Long before Bessie Gruwell became executive director of the Delaware Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association in 2005, she was forced to cope with two losses as sudden as they were devastating. She was a mere 20 years old when her father, Thomas Lovelace, died of a heart attack in 1983. She wound up taking over his training operation at that unlikely age. She was 33 when Richard Gruwell, her husband, died in his sleep two weeks after they celebrated their 10th anniversary. Another heart attack.
