Waldman Savors The Abiding Legacies Of Horses And Horsemen

It almost feels like he's on the other end of some celestial phoneline, listening in and smiling. Because somehow Marty Wygod seems to have arranged things so that family and friends, since mourning his loss in April, could be consoled by an afterglow of the same vitality that had sustained his 84 years. First a colt gifted to his daughter Emily Bushnell and longtime racing adviser Ric Waldman took them to the GI Kentucky Derby; and now another graduate of his program has assisted its transition with a $2.4 million payday in the Fasig-Tipton Sale at Saratoga.

But of course there's still that grievous void.

“I miss our talks,” Waldman admits. “My phone doesn't ring nearly as much anymore. We would talk multiple times a day. At his memorial service, I said that we'd talk 20, 30 minutes at a time. And Pam interjected, 'You mean hours at a time!' I guess those calls did go on….”

And why not, when they had so much to talk about? Which is why TDN is grateful to borrow something of the surplus available in Waldman, whose long experience is aptly measured by the fact that he remains synonymous with the great-great-grandsire of the two colts—both by Into Mischief—who have this summer helped to absorb the strains of bereavement.

We'll return to Storm Cat, naturally, but a recent coffee in Lexington clearly required us first to consider the client and friend who had bequeathed such compelling reasons to keep looking forward. It was almost unbearably poignant, of course, that Wygod could not last the month between the GII Wood Memorial and the Derby. By the same token, however, even the raw hour of grief could be leavened by an immediate sense that Wygod's legacy was not going to abide merely in memories. The very celebration of his life could borrow some of its defining motifs: togetherness, affection, anticipation.

Ric Waldman and Emily Bushnell at Aqueduct

Wygod had watched Resilience win the Wood from his hospital bed, and afterwards everyone got onto a speakerphone at Aqueduct. Unabashed by an audience that included Waldman's girlfriend Frankie Trull, Wygod announced: “Ric, now's your best shot to get her to marry you.”

“It was never just horses, never just business,” Waldman says with a smile. “He was always concerned about things you're going through. He was so family-oriented, and had such a great marriage, he just wanted everybody else to have the same benefit.”

There was a fleeting moment in the Derby when Wygod's parting gesture threatened to become a true fairytale. But then real life intervened, and Resilience faded into sixth.

“He did give us a thrill making his move at the top of the stretch,” Waldman recalls. “It would have been quite a tearjerker for everybody. But it was anyway. Selfishly speaking, Marty had allowed me the most exciting moment I've had in the business: to have Frankie with me for the whole ride, and bring my children to town and celebrate that week with them. The walkover! My kids loved it, they had no idea.”

Resilience dropped right away in the GI Belmont S. but emerged with bone bruising and is being given all due time to resume his progress with maturity. “He's a really beautiful horse,” Waldman says. “I can't wait to see when he fully develops as a 4-year-old.”

So a sequel may yet be written to an association stretching right back to when Waldman started in the business.

His father Marvin, who had a liquor business based in Louisville, was partner in a small farm with Lee Eaton. This was back in the 1960s, long before Eaton revolutionized sales consignment, but exposed the young Waldman to an unmistakable vocation and he went to cut his teeth with Fasig-Tipton in New York. In those days Wygod was still claiming horses with “Lefty” Nickerson, and Waldman's first dealings with him were little more than clerical.

Waldman (center) with Frankie Trull, Oliver and Emily Bushnell and Max Wygod at the Derby | courtesy of Ric Waldman

It wasn't until the turn of the century that they began a closer working relationship. That was when Wygod implored Waldman to accept a young mare into Storm Cat's book, which he was managing for William T. Young of Overbrook Farm. Sweet Life (Kris S.) was a minor stakes winner on turf, and had managed a Grade I second, but in an era of limited books that did not sound quite sufficient.

“I was trying to be as tactful as I could,” Waldman recalls. “Though I have learned more tact as I've gotten older! 'Marty,' I said, 'I really don't think she's up to it.' Anyway, he convinced me. And, of course, he was absolutely dead on.”

The mare gave Storm Cat two Breeders' Cup winners, Sweet Catomine and Life is Sweet. And, as mutual respect grew into friendship, Waldman gained a privileged insight into a man who ran his racing program with the same flair as his business life.

“Marty had a brilliant mind,” he says. “And great instincts. Most of his professional history was in the medical field, but he could have chosen anything. Because it wasn't the business itself that would focus his energies, so much as the people, the management team, the specialists he would hire and develop along the way. He always felt that if he had a nucleus of top people, he could make a company successful. It was a great mental exercise, talking horses with Marty. He was always thinking, always a step ahead. And he made me better for doing that.”

Resilience was an especially precious gift in that his dam Meadowsweet (Smart Strike) is the only daughter, following a monotonous production of colts, of Tranquility Lake (Rahy)–who had earned $1.6 million before giving Wygod two further Grade I winners by Storm Cat. But neither After Market and Courageous Cat had yet emerged when Sheikh Mohammed famously gave $9.7 million for their brother Jalil as a yearling.

What has made Resilience so fulfilling for Waldman are the personal elements. Not everyone, for instance, would be aware that Tranquility Lake was named for a feature on Marty's property in Rancho Santa Fe, California, with meadowsweet flowering along its fringes. Above all, this horse represents the combination of a Wygod family with the Storm Cat line: the result, in other words, of groundwork by Waldman on both sides of his pedigree, 20 years ago and more.

Waldman reminds us how Storm Cat struggled for momentum, having largely disappeared from view for two years after just missing in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile. “The bloom was off the lily long before he covered his first mare,” Waldman says. “By then people were instead looking at his offset knees, his short neck.”

Storm Cat | Horsephotos

Having just started consulting for Young, Waldman immediately felt that the fee ($30,000) had been set too high.

“You really can't afford to err that way, because that first book is the meaningful one,” he says. “And the only way to rectify that is to overcompensate the next year. So that's how great of a stallion he was, that he overcame all this. After a small first book, his fee wasn't dropped enough for his second. His first yearlings didn't sell particularly well. But when he was breeding his fourth book of mares, his first runners were coming through and showing some life. And, very intelligently, Mr. Young said, 'Well, let's find everybody who paid the full stud fee the first year, and offer them a free season to change their matings plans now it looks like he's going to be okay.'”

Before long the challenge was reversed: how to refuse people who want to give you a ton of money to use your stallion? Waldman reckons that Storm Cat never covered more than 118 mares. So while some stallions were already going a good deal higher, it just about remained true that to reach an elite sire you needed an elite mare. That locked in the quality, and also left a surplus to filter down the pyramid.

Which will hardly happen when a totally unproven stallion today can approach 300 mares, correct?

“Well, I can defend both sides,” Waldman replies. “And I'm not trying to cop out! If there weren't such a thing as restraint of trade, I'd be in favor of limiting books and being a better custodian of the breed. But I don't fault anybody. If I had any of these giants breeding in the 200s, I'd be doing the same. It's just a fact of life, you can't tell somebody how many mares he can or can't breed. And in the end the market takes care of itself.”

As it was, Storm Cat founded a dynasty that this year claimed both the Kentucky Derby and the Epsom original through parallel branches.

“When I see him in a pedigree, as sire of the second dam or something, I do get a sense of pride–even though I have virtually nothing to do with it,” Waldman says. “Obviously he was owned by Mr. Young, but I felt so close to him, and so responsible for everything we did with him, that I do feel a kind of proprietorship.”

But the real credit, for what has happened since, he distributes among those breeders who cultivated and diversified the sire-line.

“I love observing successful breeders,” Waldman says. “Because fortunately they can put into practice different theories. The reasons Storm Cat reached such a high point are a) his sons were doing well at stud, and b) they were doing well in Europe. If he were just an American sire, he would never have been a $500,000 stud.”

Marty Wygod and trainer Richard Mandella | Benoit

But even the epic prowess of Storm Cat might easily have slipped through less accomplished hands. As a yearling, heading into the old July Sale at Keeneland, he came up with a positive test during an EVA outbreak.

“So they said he had to be relegated to the tail-end of the sale,” recalls Waldman. “In Mr. Young's view, they were treating him like a leper. So he said, 'The hell with it, I'll just race him.' And the rest is history.”

As so often in life, we are left to wonder about the path not taken. As horse people, we have to believe that we can make a difference; that fulfillment of potential is not inevitable. What if Young had washed his hands of the horse, and he ended up in some backwater?

“He did have some physical ailments,” Waldman acknowledges. “Maybe he wouldn't have shown enough to warrant breeding, might have been castrated. But he had those big, powerful quarters on him. Knowing Mr. Young's habits, and how he hated to sell what he thought was a good horse, I have a hunch he was going to come back from that sale.”

As it was, Young and Waldman were exhilarated by how it all played out.

“For a native Lexingtonian, with such a born history here, Mr. Young got into farm ownership and breeding relatively late in life,” Waldman recalls. “But when he did, he really had the enthusiasm and the hunger. And he had vision. Really he was a frustrated architect. He'd have his say on every structure, the symmetry of every fence-line, tree, barn.

“He loved to come into our Tuesday staff meetings and shake things up. And then after he'd got everybody agitated, he'd walk out saying, 'Okay, I'll leave you boys to figure it out.' He had a really good general manager, Bob Warren: he was like Radar O'Reilly to his Henry Burns.”

And, really, it has been the same all the way through: Waldman has worked for a series of characters who diverged widely except in terms of caliber.

There was E.P. Taylor's deeply intellectual son Charles, who hired him at Windfields. Even before his recruitment, Waldman was so ahead of the curve with Deputy Minister that he and Fred Seitz threw their little broodmare band at him in Maryland. Then he persuaded Taylor to expand his stake in the horse, to prevent him being moved. It was only grudgingly, however, that Taylor ever allowed more than 56 mares into his book.

“The year Charles died, may he rest in peace, we bred 99 mares to Deputy Minister!” confesses Waldman. “That's how you get caught up in this whole contagion: the mentality is that if you're not keeping pace with everyone else, you're falling behind.

“Charles was very cerebral. We had great discussions, exchanging ideas. But there was one part of him that was very similar to his dad. He was extremely competitive. He was really upset if he didn't win. But he was always fair and understanding with employees, and really believed in the traditions of the farm.”

And then there was Brereton C. Jones, who brought Waldman from Fasig-Tipton as business manager.

Brereton Jones | Keeneland

“I've never met a more dynamic, enthusiastic person,” Waldman says. “He was a big, big personality. Such zeal. Oh, gosh, he was wonderful to work for. I left him to start my consulting business: I hated to leave, but he was going to be Governor of Kentucky. And I have a different personality. I knew I could never run Airdrie like he did. Fortunately, he understood that, and we retained a really good friendship for the rest of his life.”

And while some of these figures have left the stage, Waldman still has a stimulating range of clients–and, after all these years, palpably remains as enthused as ever by the mysteries of the Thoroughbred.

“Nobody can own the game,” he says. “So many Derby winners are rags-to-riches stories. That's what keeps everybody believing. The inexactness is what makes this open and fair to everybody.”

By the same token, nobody should get carried away when things do work out.

“As much as I'd love to take credit for Storm Cat, that's hogwash,” Waldman says firmly. “Regardless of how good or bad the management, you can't keep a top stallion from being a top stallion. As much as man intervenes, and tries to keep that stallion from being a top stallion, you can't do it. You might make it more difficult. But eventually the stallion is going to win out that argument.

“His crop had Tasso, Danzig Connection, Groovy. All top racehorses, all busts as stallions. Storm Cat was precocious, that's critically important to me. Which means much more than just running fast as a 2-year-old. It's mentality. He was headstrong, tough. Of course, it was just two generations back to the great Northern Dancer, and his dam was extremely fast. Secretariats didn't generally come out fast like she was. It's easy to see why he could be a success. Now, what makes him that level? I don't think anybody can put their finger on that.”

But that's what keeps him looking forward, with each new weekend of sport to digest.

“I've always looked forward to Monday mornings,” Waldman says. “And anytime you're at a job, and you're looking forward to Monday morning, you're doing something right.”