Eddie Truman

In this TDN series, we curry lessons and wise counsel from veteran Californian figures who, like gold nuggets panned from the Tuolumne River in the High Sierras, have unearthed career riches on arguably the toughest circuit in the States. The series started with John Shirreffs and Art Sherman, and continues here with Eddie Truman, who announced his retirement last month. The land around Mulvane, Kansas, has been flattened as though by some colossal steamroller, and the vast, leafy battalions of maize and wheat and sorghum stretch outwards on and on...

A former assistant to Bobby Frankel and a licensed trainer for more than 50 years, Eddie Truman announced on Monday that he had sent his final horse to the track on New Year's Eve morning at Santa Anita—ending a racetrack run that dates back to the early 1960s. A winner of 763 races from 5,334 starters, with purse earnings of $15.7 million, Truman said that with his 77th birthday fast approaching Jan. 23, the time was right for him and his wife Elizabeth to step away from a way of...