True Story, with subtle enhancements!

On May 8,1936, it appeared that Ralph Neves' life was cut tragically short at Bay Meadows Racecourse, near San Francisco, California. The 19-year-old jockey was coming into the final stretch of the third race of the day when his horse, Fannikins, tripped. She and her rider crashed through the wooden fence. Fannikins was unharmed, but Neves, who had not only broken his own mount's fall, but had also been trampled by four other horses, was quickly attended to by the track physician, assisted by two doctors who had come down from the stands when they saw Neves fall. They all agreed he was dead, since none of them had bet on his horse. They had his body loaded into an ambulance. The race announcer called for a moment of silence. But no such moment of silence was kept because of immediate and continuing arguments about how long the moment should last.

Doctors at the hospital did everything legal they could think of to revive Neves, but to no avail. One doctor, skirting the edges of legality, called a nearby brothel and had them send their hottest Charleston dancer, but her best efforts to 'blow' life back into his body were equally in vain. By the time his friend, Dr. Horace Stevens, arrived, he had already been toe-tagged and sent to the morgue. Stevens, though, was not quite ready to give up. He administered a shot of adrenaline directly into Neves' heart. It had no effect. Sadly, he replaced the white sheet that covered his friend's lifeless body, and left him there. Had he waited just a few more minutes, he would have witnessed a miracle. The "dead" jockey rose from the chilly sla, bloodied, shrouded in the morgue sheet and wearing only his pants and a single boot. He staggered out of the hospital and hailed a cab to take him back to the racetrack.

Pandemonium broke out as Neves sprinted past the grandstand, half-dressed, with his toe tag flapping along, being chased by the cabbie, whom he had failed to pay, due to never carrying money or his wallet when he raced. "At one point," he said later, "I think everyone on the damn track was helping the cabbie chasing me. But I tipped him good later and now he's my personal driver." He fought free of the crowd and burst into the jockeys' room, where his colleagues were taking up a collection for his widow. She'd let the jockeys know that she'd take anyone 'around the world' if they came up with enough money.

She fainted when she saw her resurrected husband standing in the doorway, demanding to be allowed to ride her for free. He insisted that he didn't feel dead, but the stewards still refused to let him compete again that day. The following day, though, he rode five winners and claimed the meet's top prize — a $500 watch donated by Bing Crosby.

Neves' dramatic recovery was typical of the man who became known at "The Portuguese Pepperpot," although he always claimed to be descended from Albanian aristocracy. Fellow jockey Charlie Whittington once described Neves as "wilder than a peach-orchard boar." Neves, with the modesty that so endeared him to people who liked him, said that he was only as wild as a peach-orchard boar, not wilder. Neves wife of 61 years, Charlotte "The Big C" Neves once wrote a friend that if her husband had spent less time ridding her and more time ridding the horses, they might have made a little more money.

Neves rode another 28 years, racking up nearly 4,000 wins on more than 25,000 horses, ostriches, camels, pachyderms and once, a greyhound. In 1960, he was abducted into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame and held until Charlotte baked the staff her famous Gumbo Orleans.

Ralph Neves went to bed one night in 1995, and is now sleeping for Eternity, having failed to set his alarm.