Award-winning author and attorney Milton Toby passed away Monday at his Georgetown, Kentucky home following a battle with cancer. He was 73.
News of Toby's passing was first reported by Blood-Horse, where he worked for over a decade before beginning a freelance writing career.
Toby began his sports writing career at the Aiken Standard and his first assignment for the South Carolina newspaper involved covering the 1972 GI Belmont S. He returned to Kentucky in 1973 and began a 12-year stint writing for the BloodHorse magazine.
As a freelance photojournalist, Toby covered stories across the globe, from China to Costa Rica and Columbia, before turning his attention to the law and earning a law degree from University of Kentucky School of Law in 1995. In addition to practicing law, he also taught at several Kentucky colleges and universities and served as chair of the Central Kentucky Bar Association's equine law division. He served as president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors from 2018-2020, sat on the board of the American Horse Publications from 2010-2013, and was an instructor in equine commercial law at the University of Louisville's Equine Industry Program.
Toby is the author of 10 books. His “Dancer's Image, the Forgotten Story of the 1968 Kentucky Derby,” won the 2011 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award, as well as the American Horse Publications Editorial Award as the best equine book of 2011. He doubled up on AHP's top equine book in 2012 with “Noor: A Champion Thoroughbred's Unlikely Journey from California to Kentucky,” and won that award again in 2018 with “Taking Shergar: Thoroughbred Racing's Most Famous Cold Case.”
Toby's 10th and final book, “Unnatural Ability, the History of Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Racing” will be published next month by University Press of Kentucky.
Toby is survived by his wife, Roberta.
No service or visitation is scheduled. A gathering of remembrance may be announced at a later date. Donations may be made in Toby's name to Bluegrass Care Navigators in Lexington.
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