Hall of Famer Walter Blum Dies

Hall of Fame jockey and long-time Florida steward Walter Blum died early Thursday, Mar. 14 due to complications of lung disease, announced his son Walter Blum Jr. on social media. He was 89. The story was first reported by the Daily Racing Form (DRF).

The Brooklyn, N.Y. native started his racing career young as a hotwalker before launching into riding in 1953 at 19, and leading the country in wins in both 1963 and 1964. While largely riding in New York and New Jersey, Blum did travel for high-profile rides. Despite having only one Triple Crown series victory–in 1971 when Pass Catcher denied Canonero II the Triple Crown in the Belmont–he'd counted a victory in nearly every major New York stakes, including the Whitney, Frizette, Prioress, Brooklyn, Metropolitan, Test, etc. as well as finding the winner's enclosure in the Santa Anita and Florida Derbys.

He also tallied the notable achievement of beating two equine Hall of Famers when his charges defeated five-time Horse of the Year Kelso and the great Buckpasser. Blum was named the George Woolf Memorial Award winner in 1964 and served as president of The Jockeys' Guild for five years starting in 1969.

Upon retirement from the saddle in 1975, Blum had 4,382 wins from 28,673 starts, and at that time, only four other jockeys could claim more victories. From there, he secured his first tenure as a steward at Atlantic City Race Course before taking the state steward position in Florida in 1978, where he served until his retirement in 2004.

“The world lost a star last night,” said Walter Blum Jr. in his Facebook post. “I love you with all my heart dad. I'm going to miss you so much. I can't believe you're gone. I've lost my best friend.”

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“The Toughest Game Played Outdoors”

We are all the products of our environment. Tim Thornton could see as much, when he saw a foal that had been delivered at sea trying to walk on dry land for the first time. “He was, like, six weeks old,” he recalls. “It was so funny to see him get off that ship, rocking everywhere, giving it the sea legs.”

But then that's pretty well how Thornton himself might have felt, as one born and bred for horses, had he ever been torn away to work in some other walk of life.

Even today, seven years after retiring from a long career with Airdrie Stud, he still has around 15 mares–many in partnership with his old buddy Tony Holmes–on a 330-acre farm established by his father in 1946 outside Paris, KY. This was where Thornton first learned about horses, and this is where he continues to find them a daily source of wonder and discovery. In between, for three decades as general manager of Airdrie, he could be entrusted with any and every responsibility, especially while his employer Brereton C. Jones had one or two other claims on his attention. For the Governor of Kentucky knew that here was a man whose innate flair for horses had been honed to a degree uncommon even in the Bluegrass–and never more so, indeed, than in the remarkable 14,000-mile voyage that had induced such a comical stagger in that sea-born foal.

It was Humphrey Finney who had urged Carter Thornton to send his son Tim, on graduating college, to complete his equine education a little further afield.

“Dad wanted me to come here and work right off,” Thornton recalls. “But he said okay, and let me go to England and work at the National Stud there. And then Humphrey got me onto this ship, from Southampton to New Zealand: 170 horses, the most ever gone to sea. It was pretty amazing.”

A couple of years previously, Thornton had taken a rather smaller number through the Panama Canal with Charlie Nuckols.

“That gave me the appetite, that's why I wanted to do it again,” he says. “But I didn't know it was going to be 60 days of sea. Going through Panama was only two weeks, but going around Africa took forever.”

And with so many more horses! They ranged from an 18-hand Clydesdale to miniature ponies.

“There had only been 14 head going through Panama,” Thornton recalls. “But that wasn't even a livestock ship, they were just strapped on the back. The waves would come over, it was just wood crates and a couple times we had to fix the wood back down. That was much more dangerous than the big ship. Those 170 were all below deck and air-conditioned and in steel pipe pens.”

Nonetheless, confinement and rolling seas brought obvious risks to a creature that must colic instead of vomit. Hence a low-energy diet, bran mash and so forth.

“I mean, one would get colicky every once in a while, but luckily nothing bad,” Thornton says. “But because of the disease factor, they wouldn't let us stop anywhere. Our first stop after England was Perth. From Perth we went over to Sydney and unloaded some more. And from there we went another 1,200 miles to New Zealand and unloaded the last. It was a good experience. Wouldn't want to make a living of it, but it was something to see.”

Topping off this unique lesson was the chance to escort a Thoroughbred from the hold to Ra Ora Stud for Sir Woolf Fisher, and then to stay on for six months working at Widden Stud (and becoming fast friends with “Bim” Thompson).

He had seen quite another world, then, by the time he returned to Threave Main–and another world is just how the family farm, in that era, might strike the younger generation today. For it was still possible in the 1960s for a small family operation to maintain a thriving stallion program. At a time when people referred to 20 mares as a full book, even the factory farms couldn't monopolize the mare population. As a result, the Thorntons were routinely able to stand half a dozen stallions including The Doge, sire of Hall of Famer Swoon's Son, and the imported British sprinter Tudor Grey (GB).

Carter Thornton had himself made an equally uncommon start in the game, aged just 19 when invited to succeed his grandfather–who had himself first learned his horsemanship with draft horses–as manager of Fairholme Farm for Robert A. Fairbairn, who had been part of the syndicate that imported Blenheim and Sir Gallahad. What names! One way or another, then, several generations of horse lore were condensed into the energetic young man from Threave Main who caught the attention of Kentucky's new lieutenant governor in 1988.

“Hopefully he would go on to be governor, so knew he wasn't going to be around that much and was looking for a manager,” Thornton explains. “He knew me, from breeding mares over there and so on, and knew I'd been around stallions a lot. Main thing, he knew I was honest; and he knew I was a hard worker. And we just got along real good. Couldn't have been a better relationship. He was a great boss but has become a great friend. I mean, I consider him almost like kin. And we always owned a couple of horses together. He'd do that with you. We had fun.”

And the things that made Jones a great boss, according to Thornton, were exactly the same as those that served him so well as governor.

“Definitely,” he says. “I mean, everybody loved him, from the people running the state to the grooms at Airdrie. Because they knew he's honest and he treated you fair. His word was his bond. And he expected that from everybody else too. That's why he always had good people around him. And that's kind of like my dad was, too.”

That trust became the foundation of Thornton's long tenure at Airdrie. During his employer's terms of public service, he found all manner of responsibilities delegated his way.

“Pretty much I did it all,” he acknowledges. “Recruiting, all that kind of thing. I was hands-on, every part of the farm. But we had a real good stallion manager, Kelly McDaniel, who was there forever. Really good guy. Another unbelievable guy was the broodmare manager Mark Cunningham, an Australian who's been there 40-something years now. He's really down-to-earth and you can't run him off the farm. He's a worker, and a very good horseman. And then we had a real good yearling manager, Richard Royster. Brery's philosophy was that if you did a good job, he didn't bother you. He knew you could do it. And it was the same for me: if my people are doing a good job, I don't bother them. That's a successful way to run a farm.”

All that said, Thornton stresses that it was Jones who always had his hand on the tiller; Jones, even with all his other distractions, whose inspired stallion recruitment and syndication were the foundation of the farm's half century of success.

“He couldn't afford the $15-million horses,” Thornton says. “But he was such a good promoter and even though he had to buy cheaper, he always had the best-looking horses in Central Kentucky. Never had an ugly horse in the barn. And that was something he could promote, because they'd have good-looking foals that would sell. And he did it over and over. So people started getting in line to buy shares. He was really at the cutting edge of syndicating and making the first-year horse popular. And he was an unbelievable salesman.”

Moreover Jones would put his money where his mouth was, building up an unusually large broodmare band of his own to support the stallions. He ran an aggressive program, but the farm has always retained an unchanging bedrock of trust and probity.

“Brery had some battles, but he wouldn't back up, believe me,” Thornton observes. “He's the most genuine, honest person and has really been so good for the horse business. And though he had a few clients, 95% of those horses were his. That's what amazed everybody. He had, like, 150 mares. That was a lot back then. And it was so much more fun just to deal with your own horses, rather than with clients!”

The ultimate vindication of this strategy, of course, was three homebred GI Kentucky Oaks winners in eight years.

Larry Jones, Rosie Napravnik and Brereton Jones after Believe You Can's victory in the GI Kentucky Oaks | Getty Images

“That's probably one of the things I'm proudest of,” Thornton says. “All three RNAs. Unbelievable. That was always one of the good things about him, he wasn't afraid to race. He was pretty much a commercial breeder, but he'd set a value on them and if they didn't bring that, he would race them. And he's been so lucky with smaller fillies. With the smaller ones, it's not as hard on their joints. But you lead one up to the sale ring and see what happens. It's weird. Seems like every good filly Brery's had has been smallish. So he's always upped the ante, on the reserve, if they're small because he figures they can run. Especially after Proud Spell (Proud Citizen). She was a game, sweet girl.”

Thornton's own continued engagement with the marketplace means that he can proudly monitor the legacy he built up with his former employer. Every few pages, in every catalogue, one of the stallions they made will be right there in the second or third generation–notably Harlan's Holiday through Into Mischief, and Indian Charlie through Uncle Mo.

“Probably one of my favorite horses, Indian Charlie,” says Thornton. “I can't get enough Indian Charlie mares. He was such a good sire, and such a nice horse to be around. He always put such a pretty horse on the ground. Stretchy, good-looking horses. And he's even doing it now, through those mares. Half their foals end up big, stretchy horses like him. It's amazing, all that coming from that gene.”

Indian Charlie | Barbara Livingston

Not so amazing, mind you, when you see the parallel genetic heritage handed down from one generation of Thorntons to the next.

Thornton's father, setting aside wartime service training air pilots, gave him a direct link to another era; to an age when yearlings were walked from Winchester to be loaded onto the train to be sold at Saratoga. You're looking at four generations of hardboot lore stretching to a great-grandfather who'd started out with draft horses and ended up selling Hoop Jr. for Fairbairn. Another Kentucky Derby winner, Canonero II, was subsequently raised here at Threave Main for breeder Edward B. Benjamin.

“But the horse was crooked so Mr. Benjamin got rid of him,” Thornton says with a shrug. “He brought $1,200 as a weanling. Just shows, you never know.”

Yes, well, that's never going to change! But nor will the benefits secured for horses by those who do the job right; who have the patience to do things the way their forefathers did, without cutting corners. That's why this man and this land continue to outpunch their weight. With his old employer, Thornton co-owned 2015 GI Mother Goose S. winner Include Betty (Include); and more recently he raised one of the richest Thoroughbreds in history in G1 Saudi Cup winner Emblem Road (Quality Road).

“A lot of things are done a lot fancier than back in the day,” Thornton reflects, before trying to explain what has been lost in the process. “Just old values. Tried-and-true things that work. Some of the best experiences are right here. Growing up on this farm and learning from dad, and running a bunch of horses, with not very much help, just us doing it all ourselves, hands on.

“In the '50s and '60s we always had five or six studs here. Cheap horses, $2,500 to $3,500 horses. But back then, you could make money breeding a horse like that. It was good living. We raised tobacco, and cows. Still like a cow. And I bale all my own bedding. Saves a lot of money. It's definitely an old-school farm. We're kind of proud of it, because there's not that many left.”

His father was such a thoroughgoing horseman that summertime he would go off and train at places like Delaware and Monmouth, especially fillies that could be bred someday. Some won stakes, like the 18-for-41 sprinter Plumb Gray or another daughter of Tudor Grey, Little Tudor, who won the Debutante S. at Churchill.

“Just hard-knocking horses,” says Thornton. “But the farm and the track, back then, were together. For years it was just the trainer and the owner would go around and buy horses. Now you've got all these agents, scared of their jobs. Every hair's got to be perfect in line, or they won't touch it. And they let so many good horses go by.”

That's a market environment that makes it hard for farms on this scale to remain viable. Though his nephew Eric Buckley ran Threave Main for several years, nowadays it is Thornton's daughter Jessica who channels the family horsemanship into a fifth generation as a reproductive veterinarian.

“There's not many family farms left really,” Thornton says. “We're kind of proud of being one, but it's tough with these big conglomerates taking over. It's getting harder and harder to play ball. The purses are really good, that's what's keeping the yearling market going. But the bottom line is you need quality. We try to upgrade every year, get rid of two or three [mares] and buy one. But it's so expensive. You can't breed your cheap horse anymore and make a living. The labor situation's gotten so tough, and you got put a lot more into the stud fees to compete.”

He has seen things become similarly challenging for trainers who try to maintain the same hardboot standards; and doesn't see many of the same stamp as Larry Jones, who trained all three of those Oaks winners.

“He's just a down-to earth, no-nonsense horseman,” Thornton says. “Kind of like me, hands-on and old school. He trained for me a little bit, too, but he's cutting back. Got a farm down in Henderson, fixed up real nice. But he can flat train a horse.

“You can't get any labor and the cost of operating is just getting out of hand as far as smaller guys to make a living. You can't do it. And it's gotten to be these big conglomerates that are doing it. Can't knock them. But you don't have to like it.”

As a result, though, very few general managers today will handle stallions daily the way Thornton always did. He loved to have just a couple of other people around, letting Mother Nature govern as much of the covering process as could be safely allowed.

So, yes, Thornton might strongly resemble a particular president; and he may have shown Silver Hawk to the late Queen of England, while discussing each other's corgis. But he already has the highest status he could wish for, as a horseman's horseman.

“I'm very lucky to have been among horses all of my life,” he says. “You'll always learn something every day. I went to Airdrie in '88 and was there 30 years. We had a lot of changes. We had a lot of fun. They say time flies. I mean, Bret [Jones, Brery's son] was raised up when I was over there and now he's running it. That's amazing, to me, but he's a great boy. He's got a lot of his daddy in him. He's doing a good job and I'm so happy for him. He was smart enough to buy into Girvin. Who would have known Girvin was going to do what he has? But he's on fire now. It's a good feather in his hat.

“He can't pay the crazy money, either. But if it was an exact science, nobody would be in the business. If you don't like this game, you don't need to be in it because it's the toughest game played outdoors. Dealing with Mother Nature, and livestock, the lows can be very low. But the highs are very high. I'm lucky to be bred and raised into it, and lucky to be still going seven days a week. I love it.”

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Flashback: Brooklyn Native Walter Blum Spoils Canonero II’s Triple Crown Bid

Much has changed in a half century at Belmont Park, from the amount of real-time information available digitally to increased purse money to the way most fans place wagers.

But the draw of a potential Triple Crown holds the same appeal as it did in 1971, when a then-record crowd of 81,036 came out to Elmont to witness Venezuelan champion Canonero II's quest to add the third jewel of the 3-year-old season to his collection in the Belmont Stakes.

But New York City native and jockey Walter Blum thwarted Canonero II's chance at becoming just the ninth Triple Crown winner in history at the time, guiding 34-1 longshot Pass Catcher to a three-quarters of a length win in the Belmont. Reflecting on the 50-year anniversary from his home in Florida, Blum said he is proud for earning his lone victory in an American Classic in a Hall of Fame career. Despite five decades flashing by, Blum said he still remembers feeling better about Pass Catcher's chances than the betting public did leading up to post time.

“When I walked out on the track, I felt confident,” Blum said.

A large portion of the crowd arrived at Belmont to cheer on the Edgar Caibett-owned Canonero II, who was bidding to be the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948.

Canonero II, trained by Juan Arias and ridden by Gustavo Avila, rallied from 18th place to post a 3 3/4-length win over Jim French to win the Kentucky Derby, paying $19.40. In the Preakness, Canonero II was more forwardly placed and won again, defeating Eastern Fleet with Jim French in third to set up a potential history-making moment in the 1 1/2-mile “Test of the Champion.”

Pass Catcher readied for that test by being placed on trainer Eddie Yowell's self-professed “five-day plan,” where he ran second to Bold Reasoning in the Jersey Derby on May 31 at Garden State Park before wheeling right back to the Belmont on June 5. After winning two of his five races to start his 3-year-old campaign entering the Belmont, Blum said the effort in the 1 1/8-mile Jersey Derby gave him plenty of confidence when competing on a bigger stage.

“He ran a week before at Garden State Park and after the race, he came back so strong. I could see at the finish line he was just starting to run; another three jumps he was going to win,” Blum said. “I told everybody I knew that I was riding this horse in the Belmont who is a longshot, but I think he's going to win. I really liked his chances and sure enough, he won at 34-1 and won convincingly. It was a great time in my life.”

The popular Canonero II drew a large crowd from the area, who came out to view a colt who would go on to the Eclipse Award for Outstanding 3-Year-Old Male Horse. Instead, Pass Catcher stalked Canonero II's early speed before overtaking the leader when the field reached the top of the stretch.

Jim French, ridden by Hall of Famer Angel Cordero, Jr., closed late for second but Pass Catcher held on for the win, completing the course in 2:30 2/5 and returning $71. Canonero II finished fourth.

Blum said he was pleased with his effort but took no extra joy in playing spoiler to the heavy favorite.

“I was proud of myself in that I thought he would win and he ran as well as he did, but I wasn't proud of the fact that Canonero got beat for a Triple Crown,” Blum said. “That didn't mean much. I felt good about winning but I felt bad about him losing. They were all there to see Canonero and if I didn't win, I would have liked to have seen him win, too.”

Tackling the two wide turns on Belmont's Big Sandy, along with the marathon distance, are the signatures of the Belmont Stakes, though the race's unique circumstances set up well for Pass Catcher that day.

“It' not like any other race,” Blum said. “In this country, mile-and-a-half races are few and far between. But I was looking forward to a mile and a half with that horse because I knew he would rate easily and when I wanted to pull the trigger, he would fire, and that's exactly what happened.”

Cordero, Jr., who won three editions of the Kentucky Derby, tallied two Preakness wins and won the 1976 Belmont aboard Bold Forbes, said he wasn't confident initially that Pass Catcher would relish the distance.

“I didn't think he (Pass Catcher) wanted to go that far,” Cordero, Jr. said. “On paper, that was a little too fast for him – 2- and 3-year-olds can do things better than when they're older – and sometimes they don't want to go that far but they do. You get horses that outrun their pedigree.”

Cordero, Jr. said Canonero II's training regimen and previous accomplishments garnered the most attention leading into the Belmont, but added that Pass Catcher deserved the victory despite sending a vast majority of the crowd home disappointed.

“Pass Catcher was a real good horse. But that year, Canonero was probably the best horse … he trained at high altitude,” Cordero, Jr. said. “I didn't win it, but I always enjoyed being in those big races and knowing I had a chance. Every time you run in a race like that, and there's a real good horse that beats you, it's not like you're jealous. Every time you run a race like that and actually beat the big horses, it's like beating Muhammad Ali.”

Blum stopped riding in 1975, embarking on a 24-year career as a racing official and steward in New Jersey and Florida. He amassed 4,382 career victories in 28,673 starts, with only Hall of Famers Bill Shoemaker, Johnny Longden, Eddie Arcaro and Steve Brooks ahead of him on the all-time list for jockeys at the time of his retirement.

Blum said he did not view his lack of a victory in an American Classic to that point as a box waiting to be checked off, having established a reputation as one of the best riders in the sport by winning prestigious races such as the Whitney, Santa Anita Derby, Coaching Club American Oaks, and twice capturing the Metropolitan Handicap and the Frizette.

“It certainly didn't hurt getting to the Hall of Fame, but I think my career in general and my comradery with the people involved in the industry helped me get in,” said Blum, who led all North American jockeys in wins in 1963 and 1964 and was inducted in 1987. “Most of my career was behind me, and I had done almost everything I wanted to do, so it didn't do much as far as furthering my career, but I was just glad to win that race at that time.

“Everyone wants to win the Kentucky Derby, but I'll take the Belmont any time,” Blum said with a laugh.

Blum, now 86, grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and attended Samuel J. Tilden High School. On July 29, 1953, at the age of 18, he won his first race at the now defunct Jamaica Race Course just 10 miles away from home, guiding a 36-1 longshot filly named Tusciana to a victory for Hall of Fame trainer Hirsch Jacobs.

Blum, who now lives less than a mile from Gulfstream Park, said he still follows racing and praised the competitive jockey colony in New York, where brothers Jose and Irad Ortiz, Jr. continue to reside at the top of the standings in a circuit that also counts Hall of Famers John Velazquez and Javier Castellano as regulars.

Blum's empathy for jockeys is something not every trainer shared during his career, though his success with Yowell partnered him with a conditioner who started his career as a rider. Yowell had trained a previous Belmont winner prior to Pass Catcher, with Hail To All winning the 1965 edition as well as that year's Jersey Derby and the Travers at Saratoga Race Course.

“Some of the trainers, I don't know if they could picture what a jockey's life was like with dieting all the time, keeping the weight down,” Blum said. “Living this kind of life is very difficult, in addition to the problems that can arise from the challenges of running a race. But when we're in the paddock, we're both thinking about the same thing as far as winning the race.”

While his win aboard Pass Catcher is near the top of his career ledger, Blum raced against some of the most notable names in the sport's history, including beating Hall of Famer Kelso while aboard fellow Hall of Famer Gun Bow in a photo finish victory in the 1964 Woodward. The next year, Blum piloted Priceless Gem to a win over Hall of Famer Buckpasser in the Futurity.

Blum even was part of history-making events that didn't result in winner's circle trips but still factored into the sport's lore. In 1973, he rode Royal and Regal in the Kentucky Derby that spring-boarded Secretariat's famed Triple Crown run.

“I was on a horse who had just won the Florida Derby, so I thought he had a shot,” Blum said. “I wasn't really that much aware of Secretariat at the time until he flew by me at the top of the stretch. He ran by me like a shot and I said, 'who the hell is that?'”

Blum, who twice rode six winners on a single card, stayed in racing upon the end of his riding career, first serving as an association steward at Atlantic City Race Course before becoming a state steward in Florida.

“I loved being a jockey but you can't do that forever,” Blum said. “I enjoyed being an official almost as much as riding. The people riding under me, I knew their problems and I knew them [as people]. They respected me for what I knew and how I acted. That's why I became a steward; I always respected the stewards I rode under and I always knew that it was something I wanted to do when I stopped riding. That helped me retire and it was one of the best things I ever did. I left with a good reputation as a jockey and a steward, and I'm very proud of both.”

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Golden Memories: Jockey Gustavo Avila Recalls Canonero II’s 1971 Preakness

Although 50 years have passed, Gustavo Avila can readily recall his ride of a lifetime aboard Canonero II in the 1971 Preakness Stakes (G1) at Pimlico Race Course, just two weeks after the Venezuelan visitors shocked the world by pulling off an unimaginable upset victory in the Kentucky Derby (G1) at Churchill Downs.

The retired 83-year-old jockey, who resides in Miami with his family, came to Pimlico “a bit uncomfortable” and preparing for a race that would test Canonero II's speed as well as his stamina.

“One thing was certain,” the Venezuelan Hall of Fame jockey said, “this was going to be a violent race because of how fast it would be.”

Avila and his Kentucky-bred Venezuelan invader, who rallied from 18th to win the Kentucky Derby by 3 ¾ lengths, proved to be well-prepared to withstand a thrilling speed duel that developed with Eastern Fleet, winning by 1 ½ lengths and proving that his thrilling upset victory at Churchill Downs was hardly the fluke many had written it off to be.

Claudia Spadaro of Gulfstream Park and HipicaTV sat down and spoke to Avila just a week ago.

 

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