Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Nothing Foolish About Larry King’s ‘Dream Life’ At Florida Farm

There aren't many cowboys from the Old West still working with racehorses these days, so it's up to their descendants to carry on the traditions of horsemanship from that bygone era.

Larry King's formative years were spent watching and absorbing that myriad of skills from his late father, and the longtime farm manager for Gil and Marilyn Cambell's Stonehedge Farm in Williston, Fla. has been applying them ever since.

The farm has seen multiple graded stakes winners developed under King's tenure, as well as a total of 16 winners in the lucrative Florida Sire Stakes (FSS) series. Last year, Stonehenge homebreds filled out the superfecta in the FSS Affirmed.

This July 31,the 66-year-old King celebrated another milestone success as a pair of Stonehedge homebreds ran one-two in the FSS Dr. Fager at Gulfstream Park.

“I told somebody today, 'When you ride around Ocala and look at all the farms and all the horses, all the people shooting for the bigger races, I'm surprised we can even win a race, because there's so many horses,'” King said. “It's certainly not easy to do. 

“Everybody's excited when you win. It was a lot of fun, and in three more weeks we'll try again (in the next leg of the FSS series). They'll have to pop up and be special.”

With a lifetime of horse experience, King knows special when he sees it. It all hearkens back to his youth, a nomad-like experience following his father, Joe, from racetrack to racetrack all around the United States. Some tracks were recognized and official, while others were anything but.

“He was a cowboy from out West, and came from a long line of cowboys,” King said of his father, who served as an Army surgical technician during World War II. “He worked the ranches, then got into running Quarter Horses. He trained performance horses, like cutting and reining and stuff like that. We've always been in horses our whole lives.”

Larry King remembers riding his dad's Quarter Horses at the bush tracks of central Louisiana; his 87-pound weight was the perfect advantage during the back-country match races. 

“It didn't matter how old you were, just if you were light enough,” King said. “I was probably between 9 and 11 years old. Nobody abused horses or done nothing like that, it was just a rough life. Those people were tough… it's a different world. 

“We went to places in Mexico and stuff where there were knife fights. I remember daddy tellin' me to go get in the truck! There were no rules.”

After the first 13 years of his life had been spent traveling the racetracks from Louisiana to West Virginia, and everywhere in between, King must have been relieved when his father was offered the position of farm manager at Waldemar Farm for Howard Sams. Under the elder King's horsemanship skills, the farm produced many top runners, including the 1975 Kentucky Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure.

Joe King saw the difficult nature of the future classic winner right away, and assigned his son to care for the obstinate colt.

Joe King, with What a Pleasure, sire of 1975 Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure

“He was quite the handful,” Larry King remembered. “You could work with him all day putting his halter on and off, rubbing his head, and you could leave and go to lunch and it was like you never touched him.”

Foolish Pleasure didn't look like much when he arrived at the 1973 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale as a part of the Waldemar consignment.

“There's a lot of stuff that throws off the experts,” King said, chuckling. “He was crooked; he turned out horrible, and he was back in the knees. One big buyer came by the consignment, and Daddy led him out and said, 'This is the best colt in the barn.' I'll never forget what the man said: 'If that's the best you've got, don't show me anything else!'”

Foolish Pleasure commanded a final bid of just $20,000, and while he never outgrew his difficult nature, the colt did go on to win seven Grade 1 races, including the Derby, for owner John Greer and trainer LeRoy Jolley, earning $1,216,705.

King recalled watching the Kentucky Derby on television with his father: “What a dream. We really felt like we'd had a part in it, and that was something special.”

After taking over the farm manager position when his father retired, King was unsure what his own future held when Waldemar Farm was sold to Gil and Marilyn Campbell in 1988. The couple renamed the facility Stonehedge Farm South.

“My wife said, 'What do we do?' King recalled. “I said, 'Well, we're gonna go get some boxes.' Then the next thing I know the new owners came up to me and asked me to stay on.”

Working at the same farm for just shy of five decades has allowed King to play a major role in its expansion to over 500 acres, as well as the development of some of Florida's top Thoroughbreds.

“We just have a ⅝-mile track, we breed, we foal; we do it all,” said King. “Me, I mow a lot of grass! Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, they like to do it from the ground up. We've had success with it.

“I just wanted to fish, and they allow me to do that. I will never leave here unless they sell it or run me off. I'm here to finish it off. My nephew, Jamie King, he runs the training operation. I've got good people on the farm.”

Looking at the pedigrees of the farm's FSS winners from the past two years, sire Cajun Breeze has also been a major part of that success: the Stonehedge exacta in last month's Dr. Fager featured two colts both sired by Cajun Breeze.

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The appropriately-named Cajun's Magic is that latest FSS winner, but King revealed that the talented 2-year-old colt's trainer, Michael “Beau” Yates, was the man behind Cajun Breeze making the move to Stonehedge.

“Michael used to ride for me here at the farm,” King explained. “I know his mother, and I still know him well. When his dad passed, he inherited a nice little farm with a training track, and we were diversifying our trainers. He's a good horseman; he's got horseman blood, back from his grandpa. You really can't teach all that to people.”

Yates had bred Cajun Breeze, a speedy, stakes-placed son of Congrats, to a few mares of his own. 

“He's not really set up to stand a stud, so I went and looked at his foals that he had,” said King. “Mr. Campbell asked me what I thought. This horse bred good, he could run, all his foals looked great, he's an outcross to everything we had, he nicks to nearly every mare, and they can run. He's had small, small crops; we've kind of been lucky, because we've had the only ones. When we start breeding some outside mares, we might have some more competition!”

Yates also predicted the Dr. Fager exacta a month before the race was run.

“We were very impressed how they broke their maidens, of course,” King said. “But then you hear about this horse and that horse, going back and looking at replays, and I thought, 'Man, these other horses really look good.'”

King needn't have worried. Cajun's Magic and Dean Delivers finished a neck apart, ten lengths better than the closest competition. 

Cajun's Magic (outside) wins the Dr. Fager Stakes over stablemate Dean Delivers at Gulfstream Park.

“Somebody once said it was the water, somebody else said it was the limestone in the soil,” King said, asked to explain the farm's success. “I wouldn't dare say we're better than anyone else. It's just excellent land, and we try to breed using common sense… But I'm proud of what we've done because we haven't had half-million-dollar mares or big sires. We just raise them right, and start them right, and we get a little lucky.

“It's also gratifying to see the Campbells have success after all they've put into the game.”

Other major successes for the Campbells include a 2016 Florida leading breeder title; 2011 Kentucky Derby starter and G2 Tampa Bay Derby winner Watch Me Go; 2016 Preakness starter Abiding Star; breeding and racing Ivanavinalot (West Acre), G2 winner and dam of champion Songbird; breeding $2.4 million-earner Marlin; breeding and racing millionaire Blazing Sword, G3 winner Always Sunshine, G3 winner Well Defined, and G3 winner Friel's For Real.

Looking back at his own role in all that success, King deflected the praise.

“I've been very fortunate with my job, and with my wife,” he said. “I've been married 42 years, and had the same job for 48. It's been a dream life; everything fell into place.”

The post Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Nothing Foolish About Larry King’s ‘Dream Life’ At Florida Farm appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Knicks Go-Charlatan Showdown Could Be in the Offing

The Week in Review, by Bill Finley

After last year's GI Breeders' Cup Classic, it seemed that every horse that mattered had been retired and that 2021 was going to be a bleak year for the handicap ranks. But 23 days into the year, it is apparent that's not going to be the case. First, Charlatan (Speightstown) turned in a sizzling performance in his comeback race in the GI Runhappy Malibu S. and, exactly four weeks, later Knicks Go (Paynter) could not have won the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational any more easily. And the two may be on a collision course, with the possibility that they will meet in the Feb. 20 Saudi Cup.

Brad Cox reported Sunday that Knicks Go came out of the Pegasus in good shape and was on his way back to his base at Fair Grounds. Cox and his owner, the Korean Racing Authority, have yet to decide where Knicks Go will run next, but the trainer said that the Saudi Cup is “on the radar.” He added that the March 27 G1 Dubai World Cup is also a consideration.

A Charlatan-Knicks Go showdown in Saudi Arabia would be great theater. Not only are they both immensely talented, both are horses that combine brilliant early speed with stamina. If they were to meet, it would be possible that they could turn the event into a match race, going hard after one another every step of the way.

In the meantime, Cox will allow himself to enjoy what was a statement-making performance from Knicks Go Saturday at Gulfstream. Not only did he win decisively, he had no problem negotiating the mile-and-an-eighth distance, dispelling one of the few knocks against a horse who had never run beyond a mile and a sixteenth.

“We are hopeful that he can be a top horse in the handicap division,” Cox said. “On Saturday, he was able to get a mile and an eighth with solid fractions up front and was able to carry his speed. He's a very talented horse. He showed brilliance as a 2-year-old in the Breeders' Futurity and again in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. He came right back to that form.”

What makes Knicks Go so dangerous is that he is capable of ripping off fractions of 22.90, 46.16 and 1:09.91, his splits in the Pegasus, and keep going as if the pace took nothing out of him.

“Any time you are running races at a mile and an eighth or more, speed is deadly,” Cox said.

The Saudi Cup is a one-turn, mile-and-an-eighth race, while the Dubai World Cup is a mile-and-a-quarter event run around two turns. At some point, whether it is in the Dubai World Cup or the Breeders' Cup Classic, Knicks Go is going to have to show that he can get the 10 furlongs. Cox doesn't see it as a problem.

“I like the idea of him going two turns and a mile and a quarter,” he said. “I think he can handle that and that's why Dubai is an option.”

Though Knicks Go won the GI Breeders' Futurity as a 2-year-old, he did not put it together until joining the Cox stable before a Feb. 22 allowance at Oaklawn. He's 4-for-4 since and has turned in Beyer numbers of 107, 108 and 108 in his last three starts. His best number prior to entering the Cox barn was a 93.

“His works at the Fair Grounds leading up to the Pegasus, I thought he was as good or better than he was leading up to the Dirt Mile,” Cox said. “He's the type of horse that gives you confidence as a trainer.”

A Bright Future For Prevalence?

There were seven graded stakes races on the Saturday card at Gulfstream, but there was no overshadowing the performance by Prevalence (Medaglia d'Oro) in the sixth race, a seven-furlong maiden special weight event. Trained by Brendan Walsh, he ran away from what looked like a strong group on paper. Eased up at the end by Tyler Gaffalione, he nonetheless managed to win by 8 1/2 lengths, earning an 89 Beyer and 'TDN Rising Star' honors. The runner-up was Stage River (Pioneerof the Nile), the half brother to Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy).

“I thought he was a nice horse, but did I expect him to do that? No. It was impressive,” trainer Brendan Walsh said.

Walsh said he has yet to decide on what will be next for Prevalence.

Though it's a long way from a maiden race in January to the Kentucky Derby, Prevalence ran well enough to suggest that he could be a major factor going forward in the 3-year-old ranks. That's more good news for Godolphin. The stable has had no success when it comes to the GI Kentucky Derby and now has two candidates in Prevalence and GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Essential Quality (Tapit). This is easily the strongest hand Godolphin has had with fewer than 100 days to go until the Derby.

Larry King, Horseplayer

Long before he came to CNN, Larry King, who died last week at age 87, had a mid-morning show on WIOD radio in Florida in the 1970s. With his afternoons off, King spent plenty of days in the press boxes at the Florida tracks, where he was known as an enthusiastic horseplayer.

In his 2009 biography “My Remarkable Journey,” King wrote about a day at Calder in 1971 where he took the last $42 to his name and wagered it on a 70-1 shot named Lady Forli. He wrote that he had win tickets on the mare and also had the exacta and the trifecta. He went on to claim that he won $11,000 on the race and used it to pay child support and his rent for a year.

It's a good story, but…

Lady Forli was born in 1972, didn't start until 1975 and never won a race in the U.S., let alone at 70-1. And in 1971, trifectas were not offered at Calder.

“Larry King spun a sweet little tale of hitting it big at the racetrack, thanks to a plucky horse named Lady Forli. Are you sitting down? It's all a lie!” reads a line from a story on the book in Deadspin.

In 2003, the horse Larry King debuted at Santa Anita. Bred by Sid and Jenny Craig, the son of Deputy Minister won three of 20 starts.

Swiss Skydiver Was Snubbed

While Authentic (Into Mischief) will be named Horse of the Year, and deservedly so, it was more than disappointing that Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil) was not among the three finalists for the title.

In an era where a top horse may run four or five times a year and with eight, nine weeks off in between races, she was a breath of fresh air. Starting her year off in February and concluding it in the Breeders' Cup in November, she made 10 starts, running at nine different tracks. She won five stakes, including the GI Alabama S. and a historic win over Authentic and other males in the GI Preakness S.

Had she won the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff, I very well may have voted for her for Horse of the Year. Eclipse Awards are supposed to be emblematic of sustained success over the course of the year, and no horse embodied that more than Swiss Skydiver. The voters should have recognized this and rewarded a remarkable filly for her remarkable year.

 

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