B. Wayne Hughes

Lexington, KY - Spendthrift Farm opened the doors to its new B. Wayne Hughes Visitors Center on Tuesday, Nov. 1 as part of the lead-up to the Breeders' Cup World Championships. Named in honor of the farm's late founder, the 7,000 square-foot, two story facility will serve as the home for Spendthrift's tourism. The building is located between the farm's stallion complex and main office and features a trophy room, which showcases Spendthrift's collection of trophies, artifacts and racing memorabilia, as well as a gift shop.   Spendthrift owners Eric...

Spendthrift Farm has erected its new Malibu Moon memorial statue that will serve as the centerpiece at the front of the B. Wayne Hughes Visitors Center, which is set to officially open Nov. 1 during Breeders' Cup week. "The B. Wayne Hughes Visitors Center has really come together, and the addition of the Malibu Moon statue in front is a special highlight that we are all very proud to see go up," said Ned Toffey, Spendthrift General Manager. "We look forward to unveiling the visitors center Breeders' Cup week as...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - By far, the most enthusiastic applause during the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame induction ceremony Friday morning was for a video clip of race that everyone in the audience likely had seen many times. Beholder's (Henny Hughes) career-capping victory by a nose over the previously unbeaten champion Songbird (Medaglia d'Oro) in the 2016 GI Breeder's Cup Distaff was nearly as gripping on the big screen at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion as it was live at Santa Anita Park. For sheer drama it ranks with...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY-Just like Rachel Alexandra (Medaglia d'Oro) and Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}) in 2016, Beholder (Henny Hughes) and Tepin (Bernstein) are entering the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame together Friday in their first year of eligibility. Six years after the no-brainer election package, Hall of Fame voters selected two brilliant race mares of the second decade of the 21st century to join the best-of-the-best club on Union Avenue. Though they excelled on different surfaces, there are plenty of similarities. Both were well-beaten in their career debuts. Both...

Never mind the champion stallion who emulated his own rags-to-riches rise: every yard of paddock rail, every coat of paint, every blade of grass at Spendthrift Farm commemorates the man whose arrival here transformed the commercial breeding landscape. But it's not just the fact that it will formally preserve his name that makes an especially apt memorial of a new visitor center, opening later this year. For its very existence attests to the unique, restlessly challenging style of the late B. Wayne Hughes, and the determination of those charged with...

As somebody remarked at the time, on seeing B. Wayne Hughes and M.V. Magnier deep in conversation one morning before the 2019 Breeders' Cup: "I'll give you 140 guesses what they're talking about."

Spendthift Farm has broken ground on what is to be an 8000 square-foot tourism facility that will be named the B. Wayne Hughes Visitors' Center in honor of the farm's late founder. "We take it on as our responsibility now to continue to build on the vision Wayne had for Spendthrift and the sport of horse racing," said Eric Gustavson, owner of Spendthrift and son-and-law to the late B. Wayne Hughes. "It's only fitting to name the new visitors' center after him because it largely represents his love for the...

Kiaran McLaughlin surprised much of the racing world last year when he abruptly decided to halt his massively successful training career in order to become the jockey's agent for Luis Saez. But it shouldn't surprise anyone to see the success McLaughlin has had handling Saez's book, as the 29-year-old Panamanian is poised to win his first Saratoga riding title. Wednesday, McLaughlin joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland to talk about why he made his career shift, the booming results of his partnership with Saez, memories of triumphs in...

Nothing, it seems, will help you see through the vanity of materialism quite like a $4.1 billion fortune. A few summers ago, I was sitting alone in the baronial boardroom at Spendthrift, waiting to interview the farm's owner. It was a hot day, but here all was panelled cool, the venerable furnishings slumbering through the prosperous drone of a lawnmower. I was thinking about this apt conflation of heritage and modernity when startled by the entry of a tanned octogenarian whose casual apparel, in the round, must have cost rather...

While it's obviously an extremely poignant day to be reflecting on a breakout success for one of the youngest stallions at Spendthrift, then at least those now mourning the farm's owner know that his own legacy to the breed could scarcely be more secure. For the same cannot quite be said of the horse who started it all for B. Wayne Hughes, Malibu Moon, whose loss earlier this year has now obtained a tragic symmetry. Between the farm's consecutive bereavements, there's no denying that the equine patriarch cannot yet match...

"We were very saddened to learn of the passing of B. Wayne Hughes, who has left an indelible impact and legacy on our sport as a breeder, owner, and industry innovator for the past 20 years. Foremost of his many achievements was his restoration of Spendthrift Farm to its grandeur and success as an internationally preeminent breeding operation, led by such prolific stallions as Malibu Moon and Into Mischief. Moreover, Mr. Hughes believed that breeders were the 'backbone of our industry,' and created programs that re-established the owner/breeder relationship, such...

B. Wayne Hughes, the billionaire businessman and philanthropist who resurrected Spendthrift Farm and turned it into one of the leading stallion farms in North America, died Wednesday at his residence on the farm surrounded by his family. He was 87 years old. Born Bradley Wayne Hughes on Sept. 28, 1933, in the small town of Gotebo, OK, he was known by his middle name since childhood. The son of a sharecropper who fled Oklahoma's Dust Bowl and resettled in California shortly after he was born, Hughes grew up poor in...