Matt Chew

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...

A good 10 years ago in the Santa Anita paddock garden, former trainer Matt Chew was leading a stately old schoolmaster named Fred through and around an afternoon gathering of children with developmental issues when a diminutive figure from the crowd locked eyes with the horse. "I walked over and handed him the shank and said, 'here, take him. He's yours,'" says Chew about the curious soul, a 10-year-old named Austin, onto whom he foisted the docile Fred. "He starts walking around with the horse and he starts talking to...