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LAVERNE FATOR PASSES AWAY Once Brilliant Jockey Dies From Injuries Sustained in Hospital Fall — Product of Idaho. NEW YORK, N. Y., May 16.— Laverne Fator, who ranked with Earl Sande as one of the greatest of American jockeys, died in Jamaica Hospital yesterday of injuries suffered when he plunged from a second-story window of the hospital, v,hile awaiting an operation for appendicitis. Fator, who won almost ,500,000 for his employers, had been intermittedly delirious since he was admitted to the hospital May 11, with a septic appendix condition that made an immediate operation inadvisable. In a moment of apparent lucidity Friday, he asked a nurse to get him some medicine. When she returned she found his bed empty, a screen in front of the window cast aside, and Fator lying in a courtyard thirty feet below. He had suffered a fractured skull and a broken right leg. There was a time when Fator was one of the famous names in horse racing. A tiny youth, under five tall and under 100 pounds in weight, he came to the races from the plains of Idaho at the behest of Stuart Polk. Fator had broad shoulders and remarkable hands which seemed always to get the best out of a horse. Sam Hildreth, the Rancocas Stable trainer, signed him immediately, giving him a 5,-000 bonus for signing after seeing Fator ride one race. With "Buddy Ensor, another great rider, Fator led the turf in 1921, 1922 and 1923. From 1919 until his retirement in 1933 Fator rode 4,947 horses, of which 1,075 were winners. His one great disappointment was his failure to win a Kentucky Derby, although he had a mount in that race several times. Fator was 36, married, and the father of three children. In recent years he had been training a small stable of his own but his success was small. Two brothers, Mark and Elmer, are both jockeys. Funeral services for Laverne Fator will ! be held at Fairchild Undertaking Parlors, i 164th Street, Jamaica, on Tuesday morning j at 9 oclock. Interment plans are under consideration, and the body will be placed in a vault for a final decision.
