Over the years William Backer has discovered that things go better with racing. The retired songwriting guru, known during his professional career as the man who coined many famous slogans and jingles for Coca-Cola, including
"Things go better with Coke," is now highly regarded for an entirely different reason-his successful Thoroughbred stable. Backer remembers around 55 years ago helping a friend purchase a horse for foxhunting and seeing a small Thoroughbred weanling in its stall. On a whim he decided to buy the horse and put it into training.
"We had the horrible thing that happens to a lot of us in that we had beginner's luck and thought (horse racing) was easy," said Backer. "That was back in 1954, and I just stayed with it ever since."
Backer named his first horse Wink Proof. By Proof Coil, out of the American Flag mare American Wink, the resilient horse had an 11-year campaign and finally retired after 132 starts.
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