The Blood-Horse Regionals : Thoroughbred Racing

1/5/2013 Midwest/Canada Regional: Driven for Success

aspradling — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:52:46 GMT

Mari Hulman George’s interest in Thoroughbreds is up to speed.

by Esther Marr

Mari Hulman George has a long and storied history with racing—auto racing. She is the only child of Anton “Tony” and Mary Fendrich Hulman who bought a dilapidated Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1945 and grew the Indianapolis 500 into one of the world’s premier sporting events.

Though the 78-year-old chairwoman of the speedway and her family’s Hulman Co. will always be linked primarily to Formula One muscle cars, she has been an equally devoted advocate of Thoroughbred racing in Indiana. She’s long held a passion for horse racing that grew out of a lifelong love of animals.

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02/11/2012 Southeast: Junior Class

aspradling — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:58:02 GMT

Longtime trainer Junior Serna keeps sending out winners
by Bill Giauque

Now in his sixth decade as a horseman, Junior Serna of Ocala, Fla., and Lambholm South could best be described as a “stayer.” A stayer, as defined in Tom Ainslie’s book “Ainslie’s Complete Guide to horoughbred Racing,” is “a reliable router.”

Serna certainly can stay the distance—and has. And there is no question he is reliable, but both are understatements that leave out the class of the man and his horses.

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11/11/09 Northeast: Better With Backer

cdawahare@bloodhorse.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:31:47 GMT

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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