March  2000

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY

10 Years Ago

California-bred Real Cash, a Tank's Prospect colt bred by Old English Ranch and trained by D. Wayne Lukas for Overbrook Farm, captured the $170,000 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita. California Thoroughbred Sales Inc. conducted its March two-year-old sale in Del Mar for the first time. Facing new competition from Barretts' sale company in Pomona, the CTS sale averaged $30,668 for the 1990 sale, dropping 26.64 percent from the previous year's average of $41,865.

25 Years Ago

T. V. Lark, the California-bred who sold for $10,000 at the 1958 Del Mar yearling sale and earned close to $1 million during his racing career, died of a massive hemorrhage at Hamburg Farm in Kentucky on March 6, 1975. Sold privately to Preston Madden during his three-year-old season, T. V. Lark defeated Kelson in the 1961 Washington, D. C., International and was voted North America's champion grass horse that year. T. V. Lark was also a champion stallion and led the national standings for leading sire and leading broodmare sire in 1974. California-bred Stardust Mel survived a steward's inquiry to win the 1975 Santa Anita Handicap over Out of the East.

50 Years Ago

Your Host captured the San Felipe Stakes and Santa Anita Derby and became California's best hope since Morvich for a Kentucky Derby win. In fact, the Golden State appeared to be well-represented for the 1950 Run for the Roses, which 10 of 134 nominees being either California-bred or California-owned.


IN MEMORIAM

Ken Maddy

        California horse racing lost a good friend when former Senator Ken Maddy succumbed to a 14-month battle with lung cancer on Feb. 19. He died shortly after midnight in his room at Sutter Memorial Hospital in Sacramento following months of intense radiation and chemotherapy.

The 65-year-old Maddy represented California's Central Valley in the Sacramento legislature for nearly 30 years until term limits forced him out of office in 1998. While he wrote hundreds of bills during his legislative career, 45 of those bills directly benefited the racing industry in this state.
    In 1984, he authored SB 14 which brought satellite wagering to California for the first time. This was the first in a series of bills written and/or supported by the former state senator that was destined to change the landscape of racing. Senate Bill 14 really opened the door and gave racing an opportunity to expand significantly.
Then, in 1989, Assembly Bill 1091 was passed and made into law. Authored by Jim Costa, it revised the incentive awards program and called for five percent of the total incentive fund to go toward the Cal-bred Race Fund, which was directed to the California Cup. Senate Bill 2000, another bill written by Maddy, passed in 1997 and provided the racing industry with much-needed license fee relief. Shortly before he left office, he wrote and saw the passing of SB 27. This measure, which went into effect in January, 1999, provided an additional $43 million in license fee relief and paved the way for full card simulcasting.

      The roots that made Maddy such a good friend of the racing industry stretched back a lot further than his career in politics. The passing of the pari-mutuel horse racing bill of 1933 that brought racing back after a 23-year absence created scores of new fans. One of these was Maddy's own mother, Anna Thomas, who persuaded her husband to claim a horse or two for her.
    "That first horse was a filly named Homing," said Maddy in a 1994 interview for The Thoroughbred of California. "She won the first race we ran her in and paid something like $78. After that, we were all hooked."
    Getting hooked on racing wasn't hard for a young man who was born in Santa Monica and grew up in Inglewood in the shadow of Hollywood Park. Both Ken and his brother Lloyd got jobs on the backside with Warren Stute, who trained the family's horses. Lloyd went on to train his own string, while Ken spent summers and school holidays grooming or mucking out stalls just to stay at the track and be around the horses.
    "Horse racing was the only thing we did together as a family," he said. "It was the only thing my mom and dad agreed on."
    Those horses were sold when Maddy's father died in 1954, but the love of the sport never left them. While his mother and sister bought some mares and campaigned California champion Work the Crowd in partnership with Harris Farms and Maddy's former wife Norma, Ken had become one of racing's staunch supporters in Sacramento.
    John Harris, who was one of the Senator's oldest friends and close political ally, said that Maddy had been looking forward to racing Work the Crowd's foals this year.
    "I thought he was going to beat this thing," Harris told The Fresno Bee. "I kind of kept thinking he was going to win."
    After hearing about Maddy's passing, both Bay Meadows and Santa Anita took time out of their Feb. 19 racing cards to observe a moment of silence as a tribute. Bay Meadows had scheduled the second running of the Ken Maddy Sprint on that day, won by California-bred Champ's Star.
    "He was an inspiration," Harris continued. "He was a wonderful person and a joy to be around. He always had such a good sense of humor. It was easy, sometimes, to talk him into skipping an afternoon of work and head to the track."
    Maddy played football at Fresno State College before heading for law school at UCLA. He graduated in 1963 and moved back to Fresno to open a law practice. A career in politics soon beckoned. When he won his first seat in the California State Assembly in 1970, a private law practice had to take a second seat. He lost the race for governor in 1978, but was elected to the state senate in a special election the following year. All the rest is history.
    "Ken had not only brains and guts, but heart," said former Gov. Pete Wilson in a Fresno Bee interview. "It wasn't just his dark good looks, the ready smile and laugh but that great heart that made him so personally magnetic and one of the truly great legislators of the 20th century."
    After he left office, Maddy joined the Sacramento-based public relations firm Fleischman-Hillard and began to put more time into his personal life-his horses, golf and family. Just about a year ago, though, he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer despite the fact he did not smoke. As the gravity of his illness became more public, the tributes began pouring in. The School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis named its new equine analytical chemistry lab after him last fall. California State University Fresno recently founded the Kenneth L. Maddy Institute for the study of political science and is viewed as a future training ground for elected officials.
    In addition to his mother and sister, Marilyn Brazell of Citrus Heights, Maddy is survived by a son Donald Paul Maddy; daughters, Deanna Hose of Sacramento and Marilyn Geis of Fresno; six stepchildren, five grandchildren and 13 step-grandchildren. Memorial contributions may be sent to the Kenneth L. Maddy Institute at CSUF, the Kenneth L. Maddy Equine Analytical Chemistry Lab at UC Davis or Sacramento Area Youth Golf.
-Debra Ginsburg



John Stonebraker

    John S. Stonebraker, a longtime Thoroughbred owner who bred and raced several stakes winners in partnership with Old English Ranch, passed away from complications of heart disease at Pomona Valley Hospital on Jan. 25. He was 81, and is survived by his wife Marjorie, daughters Lynda Pond and Annie Giuliano, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
    A former teacher and coach at Mt. San Antonio College near Pomona, Calif., Stonebraker played tight end on USC's Rose Bowl champion teams in 1938 and 1939. He went on to play in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers and Washington Redskins before he enlisted into the Navy during World War II. An old football injury prevented him from returning to the game when he fulfilled his military service. Instead, Stonebraker settled in Pomona and turned his sights to teaching. He coached football, swimming and water polo at Mt. Sac from 1949 to 1984.
    "He was a great role model to all of us," Stonebraker's grandson Jeff Giuliano told the Inland Valley Daily News. "He had some great stories to tell. The man I knew, though, was the grandfather who took me fishing each summer."
    Stonebraker became a Thoroughbred owner in his later years after he asked his wife Marje what she wanted for her birthday one year and she replied, "A horse." In partnership with the Johnston family's Old English Rancho, the Stonebrakers campaigned several noteworthy stakes performers. Among these were Something Lucky, a California champion and multiple stakes winner with nearly $500,000 in earnings, and 1993 California Cup Juvenile winner Flying Sensation.


Lawrence Kip McCreery

    Lawrence Kip McCreery, a former director of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association, died Jan. 25 in Delray Beach, Fla., following a long illness. He was 77.
    A descendant of a prominent San Francisco gold rush pioneer family, McCreery was raised in the exclusive community of Hillsborough, Calif., and attended the Cate School in Santa Barbara before going on to pursue a college degree at UC Berkeley. Following a stint as a pilot with the 15th Air Force in Europe during World War II, McCreery returned home and founded the Dura-Bond Bearing Company in Palo Alto and served as president of that firm until it was sold to Eaton Corporation in 1970.
    Engaged in ranching and breeding horses for much of his life, McCreery served on the board of the CTBA before heading to Ireland in the early seventies. Over there, he developed and operated Orchardstown Stud in County Tipperary and also served as a steward of the Irish Turf Club.
    His first prominent winner as an Irish breeder was Habitony, who ended up racing in North America and winning the 1977 Santa Anita Derby. The horse later took up stud duty in California, and his offspring include three-time California-bred Horse of the Year Pal--the state's all-time leading earner-- sprint sensation Richter Scale and many other good ones. McCreery also bred Irish champions Monteverdi and Danehill Dancer. He and his family returned to the United States in 1995 and settled in South Florida.
    Survivors include his widow, Lorraine; two sons, Lawrence Kip and William; a daughter, Selby, and four grandchildren. His son Lawrence, who goes by the name of Kip, managed Orchardstown Stud for several years and currently operates Dolphin Bloodstock in South Florida. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the American Irish Foundation or The Cate School of the Coyote Point Museum in Santa Barbara.


Bryan Webb

Bryan Webb, a prominent trainer in Northern California from 1983 to 1995, died Feb. 2 of a heart attack in New Jersey. He was 73.

Born in Alabama, Webb was introduced to racing by an uncle and entered the sport first as an owner. He took out a trainer's license at Charles Town in 1955 and won with the first horse he saddled. He was successful at tracks throughout the East and Midwest, capturing training titles at Rockingham Park, Detroit Race Course, Ak-Sar-Ben and Pimlico. He gained some national attention in the 1960s when he was instrumental in helping female jockey Barbara Jo Rubin begin her riding career at a time when women were not welcome in riding circles. Rubin had worked as an exercise rider for Webb and, under urging by him and her father, she decided to apply for a jockey's license.

"If any girl can make it, Barbara can," Webb told The Blood-Horse at the time. "She's a good horsebacker, and she's strong. I'll ride her on some of my horses as soon as she gets a license." Her victory aboard Cohesion at Charles Town on Feb. 22, 1969, was the first win by a female rider in a pari-mutuel race in the United States and stamped Webb as a true sportsman.

Relocated to Northern California in the early 1980s, Webb enjoyed plenty of success at the San Francisco-area tracks. He finished second to perennial leader Jerry Hollendorfer at two Bay Meadows and two Golden Gate meetings. Although claimers were his stock in trade, Webb saddled a dozen stakes winners. Belfast Becky, who raced for his wife Peggy, captured the grade III Hillsborough Handicap at Bay Meadows in 1990.

He was forced into retirement after suffering a stroke five years ago. By this time, he had moved to New Jersey and his son, Bryan Jr., had taken over the stable. "His heart never left the Bay Area," his widow told Daily Racing Form following his death. "He always talked about getting well and coming back."

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