John Williams

Needless to say, all four tried to reject their billing. Between them, after all, they have spent the better part of three centuries dealing with that vehicle of humility, the Thoroughbred. To everyone else present, however, the opportunity to tap into the experience of four such sages as Bill Landes, Frank Penn, Tom Thornbury and John Williams fully justified the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers Club in promoting their latest meeting in Lexington as "An Evening with Legends." Each, moreover, could be consoled that one of the first tasks addressed--an acknowledgement...

He has been here longer than just about any of them, albeit he arrived in 1978 presuming himself to be only breaking a longer journey. One breeding season in Kentucky, and then it would be off to Australia. Having instead become a pioneer of a remarkable Irish diaspora, Robbie Lyons is a perfect template for the many compatriots who have meanwhile flourished in the Bluegrass: an innate flair for trading, a fierce work ethic, and the willingness to take a gamble. He wasn't particularly raised to the horse game--his father...

Beach Faulkner was at Keeneland one day when John Williams called him over and pointed at a horse being led off a van a couple of barns down. "Look at this," Williams said. "Watch him walk. You might as well put your name on the side of that horse." Beach remembers the great horseman's compliment with a smile. He's been working on horses' feet for 57 years, more than half of that time with son Tyler alongside, until he too has come to share the same mastery. They are farriers,...

Walter "Buster" Gordon, the longtime head stallion groom at the `old' Spendthrift Farm formerly owned by the Combs family, passed away Oct. 25 after a long illness. A Gofundme page has been established for his family, and is accessible by clicking here. "Buster never met a stranger and all of us loved him during his many years as head stallion groom at Spendthrift Farm," reads his Gofundme page, set up by Gregory Clarke. "In addition to being a brilliant horseman, he could throw a mean snowball. :) He's a permanent...

Perhaps it is called the Hopeful Stakes because that's the most anyone can ever be with a Thoroughbred. But if nearly any purchaser at Keeneland over the next couple of weeks would like to be contesting that race, a year from now, then one consignor might give them not just hope but something closer to confidence. Okay, so a trifecta for Eaton Sales graduates in the Saratoga Grade I last year featured only the winner, Forte (Violence), from the 2021 Keeneland September Sale. Runner-up Gulfport (Uncle Mo) and third Blazing...

LEXINGTON, KY-The Fasig-Tipton Winter Mixed Sale went through its supplemental catalogue and into its addendum to finally find its top-priced offering when Lemieux (Nyquist) sold to Nice Guys Stable for $400,000 just hips before the auction concluded its two-day run Tuesday in Lexington with steady results. "We saw a continuation of the marketplace that we experienced yesterday and that we saw in January and we saw in November, October, September and July," Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning, Jr. said at the sale's close Tuesday. "I think it's a very fair marketplace....

John and Jennie Williams' J & J Stables sold Jackie's Warrior (Maclean's Music) for just $95,000 at Keeneland September. While that price proved to be the bargain of a lifetime for buyer Kirk Robison, the speedy colt has been the gift that keeps on giving for his breeders. The Williamses hope that continues as Jackie's Warrior enters the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint Saturday as the morning-line favorite and his 2-year-old half-sister Lenni Girl (Candy Ride {Arg}) sells during Book 1 of Keeneland November Wednesday. The Williamses acquired Jackie's Warrior's dam...

Well-respected consignor Jim Herbener, Jr. died Sunday morning of an apparent heart attack. Herbener, who was in the midst of selling horses at the Keeneland September sale, died at his home in Georgetown, Kentucky. He was 69. His death was confirmed by his long-time friend, John Williams. Herbener was the consignor of seven yearlings in the sale, including an Arrogate filly who sold Sunday for $80,000. Williams said that he and Herbener's daughter Heather, will team up to sell the remainder of the Herbener horses left in the sale. "He...

Nobody, we keep telling ourselves, remembers a time quite like this. And that's true even of John Williams, who has seen just about everything in our business. But he did once experience something pretty similar--worse, if anything, strictly in terms of the springtime routines of a stallion farm. That was when Caro imported a wildly contagious venereal disease from France to Spendthrift, and the Department of Agriculture wanted to put a chain on the gate. Williams imagined that he'd already fulfilled his most stressful task, in boarding a plane to...