This is one of those programs, temperate and patient, that nourish the very marrow of our industry. It has never comprised more than around 10 mares, whose foals are brought into the world not just to make a fast buck but actually to go out there and run. Whitham Thoroughbreds is run by an octogenarian widow and her son: they devise matings to draw out speed into a second turn; they're not scared of using a turf stallion from time to time; and they work with horsemen who operate on a correspondingly intimate scale.
In fact, since Janis Whitham and her late husband Frank first dipped their toes into the Thoroughbred world, nearly 40 years ago, the mares and foals have basically been tended by the same hands: first those of Frank Penn at Pennbrook Farm near Lexington and then, when he retired around a decade ago, those of his veterinarian Dr. Steve Conboy at Maple Lane Farm. The racetrack division, albeit launched in California, has reflected similar priorities since it was decided to site the whole herd more accessibly: when Carl Nafzger stepped down, the horses simply stayed with his assistant Ian Wilkes.
“I certainly don't mean to knock those trainers who have huge strings,” stresses Clay Whitham, who assists his mother in running their equine team. “Obviously they get the job done. But I doubt whether they can have enough time to talk with every single one of their clients the way Ian does with Mom. Yes, we have a program-but first and foremost it's something we enjoy. My mother, in particular, really enjoys planning the matings. So it's very good for her to be able to work with a trainer like Ian, who takes his time with the horses, and makes time for visiting with his owners too.”
The dividends have far surpassed those typically achieved by brash ambition in other programs. Admittedly the Whithams were blessed, pretty early on, to import the Hall of Fame impetus of dual GI Breeders' Cup Distaff winner Bayakoa (Arg), but the acorn-to-oaks strategy has since yielded a GI Breeders' Cup Classic from Fort Larned (E Dubai) and a run to the GI Kentucky Derby with McCraken (Ghostzapper). That horse put a remote settlement on the national map, much to the pride of his breeders–who were both raised in the Kansas plains, and in turn made a home for Clay (now a banker in Colorado) and his siblings in the small town of Leoti.
As an unbeaten GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. winner, McCraken was a conspicuously precocious talent by the standards of his sire. The zip in McCraken's genes is attested by the fact that his half-sister Four Graces (Majesticperfection) broke the Keeneland track record over the extended seven furlongs in the GIII Beaumont S., complementing the new mark set by their dam's half-sister Mea Domina (Dance Brightly) in a graded stakes at Del Mar over 1 1/16 miles. That will doubtless seize the attention of commercial breeders when Four Graces comes under the hammer with Denali Stud as Hip 192 at the Keeneland November Sale. But perhaps they should primarily be engaged by the rare opportunity to tap directly into the very fount of this exemplary venture.
Because while there had been one or two Thoroughbred experiments at country tracks, the whole story really began with the weanling Nodouble filly unearthed by Frank Penn for $75,000 in 1983.
“They had quite a bit of Quarter Horse racing out in Kansas back in the day,” recalls Clay. “And my parents, who both came from agricultural areas of the state, had raced a few Quarter Horses. But about this time they decided to transition more into Thoroughbreds. My father was a businessman, I think he could probably just see that the purses were better! And while things have obviously changed quite a bit since, at that time the best purses were in California.”
The filly, named Tuesday Evening, won a Santa Anita maiden on her second start for Ron McAnally and, while unable to race again, duly bred half a dozen winners for the nascent program, including a very fast one in Madame Pandit (Wild Again), who won the GIII Monrovia H. before finishing chasing home Exotic Wood (Rahy) in the GI Santa Monica H.
By the time Madame Pandit came along, however, these horses had acquired a tragic new purpose: as a bond of comfort for a family united by grief. Frank, having built a successful career in livestock, oil and banking, was only 62 when lost in a plane crash in 1993. Through her long widowhood, the patient cycles of breeding-to-race have given Janis much consolation. It was partly to ease that deepening engagement that it was eventually decided to transfer the racetrack division closer to the breeding stock.
Madame Pandit made a great start to her breeding career when Mea Domina, only her second foal, won the GI Gamely Breeders' Cup H. at Hollywood Park. That success actually came just a couple of weeks after Madame Pandit was covered by Seeking The Gold, conceiving a filly that would bear the name Ivory Empress.
“Madame Pandit had been Tuesday Evening's best foal,” Clay reflects. “She was a real speedball, one-turn only, and while I think we breeders tend to get a bit too hung up on size, she really was a very good-sized mare. You know, good barrel, good scope-and every foal she threw was good-looking.
“And we knew that she had that speed back there. We do prefer to breed a two-turn horse, that's our goal, but speed is always a good thing if you can just try to stretch it out. Anyway we were very high on Madame Pandit as a broodmare prospect and, though getting a mare to a stallion like Seeking The Gold was difficult, Mother got that job done! He already had a reputation as a broodmare sire, so we did have our fingers crossed for a filly.”
While Ivory Empress won three times, and also made the podium in a graded stakes, she did not achieve quite as much on the track as Mea Domina. Yet she was the one who has ultimately proved the best conduit for the Tuesday Evening legacy.
“It's a good example of the way things often turn out,” Clay remarks. “You just never know, until you start raising foals. Mea Domina was obviously a very talented horse, but did not turn out to be the broodmare we had hoped. But Ivory Empress took her chances. We bred her first to War Front. Again, my mother got to Seth Hancock! She was the one that could get the mares in there.
“And the result was a very talented colt [early on], second in a couple of graded stakes. One time in particular he looked the clear winner, only for something to fly past in the shadow of the wire. So the mare had landed running-and her second foal was McCraken.”
There was real excitement when McCraken made a seamless resumption in the GIII Sam F. Davis S. and while he was beaten next time, and then suffered a rough trip when midfield at Churchill, he did only go down by a nose in the GI Haskell Invitational S. and has now had his first winners from a small debut book at Airdrie.
“He'll always be special to us,” Clay says. “This whole thing is very much a family activity, and obviously there's nothing quite like having a horse in the Kentucky Derby. That got all the nephews and cousins and everybody involved, it really was quite a ride he took us on.”
It will not be easy, then, to cash out his sister Four Graces. Impressive on debut at Gulfstream, she went through the ranks to win the GIII Dogwood S. before claiming that track record at Keeneland. Restricted to a single start last year, she has had several near-misses this year including when caught late in the GI Derby City Distaff S. But every program, of any size, needs discipline; needs to prune families to keep cultivating them.
“She's the kind we'd love to keep,” Clay says. “She has a great physique, and she has shown a lot of the talent and speed you see in her family. Her dam always has good-looking foals and she was probably top of the list. But as a breed-to-race program, we want to come as close as we can to paying its way. You have two revenue streams available, racing and selling, and it's tough to make it all in purse money. So to have a broodmare prospect that has accomplished everything she has, from a family like that, it's too good an opportunity not to see what we can get done.
“We do have three fillies in the pipeline out of Ivory Empress. Without that, I believe it would be difficult. But we have an Uncle Mo [yearling] down in Florida, just getting started in her training program; we have a Street Sense [weanling] on the farm; and we actually have a 2-year-old full-sister to McCraken who has just been held up by a few little things. And of course we also have Ivory Empress herself. She's 17 and, like all of us, she's getting a little more age on her-but she's doing very well. She was getting late in the foaling [cycle] so we left her open this year and we're working on a mating plan right now.”
The parallel dynasty developed by the Whithams, of course, traces to Bayakoa herself. This really has been a remarkable achievement. The dual champion mare had just two producing daughters. One of these, in turn, herself managed only a single daughter-but that was four-time Grade I winner Affluent (Affirmed). The other daughter, somewhat quixotically, was given the same name as Bayakoa's Argentinian-registered dam, Arlucea. (So good they named her twice!) Having already come up with Fort Larned, another Kansas landmark put on the racing map, she has now produced a fresh maroon-and-silver blossom in Walkathon (Twirling Candy).
Earlier this year Walkathon looked one of the most progressive turf fillies around when winning the GIII Regret S., but has not been seen since.
“She got a knock,” Clay explains. “She was shipped to Saratoga to run in the [Gi Saratoga] Oaks up there but on the morning of race, when they took her out of her stall, she had a bit of a hitch in her giddy-up. So we had her X-rayed and it's a pretty typical deal, no displacement, the kind of thing we've had very good experience recovering from. So we're looking forward to seeing her next spring.”
The emergence of Walkathon is the kind of thing that sustains the passion; and it's the passion that sustains the program. Nobody needs to tell the Whitham clan about the ups and downs of life. They have sampled unspeakable tragedy away from the track and, in the essentially trivial environment of quadrupeds running in circles, they had one of their proudest moments compromised by the disaster that befell their champion's big challenger Go For Wand at the Breeders' Cup. Yet they have found abiding renewal in the patient cycles of raising and racing Thoroughbreds. Whoever is privileged to take this short-cut with Four Graces, then, should also hope to absorb something of the fulfilment the vendors have found in all their years crafting such genetic quality.
“It's all such a great activity for my mother,” Clay says. “She's not able to travel quite so much now, but she's doing great and gets so much enjoyment from the horses. Right now she's running different pedigree programs on the mares, looking at all the different stallions, and still very much engaged.
“We were really tickled to see Walkathon came through for that family. With horses, you always have the ones that carry the load for all the others, and you don't always know which one it will be. Affluent was a disappointing broodmare, but now here's Walkathon from the same family. We've really stuck with these families, tried to develop them. You do have to be careful, not to be too close-bonded on that, but it can work and that's how we got from our foundation mare to Four Graces. Whether we're bull-headed or smart, who knows. But believe me, you have to be lucky too!”
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