Gun Runner Filly Marks End of an Era for Seltzer

“The venture was a disaster and I fell in love with it,” Ed Seltzer said of his initial foray into racing nearly 65 years ago. Now, 90, Seltzer is in the midst of dispersing his bloodstock and an offer will be horses from families he has cultivated over six decades. On offer during Monday's first session of the Keeneland September Yearling sale will be filly by Gun Runner (hip 117) from the Taylor Made Sales Agency consignment. Seltzer's involvement with the family goes back five generations.

“We bought Overpowering and she was pretty old at the time, but we got one foal out of her and that was Over Your Shoulder,” Seltzer recalled. “We have had the family ever since then. It's a family that has been very rewarding.”

Over Your Shoulder, in turn, produced Harbour Club (Danzig), the dam of True Legacy (GB) (A.P. Indy). True Legacy produced Verdana Bold (Rahy), who fortuitously for Seltzer, failed to sell as a weanling at the 2005 Keeneland November sale. A graded stakes winner in Seltzer's colors, she has produced a pair of stakes winners; Ghalia (Medaglia d'Oro) and graded-placed Lucrezia (Into Mischief), the dam of hip 117.

“She is a lovely individual,” Seltzer's daughter, farm manager and veterinarian Krista said of the yearling. “She is very balanced. She reminds me a lot of her mom. She is feminine, but a decent size. I really like her.”

“But ask my dad about her,” Krista insisted. “He's better at looking at horses than he thinks.”

Seltzer's response?

“She's wrong,” he said with a laugh. “The same horse walked by me twice and I didn't realize it was the same horse. I can't look at a horse. I've never been able to.”

But from the time he bought a small piece of a horse when he was in his 20s, Seltzer has been in love with the game.

“I had never been to a horse race, I'd never been around horses and I didn't know anything about it,” Seltzer explained. “But I bought an eighth of a horse in a card game. A guy that I was close to bought a quarter, I think. I was young and I didn't have any money. We grew up poorer and I went to school on an athletic scholarship, so I could throw a ball a little bit. But anyway, at the end of the day, as you go along, you start out with claiming horses, and find horses that you love and you get lucky every now and then. Pretty soon, you start breeding and racing and it's grown from there. I have been very, very lucky and it's grown beautifully for me. From claiming horses, to allowance horses, to stakes horses. We haven't bought a horse in 20 years because we've been breeding our own. We've won a lot of races.”

While Seltzer studied up on his pedigrees, his daughter always knew her love of horses would be a more hands-on endeavor.

“I was born in Chicago, we lived in downtown Chicago,” she recalled. “For my second birthday, all I wanted was a horse and my dad took me for a pony ride in downtown Chicago. Tthat was my horse for my second birthday–it really wasn't, but I was in this little pink dress with the biggest smile on my face. I've always loved horses. And then when I was eight or nine, all I wanted to be was a veterinarian. I used to ask my brother, 'Can you just bring me some ripped stuffed animals and I will be the doctor?' and he would play along and I would sew them up.”

For father, the joy he feels at being able to work with his daughter is palpable.

“A lot of people think if your daughter works for you, they can't get a job doing anything else,” he said with a chuckle. “I lost a son and I lost my wife years ago, so we have gone through life with a lot of grief. My daughter went to vet school and wound up at Davis and she was offered a good partnership in California. You don't like to say anything and you don't like your children to do what you want them to do or to be where you want them to be. You don't want them to think you are lonely, so I didn't say anything. But one day she called me and told me she didn't want to be that far away from me. 'I want to come home.' It's been the most wonderful time of my life.”

Father and daughter form a complementary team.

“I'm hands on,” Krista said. “My dad is brilliant with the business and with racing, and reading a Racing Form. He started out in claiming, but I would venture to guess he may not even know how to put a halter on. He was never hands on. But brilliant with the rest of it. But for me, I always loved the horses.

And then I am just lucky in a sense, because I ended up by osmosis really falling in love with the industry.”

Another obviously valued member of the team is trainer Curtis Garrison, who they brought on board after buying Solera Farm in Williston, Florida in 2005.

“After we bought the farm, we wound up hiring Curtis,” Seltzer said. “He is one of the two best day's work I've ever done in my life. He is irreplaceable. It's not only his training and his ability to do what he does, but he looks after everything and he takes care of my daughter and the farm and me. For the rest of his life, he will be with me, no matter what.”

Among the horses Seltzer has bred in his six decades in the racing industry is 1985 GI Preakness Stakes winner Tank's Prospect (Mr. Prospector), as well as graded winners Surgical Strike (Red Giant), Sky Treasure (Sky Mesa), Sparkling Review (Lemon Drop Kid) and Customer Base (Lemon Drop Kid). He also campaigned multiple graded winner Field Commission (Service Stripe).

But asked for a favorite, Seltzer names a former claimer from his early days in the racing business.

“I remember I claimed a horse in 1964–something like that–a horse called Going Abroad,” Seltzer said. “I claimed him for $10,000 and he wound up winning the Arlington Handicap and a whole bunch of stakes. It was an unbelievable experience for me.”

He continued, “I look at all the photographs on my wall and I go all the way back, so many years and so many pictures. It's hard to pick one over the other. You look at your wall and you're just happy with where you are.”

Seltzer began dispersing his stock at the OBS June sale to dissolve a partnership. The dispersal continues at Keeneland this month and at the breeding stock sales in November, which will include Lucrezia, in foal to Curlin, as well as her weanling colt by Flightline.

Lucrezia | SV Photography

“We are dispersing our entire horse operation, as you know,” he said. “Not because we want to, but because of some circumstances that have come up. Hopefully, my daughter and a couple of good friends of mine will buy some of these horses. But it's time for us to cut back anyway. Curtis is getting older and so am I. I am 90. A lot of the babies and a lot of the families that we built will go on for years, but I won't. I doubt that I will live to be 110.”

But Seltzer doesn't sound like someone ready to sit at home and rest on his laurels.

“We have a tremendous amount of money coming in in the next three or four years,” he said. “We have to reinvest it and I want to do it in this area that I live in. When I came here, the farm was the first thing I ever bought in my life that I didn't expect to be worth more money later. I loved it and I wanted to be involved and it was beautiful. And it turns out this whole area, Ocala, Williston, is growing like a weed. It's unbelievable. So we happen to be in a great place to reinvest the money we have coming in. I have a great guy, Evan Pitts, with me to help me do it and we are going to look for things to do in this area, not only because it's a prolific area that is growing, but it's nice to have it here and my daughter is here and can enjoy seeing the investments we make. It will be in this area, but not necessarily in the horse business.”

Of his time in the racing industry, Seltzer said, “It's been a lovely relationship. I have been in this for about 64 years and I've loved every minute of it.”