Fletcher Jones's Unusual Racing Legacy
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2021 FLETCHER JONES'S FLORIDA TRAINERS REACT TO LASIX BAN IN STAKES by Bill Finley UNUSUAL RACING LEGACY In Imprimis (Broken Vow), Joe Orseno has the morning-line favorite in Friday's Janus S. at Gulfstream, the first race that will be held at the South Florida track under new rules that prohibit the use of Lasix in stakes races. Orseno isn't looking forward to what will become the new normal for horsemen across the country at most major tracks. "It's a big adjustment and I'm not fond of the new rules," he said. "I don't see how you can take a horse who has been running on Lasix his whole life and all of a sudden penalize the best horses in the country for being good horses. They didn't think this through. I don't know how it won't be animal cruelty when you see a horse come back and there is blood coming out of both nostrils." Cont. p5 IN TDN EUROPE TODAY by Sid Fernando Warmed by the fireplace, or perhaps by sipping yet another GALILEO: THE HARDEST ACT TO FOLLOW glass of a Santa Ynez vineyard's rich and full-bodied red, I was Galileo (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells) was once again crowned champion sire with his frequent rival Dubawi (Ire) (Dubai contemplating the new year and how it needs to be better than Millennium {GB}) second. Emma Berry has the details.. Click or the fiasco that was 2020. The wine, by the way, was issued by a tap here to go straight to TDN Europe. label called Westerly and named Fletcher's Red, and it happens to be the namesake of a man who burned a short but bright trajectory through horseracing. He's also had a positive impact on young people's lives in ways in which he could never have imagined or predicted. By most accounts, the handsome, tough, and brilliant Fletcher Jones had it all. He was enthusiastic about the future; about his two sons; his extensive art collection that included a famous Picasso; his horses; and his company that made it all possible, which was the cutting-edge Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) that had turned him a multi-millionaire in his 30s. But unless you're in your 70s or older, you've probably never heard of him. On a rainy evening in early November of 1972, shortly after an election that subsequently featured one of the greatest crooks of presidential history in Richard Nixon, Jones left his offices in Century City and piloted his small plane towards home. His destination was the nearly 4,000-acre Westerly Stud Farm in Santa Barbara County near the Danish-settled village of Solvang, about an hour northwest. 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 Friday, January 1, 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 2020 in Photos: December 10. 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Later, other prominent farms would follow, including in 1975 Marty Taking Stock cont. from p1 Wygod's River Edge Farm near Buellton, a leading California He'd bought the place in 1965, a smaller parcel first, the nursery for years and the home of California leading sire Pirate's Sigvard Hansen Ranch of transplanted eastern socialite, painter, Bounty. Wygod, incidentally, once worked for Jones at CSC, and poet, author, and breeder Amory Hare Hutchinson, who'd died Jones reportedly gifted Wygod with Wygod's first two horses. the previous year. Later, Jones added a massive chunk of Jones never made it home from that election night, reaching adjoining acreage from the Rancho Piocho and developed neither the Santa Ynez airport nor the landing strip on a Westerly into what's been universally described as an driveway at Westerly that he also sometimes used. Instead, he immaculate state-of-the-art facility for breeding, foaling, and crashed into a ridge about eight miles from the airport and died, training--a home at one point to more than 300 horses, half of aged 41 and in his prime. He was a skilled pilot in good health, them owned by Jones, with the others boarders. Promised Land by all accounts, and there's never been an explanation of how was one of three stallions at Westerly at the time, and it's where and why the plane crashed. his California-bred daughter Spectacular was conceived. She In late October of 2020, shortly before an election that would foal Spectacular Bid in 1976. featured one of the most divisive, civics-challenged, and chaotic The only place comparable to Westerly in California back then presidents in history, The Fletcher Jones Foundation announced was nearby Flag Is Up Farm in Solvang, which was developed by that it was granting $1 million to endow a chair in Citizenship publishing heir Hastings Harcourt and Monty Roberts and and Civic Virtue in the Honors College at Azusa Pacific housed a number of stallions, including Petrone (Fr) and University. "Students will learn what democracy requires of its Successor, the Bold Ruler champion 2-year-old colt of 1966 citizens and will benefit from an education that promotes moral who'd been purchased for a reported $1 million from Wheatley and political principles and practices concerned with the welfare Stable. Both showplaces were nestled in a verdant northern of the community as a whole," the Christian university said in a TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 9 • THETDN.COM FRIDAY • JANUARY 1, 2021 youngster who knows of Jones, and it's not only because he happens to be well read and a student of pedigrees and racing history. His grandfather Leonard Lavin, then president of the cosmetics giant Alberto-Culver Co., established Glen Hill in Ocala at about the same time Jones was setting up his Santa Ynez property, and the two titans clashed when Jones issued that time-honored challenge to Lavin: My horse is faster than yours and let's put up money for a match race and settle it. Reports at the time said that Jones was irked that Lavin's trainer, Willard Proctor, had suggested that Convenience, a 4-year-old daughter of Fleet Nasrullah who'd defeated Typecast in the Vanity H. by a half-length with a five-pound advantage, was just as good as Jones's mare, who'd finished second with trouble. The Typecast versus Convenience match race materialized at Typecast & Convenience | Courtesy Craig Bernick Hollywood Park in mid-June of 1972 with each owner putting up statement upon receiving the grant. $100,000 and the track adding another $50,000 for a In 2019, the foundation awarded $6.4 million in grants and it winner-take-all purse of $250,000 over nine furlongs on dirt at has altogether given more than $230 million since it first began level weights--a record purse for a match at the time. The race operations under John Pollock, who was Jones's longtime was memorable, with Convenience winning by a head in attorney. 1:47 3/5, and Jones, always pragmatic, was a gracious loser. Pollock knew Jones well, liked and admired him, and wrote a Five months later, Jones was dead, and the following January succinct and unvarnished biography of him. According to his stock was dispersed for $4.4 million at a special auction at Pollock, Jones wasn't a particularly charitable man. He wrote: Hollywood Park that drew buyers from around the world. Heron "Although today the world remembers the philanthropic Bloodstock, as agent for Shigeo Yoshida (not to be confused with accomplishments of The Fletcher Jones Foundation and its Zenya Yoshida, who purchased eventual leading Japanese sire special support for the colleges and universities in California, Northern Taste as a yearling for $100,000 in 1972), bought Fletcher did not, in his lifetime, spend money or time to help his Typecast for a then-world record of $725,000 for a horse at fellow man.