[1] Born in Louisville, Kentucky, James was a very promising young jockey who began racing in 1930 at age seventeen.
In 1932, Eugene James was a jockey for the prominent horseman Col. Edward R. Bradley, owner of the highly successful Idle Hour Stock Farm.
Fator and Brother Joe finished nineteenth in a field of twenty Derby runners while James rode Burgoo King to victory.
[3][4] Unfortunately, Eugene James had problems maintaining his weight and suffered from bulimia that became so severe he had to stop riding.
During the evening of June 10, the nineteen-year-old James and two friends went to Chicago's popular Oak Street Beach on Lake Michigan where he went swimming, and drowned.