Legends

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Richard Mandella: A Lifelong Horseman Who Crafted a Hall of Fame Career

As Richard Mandella reflected in 2017 on his magnificent training career, he said that he drew greater motivation from fear of failure than aspirations of greatness.

“I never had any great dreams about what it actually became. Hall of Fame and all of that, it never entered my mind,” he said. “I just wanted to be some kind of success.”

Goldencents, Santa Anita Derby, Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, Doug O'Neill, America's Best Racing, horse racing, ABR

Two-Time Dirt Mile Winner Goldencents: A Star On and Off the Track

It’s not often that you see a Manitoba-bred horse in a pedigree, let alone a Breeders’ Cup winner. Goldencents is that rare exception, a son of breed-shaping sire Into Mischief produced by a mare whose wins all came at the claiming ranks at Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg.

Ron McAnally: The Making of a Masterful Horseman

Ron McAnally remembers one element above all others from the formative years he spent at the Covington Protestant Children’s Home, an orphanage in northern Kentucky. He will never forget the view.

“They tell me I used to sit at the window and stare for hours,” he said. “I wouldn’t talk to anybody.”

McAnally was at the tender age of 5 when he and his four siblings were sent to the home following the death of their mother. He sought comfort wherever he could find it, even at a window.

Nelson Bunker Hunt: An Oilman with an Eye for Racehorses

The silver market may have cost him an immense fortune, yet for about two decades Nelson Bunker Hunt struck gold in Thoroughbred racing.

Hunt, who passed away in 2014 at the age of 88, was a son of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, who became one of the world’s richest men through ownership of vast portions of the East Texas Oil Field.

Landaluce, 1982 Oak Leaf Stakes, BloodHorse Library

Landaluce: Unforgettable Brilliance, Unimaginable Heartbreak

If there’s one thing that’s even more certain than a 1-20 shot at a racetrack, it’s the inevitability of death.

It comes to all of mankind, and animals as well.

Yet it remains immensely difficult to accept, especially when it comes far too early in someone’s life, such as it did for one of the greatest 2-year-old fillies of the 20th century.

Landaluce seemed invincible on the racetrack.

She won her five starts in dominant fashion, by a combined margin of 46 ½ lengths, including her first graded stakes victory, in which she romped home by 21 lengths.

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