California Mainstay Eddie Truman Passes Aged 77

Eddie Truman, a trainer as renowned for his patience with the Thoroughbred as for a perennially genial disposition, has passed at the age of 77.

“A great horseman and an even greater individual,” said veteran trainer Gary Stute.

“I never heard him say a bad word about anybody–anybody–and on the racetrack, that's few and far,” Stute added. “Once you met him, you stayed friends with him. The ultimate honest good person.”

Over a career spanning nearly 50 years, Truman trained 763 winners and collected $15.7 million in earnings. He had his big days as a trainer. Go West Marie (Western Fame) won four stakes races and was just a length away from winning the 2015 GIII Las Cienegas Stakes.

Irish Import Casino King (Ire) (Fairy King) showed up time after time in some ferocious bouts on the turf, including a clear second behind triple Grade I winner Bienamado (Bien Bien) one June at Hollywood Park, a second-place finish in a Grade II at Woodbine and a stakes victory at Remington Park.

But it was the skill and patience that Truman deployed with the horses in his care–especially the wayward types–that stood him apart.

As he told the TDN earlier this year upon his retirement, “to see a horse get good and see them just develop, get confidence, that was really fantastic to me–more so than even having a real nice horse that just goes out there and wins every time,” said Truman, at the time.

“Maybe they weren't great horses, but they would go out there and perform for you,” he said.

Truman was born in Kansas, on a small holding where his family rebroke horses ruined under other hands, in the process cementing the foundations of his horsemanship.

“We didn't buck-break them out or anything like that. This is where dad had the edge–our horses never bucked. No. As soon as we got them out of the pen, we'd take them out in a plowed field,” Truman told the TDN in February.

“It was deep stuff, so they couldn't do too much. But it really taught us, all of us, to be kind, gentle hands, and to let horses relax–correct them, but then give them a chance. It was good.”

Good for horse. Good for rider. “We learned some really valuable horsemanship that way,” said Truman.

Truman started as a jockey before his voice broke. He rode his first winner, a match race, aged 12.

At 16, he followed into the professional ranks his brother, Jerry, already an established jockey. Truman was contracted to the owner of the Chicago Blackhawks. He was the leading rider at Sportsman Park. But weight gains soon put paid to any long career in the saddle.

A brief period training was followed by stints doing all sorts–international backpacker, paddock judge, exercise rider. In the early 1970s, Truman was assistant to Hall of Famer Bobby Frankel. In 1974, he took out his license again.

“When I started, we got lucky. We claimed a horse that won like six out of nine races. Claimed another one that won four out of five. We would run them where they belonged. Run them up north,” said Truman, in February.

“That was one of my favorite games: Claim a horse here [Santa Anita, Hollywood Park] while they were in jail, run them up north, win, come back here, run them for what I claimed them for–I'd already won a race with them–and go on. You build up their confidence. Confidence–it's a big thing. People don't understand that.”

Truman was wirily trim as a bantamweight boxer, thanks in part to a lifetime in the saddle, horse and bike. Even into his sixties, Truman could be seen of a morning bobbing on horseback around Del Mar and Santa Anita (sometimes in shorts, to the consternation of anyone with skin on their knees).

“The most generous, giving guy you could ever come across who would help anybody. But the things he loved the most were his horses and his bicycle,” said XBTV presenter Zoe Cadman. “I don't think I ever rode as fast to Del Mar [from Sierra Madre] as the year I rode with Eddie. He rode me out the saddle. He was a true machine. I ran into him two weeks ago at the end of his 70-mile bike ride and he wouldn't even blow out a candle.”

Truman's passing was reportedly sudden. “He did 60 miles on Sunday. He couldn't have been fitter or stronger,” said Craig Barnfather, a former exercise rider who frequently cycled with Truman. Barnfather credits the former trainer with helping to turn his life around decades ago.

“I introduced him to these guys on Sunday. I said, 'Eddie, what did you tell me 32 years ago? Bike or coffin?' He said, 'Yes. This guy was on the fast lane to death.' Everybody else saw me as a dumb drunk. But he never ever made me feel like that,” Barnfather recalled.

“All I can say about Eddie is he was everything I wanted to be,” said former trainer Matt Chew. “Upbeat. Positive. Always there to lend a helping hand to anybody that needed it. Just an all-round good guy.”

Bloodstock agent John Fulton concurred. “We lost the best person that I have ever known. My best friend for 51 years. He kept me grounded and taught me so much about what really matters in life. You could never find anyone who would have a bad word to say about Eddie. He was everyone's friend and will be missed by so many.”

Throughout, Truman balanced his professional and personal lives, never letting the two intermingle. No social gatherings at the barn. No long evening fireside chats on the telephone, all shop talk with the owners. No busman's holidays, families in tow.

“I wanted to spend time with my family. So, that's the road I chose,” Truman said, in February. “And I never really regretted my choice that way.”