Background
He was born on November 13, 1898 in Groton, South Dakota, United States, the son of John C. Sande, a railroad worker (mother's name unknown).
He was born on November 13, 1898 in Groton, South Dakota, United States, the son of John C. Sande, a railroad worker (mother's name unknown).
Sande attended public school locally and in American Falls, Idaho, where the family moved when he was eight.
By the age of thirteen, Sande had his own horse, and at seventeen he left high school to work around local tracks and to race at fairs and on small-town main streets from Idaho to Arizona. Sande began his professional career in January 1918 in New Orleans and rode 158 winners that first season.
Sande signed with the Canadian sportsman Commander J. K. L. Ross, for whom he rode until 1920. He then signed for a rumored $15, 000 a year with Sam Hildreth, the trainer for Harry Sinclair's Rancocas Stable.
Sande's riding career seemed to be over when he suffered serious injuries in a fall at Saratoga on Aug. 7, 1924. Among the spectators was Admiral Cary T. Grayson, who examined Sande on the track and sent him to the hospital immediately with a leg, ribs, and a collarbone badly broken. During sixteen weeks in the hospital, Sande enjoyed the concern of many prominent visitors from the turf and social worlds. Sande was ready to resume racing by April 1925.
He severed his five-year connection with the Rancocas Stable and said that he would ride free-lance, although he was soon riding mainly for J. E. Widener. Sande showed that he had fully recovered by winning several important races, including the 1925 Kentucky Derby, on Flying Ebony. Later, he was suspended for a "serious and flagrant" foul at Pimlico. He was ordered from the grounds, his jockey's license was revoked, and he was barred from accepting a mount at any racecourse in the United States.
This was by no means his first suspension, but it was the most serious. Sande denied any fault and appealed for reinstatement; he was finally reinstated by the Maryland Racing Commission in April 1928.
Therefore, having accumulated a small fortune, he retired in 1928 with the intention of becoming an owner and trainer. He purchased his own string of horses but soon suffered financial losses. He was obliged to sell his small string and return as a jockey in 1930. This turned out to be one of his greatest years, for he rode Gallant Fox to what was later known as the Triple Crown of racing for three-year-olds.
He retired again in 1931. He sang publicly, having taken singing lessons for three years, and he signed a motion-picture contract, hoping for a film career. Nothing came of it, and he returned to ride thirteen winners in 1932.
Weight problems continued to plague Sande, and so, he retired for the third time in 1932. Sande next became a trainer for Colonel Maxwell Howard, with whom he remained until the latter's death in 1944. Sande then took over the Howard stable and also trained for Clifford Mooers until 1949. In May 1948 he was accused of doping one of his horses at Jamaica, and although a grand jury refused to indict him, the Jockey Club banned him from the track for sixty days.
Financial problems led Sande to attempt a comeback as a jockey in 1953, after a twenty-one-year absence. Although he did win one race in a stretch drive against Eddie Arcaro, it was clear that he had little left. By 1957, he had been forced to sell his few remaining horses. He was offered several jobs around racetracks but refused them. These were sad years for Sande; he had been a model of courtesy and civility in his earlier years, but he became a bitter, quarrelsome old man, alienating even those inclined to help him. For several years he was a virtual recluse in a room over a restaurant in Westbury, Long Island, where the proprietor permitted him to live and eat for free. Occasionally he would sing for the guests; sometimes he would ask the manager to get rid of them. In 1964 he borrowed his fare to go to Oregon and live with his father. He died in Jacksonville, Oreg.
On September 15, 1921, Sande married Hildreth's niece, Marian Casey; they had no children. His wife died on September 3 1927. On Feb. 17, 1932, he married Marian Kummer, a jockey's widow. (They had no children before they were divorced in 1946. )