Manners Maketh Mandaloun (Cont
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2021 TRAINER BRUCE HEADLEY DEAD AT 86 THIS SIDE UP: MANNERS by Dan Ross The California racing circuit lost one of its most charismatic, MAKETH MANDALOUN storied and successful training institutions and purveyors of good old-fashioned horsemanship when Bruce Headley passed away Friday at the age of 86, his family confirmed. Earlier this week, Headley, whose health has been failing for a number of years, suffered bleeding to the brain, complications from which he eventually succumbed. Few individuals have left such an indelible impression on the racing industry in the state--fewer still can boast such a steep climb within the sport from such relative obscurity. Headley grew up on a small-holding in the City of Upland, nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, to parents who had no connection to horseracing. But that didn=t stop a 14-year-old Headley from making his way to the Suzie Q Ranch in Southern California--where he first met a baby-faced Bill Shoemaker--to embark on a race-riding career that was as brief as it was inauspicious due to a losing Prince Khalid Abdullah | Horsephotos battle with the scales. Cont. p6 by Chris McGrath IN TDN EUROPE TODAY How ironic, that a man with a nearly anguished instinct for self-effacement should have left so indelible an impression on WITHOUT PAROLE BOLSTERS GUNTHERS’ STALLION our walk of life--one he strolled so quietly that he insisted on RECORD John and Tanya Gunther’s homebred St James’s registering his silks, with The Jockey Club in Britain, simply in the Palace S. winner Without Parole enters stud at Newsells Park in name of Mr. K. Abdullah. How many others who covet the Turf's 2021. Click or tap here to go straight to TDN Europe. great prizes, in contrast, elbow their way through the crowd in preening advertisement of their wealth and acuity? If we learn much about such people from their presumption of some deeper dignity, from a status they cannot sustain even by a royal title, so we can surmise something of those human qualities--generally so inscrutable--that were extinguished with the loss of Prince Khalid this week. For he plainly considered "Mr." an ample prompt to our general obligation of mutual civility; above all, perhaps, among those who constantly witness the egalitarianism that persists between Thoroughbreds themselves. Whatever advantages we seek in pedigree--the foundation, after all, of his entire Juddmonte empire--even the Prince will have seen the most regal foals reduced to the claiming ranks, or denied the throne by blue-collar upstarts. Admittedly the courteous lineaments of his public appearances so confined his inner nature that we should perhaps hesitate before discovering some third dimension barely exposed even to those in our community who spent years in his service. For their tributes have been in much the same register as those made from a more superficial vantage. Cont. p3 PUBLISHER & CEO Sue Morris Finley @suefinley [email protected] SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Gary King @garykingTDN [email protected] EDITORIAL [email protected] Editor-in-Chief Jessica Martini @JessMartiniTDN Managing Editor Saturday, January 16, 2021 Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN Deputy Editor Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN Associate Editors Christina Bossinakis @CBossTDN Joe Bianca @JBiancaTDN News and Features Editor In Memoriam: Ben Massam (1988-2019) ADVERTISING [email protected] Director of Advertising Alycia Borer Advertising Manager Lia Best Advertising Designer Amanda Crelin Advertising Assistant/Dir. Of Distribution Rachel McCaffrey Advertising Assistants Amie Newcomb Kristen Lomasson Photographer/Photo Editor Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew Amanda Gomez, daughter of Hall of Fame Jockey Garrett Gomez, aboard her OTTB Ben [email protected] during CARMA's Aftercare Awareness Day at Santa Anita Park. Learn more about CARMA in our story on page 8. | Zoe Metz Social Media Strategist Justina Severni Associate Producer MANDALOUN LOOKS TO MAKE JUDDMONTE PROUD 10 Katie Ritz Juddmonte Farm’s ‘TDN Rising Star’ Mandaloun (Into Mischief) Director of Customer Service faces 9 foes as he kicks off his sophomore campaign in Vicki Forbes Saturday’s GIII Lecomte S. at Fair Grounds. [email protected] BODY & SOUL 12 Marketing Manager Bob Fierro wonders if what goes around in breeding Thoroughbreds Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen comes around in this latest installment of his series. Director of IT & Accounting Ray Villa TODAY’S GRADED STAKES [email protected] [email protected] ET Race Click for TV 5:23p Louisiana S.-GIII, FG TJCIS PPs TVG WORLDWIDE INFORMATION 6:49p Lecomte S.-GIII, FG TJCIS PPs TVG International Editor Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN [email protected] European Editor Emma Berry [email protected] Associate International Editor Heather Anderson @HLAndersonTDN Newmarket Bureau, Cafe Racing Sean Cronin & Tom Frary [email protected] 60 Broad Street, Suite 100 Red Bank, NJ 07701 732-747-8060 | www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 15 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • JANUARY 16, 2021 Manners Maketh Mandaloun (cont. from p1) Even from the outside, any of us might ascribe to him attributes of 'the perfect gentleman.' First and foremost, precisely that freedom from self-importance; but also his distaste for the kind of hiring and firing that we see in the Turf's coarser patrons. So perhaps we actually knew him better than we realized. Certainly his striking fidelities suggest an unshakable respect for those qualities that abide within those who might not appear, to more fickle judgements, in a deserving state of grace. He was just about the last man standing when Sir Henry Cecil paid with the contempt of fashion for a human brittleness in the face of adversity. And while Bobby Frankel never lost professional esteem in the same way, you suspect that few who share the Prince's antecedents would have become quite so devoted to a cantankerous Jewish gambler from Brooklyn. The sheer breadth of humanity encompassed by those two trainers, their wildly divergent personalities united by a slender strand of genius, attested to a tolerance and empathy in the Prince that would serve us all well, not least in these rancorous times. A tragic destiny, of course, reserved for Frankel and Cecil a cruel extra bond, in their premature loss to cancer. But a happier clause in the unforgiving terms of fate was the arrival of a champion, named in memory of one, to redeem the darkest hour of the other. The Prince with Sir Henry Cecil in 2011 | Racing Post TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 15 • THETDN.COM SATURDAY • JANUARY 16, 2021 Arguably the Prince surrendered something even of Because none of us, surely, will be able to resist a frisson that Juddmonte's defining achievement to the needs of his suffering some benign force may assist the Juddmonte colt who finds trainer. Even with his own time probably short, he delayed himself, on this of all weekends, dipping a toe into the Triple Frankel's retirement as the apogee of his breeding program so Crown water in the GIII Lecomte S. that Cecil would retain a spur to his fortitude every time he The Kentucky Derby was one of the few great ambitions to went out onto the gallops. And the Prince also indulged the elude the Prince, albeit he managed two seconds (Aptitude and rather parochial priorities that somewhat hampered Cecil even Empire Maker) from only five starters. Mandaloun is by the in his pomp, never mind at a time when personal travel had same extraordinary sire that has just settled any doubt as to his become impractical. competence to stretch his trademark speed, with the The Prince must surely have asked himself, as did some of us improvement in his mares, to the demands of the Derby. mere bystanders, what capacities remained unexplored in The upgrading of Into Mischief's books was aptly measured Frankel as Cecil kept him, almost to the end, in the same when the Prince favored him with a visit from Mandaloun's domestic pool of outclassed milers. Constantly compared with dam, Empire Maker's daughter Brooch, a Group 2 and 3 winner specters of the past, Frankel was never given the chance to in Ireland. Judicious introduction of external blood has been key measure himself even against his contemporaries overseas. The to the constant invigoration of the Prince's families. In this case, Prince had a mansion just beside the Bois de Boulogne, and first however, the first three dams are all by homebred stallions: became enchanted by the Turf when taken by friends to Empire Maker, Dansili (GB) and Distant View. But the fourth Longchamp in 1956. And he adored the Breeders' Cup. dam is Queen of Song (His Majesty), a sister to Cormorant added Hopefully his enjoyment of Frankel's wonderful start at stud was to the expanding Juddmonte band for $700,000 at the 1989 not too poignantly tempered by the reflection that the Keeneland November Sale. speed-carrying capacity he imparts to his stock really should Brad Cox also saddles an exciting sophomore filly for have been examined either in the Arc or at the Breeders' Cup. Juddmonte in the Silverbulletday S. Already No. 2 in colleague A trifling quibble, by now, in a legacy that has long been Bill Finley's TDN Oaks Top 10, Sun Path is by another commercial secure--and will long continue to evolve. Indeed, just as stallion in Munnings. In her case, however, her first three dams Juddmonte once gave a cherished friend a critical transfusion of are all by other outside sires: Tapit, Nureyev and Nijinsky. The vitality, perhaps those grieving the Prince now will themselves third is champion Chris Evert's daughter Nijinsky Star, acquired find some timely succor from its bloodlines.