, but thoroughly documented. Newspapers from that day still exist. Official race records confirm it. Witnesses gave testimonies.
Frank Hayes really did win a race while dead.
But beyond the macabre fascination, his story highlights something darker about horse racing: the physical toll on jockeys.
These athletes maintain impossibly low body weights—often through starvation and dehydration—to meet weight requirements. They ride at speeds over 40 mph with no protective equipment beyond a helmet. They risk being trampled, thrown, or crushed in every race.
Hayes was 35—old for a jockey—and had been trying to break into professional racing for years. The physical stress of that career path, combined with the intense exertion of a steeplechase, likely contributed to his fatal heart attack.
He's remembered for the bizarre circumstances of his death. But he should also be remembered as another casualty of a sport that demands everything from its participants—sometimes literally everything.
Today, Belmont Park still stands. The track where Hayes won his impossible victory has hosted countless races since 1923. But none quite like that one.
In racing circles, when something impossibly unlikely happens, old-timers sometimes invoke Hayes' name: "Well, it's not as crazy as the dead jockey winning."
It's become the standard for "impossible but true."
Frank Hayes wanted to be a winning jockey his entire adult life. He trained horses, rode in amateur races, worked his way toward that dream for years.
On June 4, 1923, he finally won a race.
He just didn't live to know it.
Sweet Kiss carried him across the finish line—past horses with living jockeys, past the favorites, past all expectations—and gave him the only victory he'd ever have.
She ran on instinct, muscle memory, and training.
He sat in the saddle, dead weight that should have thrown off her balance but somehow didn't.
Together—one living, one dead—they won.
It's the kind of story that sounds like urban legend. The kind of thing that couldn't possibly be true.
Except it is.
Documented. Witnessed. Official.
The only jockey in history to win a race posthumously.
Frank Hayes: 1888-1923.
Professional racing record: 1 race, 1 win.
Cause of death: heart attack.
Location of death: mid-race, somewhere around the final turn at Belmont Park.
Final position: first place.
Some victories come at the highest price.
His came at the ultimate cost.
But it was still a victory.
And Sweet Kiss—the 20-1 longshot that nobody believed in—made sure he crossed that finish line first.
Even if he couldn't feel the triumph.
Even if he couldn't hear the crowd.
Even if he'd never know he'd finally won.
She carried him home anyway.
