A Penn Full of Think

Well, okay, maybe he has retired–but Frank Penn has never quit.

“You know the problem with life?” he asks with a chuckle. “By the time you know everything you need to know, you're too damn old to do anything with it.”

But that won't keep the rest of us from profiting. We're not here to learn about the half-dozen mares Penn still shares with brother John and nephew Alex, over at their place near Paris, nor about the show horses keeping him interested in his own paddocks. Instead we're at chez Penn, on the Mount Horeb Pike outside Lexington, simply because few in our community bring longer experience to the ever-renewing challenges of the Turf. He's served 17 years on the city planning commission, twice as many as trustee of Georgetown College. He was one of the founding fathers of Horse Country, and has been with the KTA/KTOB forever. Nowadays, even at 78, he's helping the Agricultural Finance Board in Frankfort.

Still immersed, then, in the 21st Century Bluegrass. But have any of you, for instance, lately worked a sale the way he did, half a century ago–when Penn Brothers sold 70 yearlings in a single afternoon at Keeneland?

“It was unbelievable,” he recalls. “We had every third horse that went through. Never worked harder in my life. Talk about learning how to do things, how to cut and cover. We couldn't clean stalls. All we'd do is pitch it up in the corner and put more bedding in.

“Now, we didn't prep these horses like you do now. In the wintertime we ran them like cattle, put a halter on literally a month before the sale. We had catch-pens, we'd put a halter on, trim them, worm them, turn them back out. Of course when we got them up there [to Keeneland], you'd have three or four getting loose, running over the hill. But everybody's did that. And everybody sold their whole draft.”

After all, he never saw a horse with bad feet in the Pampas, when he had a chance to see how they did things down there.

“But I guess they were just bred different then,” he says with a shrug.

So, too, were the horsemen. As he puts it himself, Penn “became an economic asset at 14.” Bear in mind that his father and two uncles bought their farm at the end of the 1920s, even as all hope, all belief, was being gnawed out of their generation.

“They paid $350 an acre for 200 acres,” Penn explains. “They put 160 of those acres in tobacco and it brought a dollar a pound. A year later, it brought a quarter a pound. On the other hand, during the Depression they had all the help they could hire. So they just kept expanding. They were three risk-takers, and they knew how to work.”

By the time young Penn was putting his shoulder to the wheel, they had 480 steers–and a couple of hundred Thoroughbreds.

“They'd bought a farm that had horses on it,” he says. “Belonged to an Oklahoma oilman. So they just started boarding them. That's when they learned to be horsemen. And Oscar, the oldest brother, he really got into it. He studied it and decided that we needed two stallions. Well, we needed two stallions like we needed a hole in our head. But we'd set tobacco till noon, go in, eat right quick, go breed two mares, set tobacco till dark, breed two more mares.”

Penn was actually raised downtown. By living there, his family could share the same commute as the labor, day-hires who climbed onto the canopied pick-up at designated street corners every morning. By 14, Penn was leading a tobacco-topping gang. A year later, he was helping to haul lumber out of the mountains to construct huge barns. For years, “tobacco supported our horse habit.”

But so, too, did the steers–in the sense that one kind of husbandry supported another. A man won't panic, foaling, if he's pulled plenty of calves as a boy. Penn learned the hallmarks of good land, too. He knew, for instance, to be wary when cedars thrived in dry weather.

“Cedars only grow on marginal land,” he explains. “I learned all that stuff, growing up. These were three old, cynical men. But they knew land, and knew that's what they needed to produce the animals they wanted, the tobacco they wanted. Same with this land here. The number of good horses raised by the Elkhorn Creek is staggering. Lee Eaton taught me that. I used to think it was crazy. Then I saw Bold Forbes, and all the rest, and started believing it.”

Penn had grown up chain harrowing, soil testing, just doing what farmers did. Nowadays he sees people coming into the Bluegrass and feeding high-protein alfalfa. He can spot those easy enough.

“All you got to do is go around and see which ones have all that mud [i.e poultice] on their legs,” he says. “Pythiosis. Way too much in the feed tub. That grass out there, if it heads out, it's 18% protein. That's why you keep topping your pastures, you don't want it to head out.”

They bought weanlings before the word “pinhook” had entered the bloodstock lexicon, with only Stanley Petter ahead of the curve. Besides foaling out 50 mares, then, they would buy 20-odd weanlings.

“We found out that you could buy a weanling for $300 to $500 and sell it for $2,500 to $5,000,” he says. “You could raise those babies like you raised steers, but the profit per horse was so much better.

“We'd bed those weanlings on tobacco stems. We had a tobacco warehouse, so we could get carloads of that stuff. It was one of the cleanest things you could use at the time, when we didn't have woodchips or shavings. And then you'd take it out and spread it as fertilizer.”

But whatever Penn learned from steers, it was horses that taught him love. He bought his first mare at 16, as soon as he had a driver's license. For a while the Penns had a satellite farm in Ocala, and that was another vital chapter in his adolescence: selling 2-year-olds at Hialeah.

“We'd raise 15 or so down there, broke them, did the whole thing,” he recalls. “So really I got baptized pretty good, pretty young, though it wasn't as speed-crazy as now. Anyway I learned about sand colic, about fire ants, all that kind of stuff. It was all experience, and it served me well.”

Knowing what he wanted to do in life, it was only to please his mother–so that she could say that he'd “attended” college–that he consented to a single semester at Georgetown. But then he got his Vietnam draft number, and it was the kind that made you gulp. Suddenly he had to engage.

“Every hour I wasn't in class, I was in the library catching up,” Penn recalls. “Because if I flunked out, 90 days later I'd be in a rice paddy.”

Whether or not Georgetown College saved his life, it certainly changed it. He has been serving that institution in various roles ever since graduating in 1968. Around that time his father and uncles began to dismantle their partnership, and help the next generation on its way. His parents gave Penn the downpayment on an 87-acre plot, the core of which is where he remains today.

“But I soon found that my tobacco wasn't supporting my horse habit,” he recalls. “And then I got married, had kids, and had to find another way. I started boarding horses, and found out right quick that the only people you board horses for are the ones that can pay you. The economics I'd learned in college taught me that it's all about cashflow. You could be worth $2 million, but if you don't have cashflow, it doesn't matter. All you're doing is borrowing and paying.”

What got the household on an even keel was an unraced Pretense mare Penn bought for $34,000. She turned out to have a son in training with Wayne Lukas. He won the GI Remsen S. and started among the favorites for the Kentucky Derby. Penn rolled the dice, managed to get a season to Seattle Slew, and sold the mare for seven figures to Juddmonte.

He paid his $450,000 covering fee, took the rest to the bank,  and discovered the pleasant novelty of solvency.

“My friends and family all said, 'You're stupid to sell that mare,'” he recalls. “But the time to get out of debt is when you can. And a couple of years later I could have bought that mare back for $50,000. She never threw another horse that could run.”

They built their house, and built a client base: a small, loyal group that thought the same way. When Penn packed up, his newest customer had been there 20 years.

“We were lucky enough to board horses for people that wanted to enjoy the life with us,” he reflects. “They became like family, watched your kids grow up.”

These included Janis Whitham, her late husband Frank and their son Clay. The Whithams imported a Hall of Famer-in-the-making in Bayakoa (Arg), but thereafter it has all been acorn-to-oak stuff.

“Jan's a very intelligent lady,” Penn marvels. “She and Frank started out raising pinto beans. There's one stoplight where they live, and it's 25 miles to a grocery store. Jan trained Quarter Horses, raised five kids. And, to this day, she hasn't bought a mare. They had Bayakoa, and the Nodouble filly [Tuesday Evening], and one other, and just built up those families. She'll nick them on the bottom, she'll nick them on the top; and she's still doing it.”

The Whithams were determined to get one of Bayakoa's daughters to Mr. Prospector's last son in Kentucky, the unfashionable E Dubai. And that was how they got GI Breeders' Cup winner Fort Larned. From the Tuesday Evening line, meanwhile, came Four Graces (Majesticperfection), sold at Keeneland last November for $2.3 million.

But if Penn's professional career is rooted in the land, so too is his service to the community. When he bought his farm, straight out of college, he paid $2,000 an acre–“and that was $500 more than it was worth.” The value of land would soar, however, as developers realized they could get 10 perimeter acres for the price of one downtown. All around, the countryside was being cut to ribbons, in tracts too small to farm and too big to make communities.

“We were panicking,” Penn admits. “Go through other counties and you'll see it, all these 10-acre piano keys all down the road. Well, that's a terrible way to use land. We were able to convince the Lexington-Fayette County Urban Government to make the minimum subdivision 40 acres. And we've now preserved 32,000 acres. If you add what the Bluegrass Conservancy has been able to do, we saved 52,000 acres in Fayette County. Out of roughly 250,000. It's been a 22-year fight, but I feel good about where it is now, because I think people now understand the value of living here.”

And not just the economic value of the industry and its ancillaries. It was also about cultural identity and, what then remained latent, the resulting potential for tourism.

“John Gaines had it right,” Penn says. “He used to say that we live in the largest privately owned, privately maintained park system in the world.” He gestures towards the pike. “The city doesn't mow any of this. We mow all the rights of way. And why do we do that? Because our neighbor does. It's pride.”

Penn has stepped back from KEEP because it's time for the next generation to inherit the responsibilities that come with land.

“The average age of the Kentucky farmer is 60-plus,” he remarks. “A lot of land is going to change hands in the next 10 years or so. And how do you keep farmers, if farms are cut up in 10-, five-, even three-acre tracts? You don't produce anything. And who's going to come in and buy those tracts and put them back together, when each has its own house? The houses elevate the price of the land, and that price doesn't justify farming it.”

The Purchase Development Rights program, redressing the difference in value, was key to maintaining those 40-acre tracts.

“We were able to make it look like Holsteins versus Dalmatians,” Penn says. “Instead of a piece here, a piece there.”

Penn was part of the team that presented to the tobacco succession program, coming away with $15 million and then got another $20 million from the city. The tobacco money was an apt dividend for a man who had spent much time on the other side of that particular fence, as president of the Council of Burley Tobacco.

Besides his own crop, Penn had managed tobacco for other horsefarms, including Calumet. He was ringside as multiple attorney generals sued the cigarette manufacturers, even as the state was figuring out that it could no longer support a proven carcinogenic. During the public furor, Penn had found himself sent out to bat for tobacco.

“So over several years I learned how to handle polarization!” he recalls. “Because the medical community came after you hard. And there I was, on every radio show, every debate, defending this stuff. I'd never say that smoking's not harmful to you. But I would say it's a personal choice. I'd say: 'Nobody ever held a gun on somebody and told them to go buy a pack of cigarettes. Look, half the people in this audience are overweight. The other half drink too much.' Now all those things are very harmful to you. But the difference was that the government was supporting tobacco. So you could see that it had to stop.”

His tobacco background, incidentally, prompts a fascinating analogy for the modern bloodstock market. Because in terms of prizing speed, Penn reckons that the 2-year-old sales have changed the game much as the cigarette filter did tobacco.

“Before filters, the Burley is what gave the flavor and aroma,” he explains. “The companies needed that tobacco. But once the filter came, they could buy it cheaper all over the world.”

Penn says that if the market is driven by a bullet work, then all pedigrees become the same–much as Rwandan tobacco would now serve just as well as Kentucky's.

“If we're basing everything on how fast they can work, then nobody is prizing three or four generations of soundness,” he reasons. “And not only do you have weaker bone, now you also have trainers no longer racing a horse fit. They're so concerned about their statistics, they won't run a horse until it's dead fit. But guess who pays for that? The owners.”

But nor does he attribute soundness solely to genes.

“If you only turn a young horse out for a couple of hours when it's a pretty day, he won't run,” he says. “He won't have bone density. He may grow up to be a beautiful horse. But when you put pressure on him, he'll fold up like a marshmallow.”

Obviously producing stock equal to the demands of the racetrack today feels more important than ever. And Penn feels that we can't complain about federal interference, when we either couldn't or wouldn't police the game properly ourselves.

“But I swore I would never be a cynic,” he says. “Because I grew up with three old men that were cynical as can be. I mean, they'd see long-haired hippies and tell you the world's come to an end. But they taught me how to work and to understand that work is not really work at all, if you enjoy what you do.”

When Penn needed bypass surgery, a decade ago, he was told that it was time to move on his handful of faithful clients.

“Done all I can do for you,” the doctor said. “You got to get away from the stress.”

“I don't have any stress!” Penn replied. “My farm's paid for!”

Now he smiles and shakes his head. “Yep, something's there, when [clients] have five mares on your farm worth a million dollars apiece and no insurance on them,” he says. “But I didn't see that as stress. I saw that as an opportunity to raise good horses.”

Now the stakes are lower. True, Penn and his brother have an Empire Maker mare whose son Arklow (Arch) won $3 million. But whenever he needs to, he can just stroll to the creek and soon retrieve perspective.

“I have a deck built down there,” he says. “And I take my Racing Form or Wall Street Journal, and just sit there and hear that water go by, listen to the birds chirping, and life's not too bad.

“The point is that we all try to make a business out of it, but really and truly, it's a sport. It's an advocation. And it's so hard to do that people want to try it. You see them putting millions of dollars into this thing and along comes Rich Strike, Birdstone.

“I've always been in love with the horse. Can't be like that with 400 steers, but go down to the barn and every one of those mares are different. And I've been fortunate to be involved in some really neat things. I'm not saying I started any of them. But for whatever reason I was asked to participate, and I never knew how to quit.”

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Twelve Questions: Eric Halstrom

Eric Halstrom is vice president and general manager of Caesar's Horseshoe Indianapolis, a position he's held since 2020. He previously served in several executive positions in horse racing, including vice president of racing at Canterbury Park, vice president and general manager of racing at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots, assistant director of racing at Prairie Meadows, and vice president of operations at Harrah's Louisiana Downs.

Halstrom, who graduated from the University of Arizona's Race Track Industry Program, is a native of Bloomington, MN, and is a die-hard fan of the Minnesota Vikings, Notre Dame Football and all teams for the University of Minnesota. He and his new bride, Kristine, live in Greenwood, IN, and share five children among their blended families.

TDN: What is your racing or bloodstock highlight of the year?
Being at Keeneland for the Breeders' Cup and seeing Flightline in person. I can't believe what that horse was capable of doing.

TDN: Who is your value sire for the 2023 season?
Coming at this as a horseplayer – I like seeing young Jimmy Creed runners. Feels like they're all going to be fast.

TDN: Name one positive change you'd like to see in racing next year?
More focus on two things: What's best for the bettors and what's best for retired racehorses.

TDN: If you could go back in time and see one race in person, what would it be?Easy Goer's win in the Belmont. I was a huge fan and had too much riding on him, both emotionally and financially, to keep Sunday Silence from sweeping the Triple Crown. Watching him win at my young age helped form my passion for the sport.

TDN: If you could only go to one track the rest of your life, where would it be?
Since I can't answer Horseshoe Indianapolis – I'd say Keeneland. I love the area and the beauty of Lexington and the history at the track makes it my favorite place to watch racing.

TDN: Besides Rich Strike, what was the biggest surprise of 2022 in horse racing?
The biggest surprise in my world is that a little track, in the middle of cornfields, in Indiana did nearly a quarter-billion in handle in 2022. If you look back five years ago the thought of getting past $125 million was unrealistic. Lots to be proud of at Horseshoe Indianapolis.

TDN: What was your major takeaway from your successful meet at Horseshoe Indiana?
You can't beat the power of having a great team. We have one at Horseshoe Indianapolis. They're passionate about racing and enjoy working with each other. It's a wonderful place to be as we continue our progression in the industry.

TDN: You can bring back one racetrack from the past, which one would it be and why?
Hialeah. I never had the chance to visit but the stories I hear and pictures I see are incredible. Feels like we probably lost a bit of racing's character when it closed.

TDN: Who was your favorite TDN Rising Star in 2022
Arabian Knight. Saw him at Keeneland and he has a real presence.

TDN: In the next 10 years, what do you think will be the most significant change in racetrack operations and management?
I think we're sitting on technology improvements that will revolutionize racing. It's been gradual but we're now seeing things such as drones, GPS tracking and cameras to check the health of horses. The capital investments on these products and others that will help our sport is coming. It will have to in order to defend our current levels of business much less attract new customers.

TDN: Who is your favorite jockey of all-time?
I've met so many over the years that I now call friends that it's difficult. So I'll go with my dad's favorite… Sandy Hawley. In the early days of Canterbury Downs my dad would bet him blindly and it was easy money. I saw Sandy this summer and mentioned this and he was very gracious and appreciative. A really nice man.

TDN: If you weren't in track management, what would you be doing in horse racing
No question – I'd be betting on horses. I love it. Wish I were better at it so I didn't have to work so much! Going to the track, or just betting the races, with friends and family is may favorite thing in the world.

 

 

 

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The Day Chick Lang and Cab Calloway Integrated the Turf Club at Hialeah

Racial segregation is one of the dark chapters in American history. Until the 1950s and 60s, Blacks had limited access to housing, facilities, schools, transportation and other opportunities. While we have plenty of racial problems today, it's almost hard to believe that there was a systematic separation of people in daily life. To right this terrible wrong, millions of Americans began to protest in the 50s and the situation began to change. The Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional, Rosa Parks declined to sit in the back of the bus and highly visible demonstrations began in earnest, led by leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

While there was a public outpouring of opposition to segregation, it took thousands and thousands of simple, unpublicized acts to dismantle this institution which had remained in society since the Jim Crow laws of the 1800s. Horse racing was no different than the rest of society, especially in the South. So, in recognition of Black History Month, here's a little-known story.

Let's start with some background. Most people in horse racing recognize Charles John “Chick” Lang as Mr. Preakness. Through hard work and determination, Lang took the Preakness from a weak sister to the Kentucky Derby and Belmont to the “Middle Jewel” of the Triple Crown. During his decades-long stint with Pimlico, he set the Preakness on course to become one of America's great races. It is annually the top sporting event for Maryland and the city of Baltimore, with more than 100,000 fans in attendance and millions watching it on television.

As a former hotwalker, groom and jockey's agent, Lang was a true racetracker. He never forgot the importance of each individual who played a role in Thoroughbred racing. Lang believed the backstretch worker deserved the same amount of respect as the wealthy owner. He was a tireless advocate for the rights of the less fortunate.

Early in Lang's horse racing career, he was the jockey agent for Hall of Famer Bill Hartack. From 1954 to early 1960, Lang and Hartack had a great run. Lang was representing a jockey who was considered one of the most successful and highest-paid professional athletes in the world. In 1958, Hartack was on the cover of Time Magazine. From 1953 to 1957, Hartack averaged 355 wins a year. During that run he had tremendous success at Hialeah, which offered the greatest racing in America at that time of the year. Hartack, who would go on to win five Kentucky Derbies, was the most recognizable athlete in Thoroughbred racing.

Cab Calloway and Chick Lang | Courtesy Lang Family

The second character in the story is Cab Calloway, the Black entertainer who was a singer, dancer, bandleader and actor. His best-known song today is Minnie the Moocher (Hi-De-Ho!). He recorded one of the first music videos (and maybe the best). Calloway loved horse racing. Whenever possible, he would visit his local racetrack. Of course, when he went to Hialeah, he always looked up Lang, who marked his program with plenty of winners delivered by his jockey, Hartack. On one crowded day, Calloway mentioned that his normal seats were already taken and asked if Lang could help. While in the midst of closing entries, Lang gave Calloway his Turf Club pin without hesitation. He directed him to go see the maitre d' and have him seated at Lang's table.

A few minutes later, a dejected Calloway returned and told Lang that they wouldn't let him in the Turf Club because he was a Negro. The Turf Club was for whites only. Those who knew Lang and his famous jockey can guess what happened next. Lang went to a nearby phone and called the track manager, and there was a one-sided conversation that followed.

“If Cab Calloway is not good enough to sit in the Turf Club at this track, then my jock will never ride here again, starting today!”

Calloway returned to the Turf Club, got his table and the color barrier was broken at Hialeah.

Those who knew Lang understood he was a man of principle. There was no gray area in a matter like this. He also knew where his jockey stood on this issue. Hartack had numerous Black friends, many of them entertainers. Throughout his career, Hartack never wavered in important principles. I am sure Lang informed him of the incident that night after the races, and I am confident Hartack affirmed the importance of his actions.

Lang went to work as a racing official at Pimlico in 1960. He never wavered in his distaste for segregation. No flip-flopping on important issues. It was either right or wrong, no matter what personal consequences one might face. For example, in his first year at Pimlico, he did something that was not in his job description or within his level of authority. When he came upon the “White” and “Colored” signs on the drinking fountains at Pimlico, he took them down and they never came back.

Lang and Calloway showed us all on that day–at the races at Hialeah in the 1950s–that change is accomplished with courage and commitment, one step at a time.

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Last Race Longshot Propels John Fisher To NHC Qualifier Win

Florida-based handicapper John Fisher was all but tapped out and ready to leave Hialeah Park's Champions Simulcast Center & Sports Bar late Sunday afternoon.

He was down to $100 from his total of five entries in the second-ever National Horseplayers Championship qualifying tournament staged at this iconic South Florida landmark.

Fisher bet his last money all to win on 22-1 longshot Cryptic Creed in the 10th race at Gulfstream Park. Less than two minutes later, jockey Jesus Rios guided the two-year-old maiden to a facile victory over the all-weather surface, producing a $45.40 payout that vaulted Fisher to victory over runner-up Phil Matzat and third-place finisher Ray Arsenault.

“I had packed up and I was at the door,” Fisher recalled. “I heard a big commotion from the tournament room and '10, it's the 10!' from the other handicappers. That was Cryptic Creed!”

The big payoff gave Fisher a total of $2,400 in tournament earnings, some $900 better than Matzat's $1,500, and almost $1,500 more than Arsenault's $908.

The champion collected $4,000 in prize money, with Matzat garnering $2,600 for second and Arsenault claiming $1,600 for third.

The top two finishers both earned seats in the National Horseplayers Championship finals at Bally's Las Vegas on Jan. 28-30, 2022, including hotel and airfare.

“I'll be there,” added Fisher. “I've been to 10 finals and I'm just as excited to go back for the 11th time! Champions was a great spot for the event. The staff treated us in a friendly and professional manner, and they fed us well!”

Overall, 46 handicappers purchased a total of 64 entries in the tournament and the Hialeah Park mutuel office reported a 74% handle increase over the average Sunday.

Champions Simulcast Center & Sports Bar, opened as “the go-to location” in South Florida for full-card simulcast wagering on Thoroughbred races in early 2016, features 180 television screens, 78 betting carrels (each with a 19-inch video monitor), 42 wagering windows, and space for 200 horseplayers complemented by an aggressive menu of simulcast wagering options.

The post Last Race Longshot Propels John Fisher To NHC Qualifier Win appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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