Bloodlines Presented By Walmac Farm: The Triumph And Tragedy Of Alydar, And The Man Who Documented It

“Alydar is moving swiftly on the outside … at the top of the stretch, Alydar moves by very easily, takes the lead, opens it out to 3 ½ lengths … we have a furlong to run and Alydar has opened the lead out to six lengths….” – from Mike Battaglia’s race call for the 1978 Blue Grass Stakes

April 27 is the 46th anniversary of Alydar’s blowout victory in the Blue Grass. At the wire, it was Alydar (by Raise a Native) first by 13 lengths, the longest winning margin ever for the Blue Grass Stakes, and success in that race, in that fashion, made Alydar the betting favorite nine days later in the Kentucky Derby.

Of course, the dark chestnut colt finished second to Affirmed (Exclusive Native), as he did in each of the Triple Crown races. Their rivalry is one of the legends of the sport. Eventually, both horses stood at stud at Calumet Farm, where Alydar became one of the greatest sires of his time, siring major winners around the world.

In this year’s Kentucky Derby, one of the favorites will be last season’s champion juvenile colt, Fierceness, and Alydar lives on among the fifth generation in the colt’s pedigree.

All the joys and positive drama in Alydar’s life on the racetrack and at stud ended on Nov. 15, 1990, when Alydar was euthanized after being injured in his stall at Calumet’s stallion barn. Alydar’s injury was shocking to horsemen, but that was nothing compared to the infamy that followed.

Although the farm had passed from Lucille Markey to the Wright heirs with no debt, a choice income stream from breeding, and a bank balance in the hundreds of millions, Calumet collapsed into bankruptcy in the months following Alydar’s death. It had been less than a decade since Mrs. Markey’s death. Lifelong horsemen couldn’t believe the catastrophe; in fact, sports fans and news people and general followers of the sport couldn’t begin to take in the enormity of the debacle, either.

The financial shenanigans were quickly documented in "Wild Ride," a well-researched book by the talented writer, Ann Hagedorn Auerbach. As the immediate furor over Calumet’s collapse died down, the questions began.

Then the trials began. The legalities dragged on for years. None of them, however, addressed Alydar and what had happened to him. That is the key to a book published last year by Fred Kray entitled "Broken: The Suspicious Death of Alydar and the End of Horse Racing’s Golden Age."

When I first looked into Fred Kray’s book, my first critical thought was “Am I going to learn anything that I don’t already know?”

By the time I had finished reading the book, for the third time, I was stunned by how much I had learned, by how much was in the book, by how fully it projected the author’s subject into his proper dimensions, and how much of an effect the book was having on those who had read it.

The essence of Broken is that it’s a love story: of a man (and men and women) for a horse. It is also a tragedy about what people will do for money.

The deep feeling for his fellow animal that Kray holds for Alydar began when the author was a younger lawyer and followed racing closely, especially the heroics of Alydar and his great rival Affirmed.

Later, fighting for the safety and proper treatment of animals gave Kray an ideal to strive for when the pressures of practicing law were crushing him with the mendacity of the practical. A significant part of the book is about the glory of Alydar, about the excitement of racing, and about the joy we humans find in our fellow animals.

The remainder is about the financial house of cards that was built up around Alydar and about the consequences of the financial mismanagement of the horse and the historic farm that he represented. The story is complex, and a broad cast of characters played a role in what happened.

It says a great deal about Fred Kray’s legal skills that he can make a practice out of defending critters. But the text of this book shows us a great deal about his investigative skill. He has put together such an extensive factual account of the major players at Calumet that it’s almost like being in the room of the farm office.

Kray’s analytical skill then helps us put the pieces together for what happened to racing’s most famous farm. There was financial mismanagement, which eventually led to indictments and convictions. There was the injury and subsequent death of the farm’s great sire and “most valuable player,” Alydar. And there are the unanswered questions about what and who and how and why.

To his great credit, Kray is a lawyer to the gritty end. He searches for facts, he hunts for documentation, and he refuses to accept events and explanations at face value.

Nor does he hunt for scapegoats. The man running Calumet comes in for his fair assessment, but this is not a “Get J.T” sort of thing. To the contrary, Kray’s evidence points to others as the principal criminal element in a story that is as fascinating as it is alternately repellent and infuriating.

For the thoroughness of his documentation, his determination to find whatever could be found, and for a fair-minded assessment of the evidence, Kray gets high marks.

You deserve to read this book. Don’t take it to the beach; don’t try reading it when you’re ready for bed; and don’t rush it. It deserves much more than that. Broken is mostly about a horse and the people who failed one of our greatest Thoroughbreds, but it’s also about all of us who love them.