Keeneland Magazine

NO2 2016

Keeneland, Investing in Racing's Future since 1936.

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52 SUMMER 2016 K KEENELAND.COM long view So, we had some consignors who would agree to take a horse back (because of physical condi- tions), while others would just say "tough." That didn't give me a very good taste in my mouth as to what you are doing for your buyers. Dr. DeWitt Owen, Dr. Art Davidson, and Dr. Fred Arnold and (attorney) Buddy Bishop had talked about how we needed to have X-rays on fle, so we made the repository voluntary. We had a few old-time con- signors who didn't send X-rays to the repository, but the frst year I think we already had 94 per- cent who did. We also did the wind arbitration. That is a very good thing. It doesn't say that a horse has to have a perfect throat, but he has to meet a certain standard so he's got a shot of getting to the races. We had won a lawsuit over a horse (that had been sold) that didn't have any shot of getting to the races, and that didn't really make me feel that good. We are very proud of the repository, and other sales companies have done the same, so it is a matter of transparency. What are some of your favorite memories of yearlings sold by Keeneland? RB: One is Secreto. When we went to Wind- felds, Dr. Owen as always was precise when it came to conformation, but I said, "We are going to take him." Well, he sold for $340,000, which was a lot less than other North- ern Dancers, and Dr. Owen chastised me. But then, the horse won the Ep- som Derby, and I said, "How does he look now?" When you moved over to the racing offce, you were dealing with many of the same people but in a different context. Were there any diffculties in that change? RB: Not really. Bill Greely always had thrown me into the racing part. I used to go out and do nominations ev- ery year for the Ashland and the Blue Grass, for example, and in delivering the sales catalogs I dealt directly with the trainers. I always had a rapport with the trainers. It was a seamless transition. Were there changes in racing that were comparable to changes you saw were needed in the sales? RB: We have always believed in con- stant re-evaluation. I had already been sort of the junior member who would sit in on the meetings about racing. One example of re-evaluation, the First Lady used to be 1 3 ⁄ 16 miles, but other tracks had similar races around that time of year. We changed it to a mile, and we have had three Breeders' Cup winners come out of that. Some things, though, you never touch. The Clai- borne Breeders' Futurity, the Darley Al- cibiades — these are standard 2-year- old races at their time and distance. Some things stand the test of time, and you shouldn't touch them. The frst suggestion of sponsorship caused an intake of breath, but it was accepted, and some of our sponsors have been with us 20 years. One of our sponsored races is the Shadwell Mile. Rick Nichols (vice president/general manager of Shadwell Farm) was the one who pushed us into our frst mil- lion-dollar race. He was pounding on me for three or four years before, and I was the one saying "Mmm, mmm, mmm." He laughs about that to this day. We see sponsorships as a partner- ship, and if a sponsor isn't happy with what our approach is, "OK, we will tear up this agreement." We are blessed with a great mix- ture of business outside racing as well as farms, veterinary frms, etc. Nothing could have been done with more admirable intent than the change to artifcial surface. What do you think the industry has learned from the use of all-weather surfaces? RB: First and foremost, we are proud that we tried it. Our track had been built in the 1930s. It wasn't ex- actly the most symmetrical track. I remember (jockey) Donnie Brumfeld used to say he liked to be in the two hole in a distance race because you could keep the No. 1 horse down on the rail going into the turn, and then with the shape of the turn, he had to pull up, and you were four lengths in front leaving the turn. So one of the things we did when we looked at synthetics was ask, "How do we change this racetrack?" So we widened the turns, banked the turns better, and put in a drainage system. We used it for six years. There were a lot of pluses and minuses. We had fuller felds, and catastrophic injuries were low. But we weren't accomplish- ing our mission, which is to attract the best racehorses in America. We weren't drawing the best dirt horses by any stretch of the imagination. It is kind of like standing a stallion. You can tell everybody he's a great stal- lion, but if nobody wants to breed to Beasley had the last laugh when Secreto (outside) won the 1984 Epsom Derby. JOHN CROFTS PHOTOGRAPHY

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