Hope Springs Eternal for Ben Walden

[Wandering Eyes]

However the owners end up resolving their differences, everyone can agree on at least one thing. At Adena Springs, it must remain business as usual. With one of Kentucky’s most influential and valuable stallions leading the roster, his stature as a broodmare sire freshly gilded by a Triple Crown winner, the team has an important job to do. And, after all, the timeless cycles of the breed transcend even the most excruciating ups and downs in the lives of horsemen. How fortunate, then, that Ben Walden is able to bring such breadth of perspective-both on the Turf, and beyond it-to what must be one of very few situations to fall beyond even his past experience of the industry.

As it happens, Walden was kind enough to sit down with TDN before the feud dividing the Stronach family entered the public domain. And that not only spared him the indignity of being asked to address matters on which he could hardly be expected to comment. It also permitted due attention to his own story; and to the happier twist that brought him back into an industry dismayed, this time last year, by the idea of losing him for good.

Last November, Walden and his wife Elaine, hoping to devote themselves more fully to Christian ministry, staged a dispersal at Keeneland of their entire stock: 45 broodmares and foals, a flesh-and-blood incarnation of a judgement otherwise stored, through the rest of the catalogue, in the names of sires and damsires across countless pages.

Most traced to the whirlwind era of Vinery, between 1986 and 1998, though Walden’s various ventures since-Gracefield, Hurricane Hall, Pauls Mill-have also included launchpads for sires such as Bellamy Road (Concerto) and English Channel (Smart Strike). Happily for those who were going to miss one of the big characters of the Bluegrass, however, it transpired that the business and Walden still had more to offer each other. In the spring he resurfaced as a director and consultant at Adena.

He makes no bones about it: the dispersal was not as fruitful as he had hoped, and his priority had to be to square his accounts. But if that required him to shelve his missionary ambitions, then Walden comforts himself–in resuming a secular career–that no faith can meaningfully function in a void.

“I’m 59, I’ve been blessed to do this quite a while, and last fall I felt maybe it was time to do some more specific things for the Lord,” he reflects. “But life is a challenge. I recognise that I’m a sinner, that I need the Lord, and I really want to serve him. At the same time, a vocation is truly a gift from God. I’ve never had a problem trying to grow in the Lord and being within our industry.

“I always felt it such a privilege, to think about these pedigrees and physiques; to come forward with a thoughtful decision about what I hope God will give me from that mating. In many ways, our industry calls on you to depend on God exactly the way he wants-because the challenges can be so great, and you are so at the mercy of things beyond your control. But what a privilege to do that for a living. And I am thrilled and honoured to be stationed on a world-class facility like Adena Springs, and working for Frank Stronach.”

In a sense, moreover, the wonderful Ghostzapper (Awesome Again)-as a grandson of Deputy Minister-bring things full circle for Walden. For one of his first clients, when he launched Vinery, had owned a filly named Mint Copy (Bunty’s Flight).

“A gentleman named John Wilson, had a little farm up in Canada,” Walden recalls. “He sold office products, and was on the road when his trainer called him and said: ‘You know, this filly’s okay-but I’d like to run her for a tag.’ John deferred the decision to his trainer, like most owners would, and she was claimed. And that was the dam of Deputy Minister.”

Whether Wilson would have bred Mint Copy to Vice Regent, of course, is another matter. Such are the little cogs of fate on which the great wheels of pedigree turn; in the workings of which Walden and his brother Elliott, nowadays president of WinStar Farm, were schooled by their father, the renowned Kentucky horseman Ben Sr.

With the sireline’s distaff record getting ever stronger–this year Ghostzapper had shone through the dam of Justify (Scat Daddy), and his venerable sire Awesome Again through the dam of Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky)–Walden reflects on the old man’s counsel regarding the ideal model.

“My father wanted broodmares to look like broodmares without being too feminine,” he recalls. “Deputy Minister’s physique was so unique, and I think you see that huge strength and balance in Awesome Again and now in Ghostzapper too. That sireline just lends itself to producing broodmares. Again, I think balance is the key. Medium size, and super balance: that’s what those three horses all have. I think Silver Deputy’s been a pretty good broodmare sire, too.”

This line has become the Adena hallmark on the modern breed-and is now extended by the arrival of Shaman Ghost (Ghostzapper), from California, to join his sire and grandsire in Kentucky. He will stand at $7,500 in 2019.

“As a multiple Grade 1-winning son of Ghostzapper, he would have been a very relevant first-year horse in Kentucky,” Walden notes. “But Mr Stronach wanted to send his ‘Sunday best’ out there, as a real symbol of his support for California racing and breeding. The horse bred 92 mares and we view him as a great part of the farm’s legacy.”

There is no mistaking Walden’s particular regard, however, for another young sire on the Adena roster. Point of Entry (Dynaformer) has produced a Grade I operator from his first crop in ‘TDN Rising Star’ Analyze It, who has twice dueled with one of the leaders of their generation in Catholic Boy (More Than Ready). He represents a potent Phipps line, with the first four dams all Grade 1 winners or producers.

“What I really like about Point of Entry is that he has had a couple of really nice 2-year-old stakes winners this year, following on some good 2-year-old winners in his first crop, when he was himself a late-developing horse,” Walden reasons. “With his size, as well, that’s remarkable to me. But Shug [McGaughey] told me that the horse had a lot of speed, that if asked, he could work him a half-mile at Payson Park in 46 and change. He also said that Point of Entry has the best mind of any horse he’s ever trained. What a great compliment from a guy who’s trained so many great horses.”

Despite five Grade 1 wins on turf, Point Of Entry broke his maiden on dirt by 15 lengths. But what makes him extra special to Walden is the way he preserves so direct a link to Roberto-who was foaled very nearly half a century ago, now, in 1969. There was, however, one still later son of Roberto to go to stud after Dynaformer. That was Red Ransom, whose purchase from Paul Mellon is a trademark Walden tale.

“Of course, the horse had some intermittent soundness issue after breaking the track record on his debut at Saratoga, but he was freakishly talented and I was calling Mac Miller about him from the get-go,” he recalls. “Vinery wasn’t one of the more obvious farms at the time, so I kept calling until finally he said: ‘You just mail me a letter and tell me what you want to pay: Mr Mellon has decided to take sealed bids.’

“Well I bid $775,000, and I waited on pins and needles until ten days later the phone rings. And Mac said: ‘I’m gonna tell you something. Your bid was the highest by a long way. Next one was over $350,000 less. I explained to Mr Mellon your interest, that you’d been calling a long time, that you have a tremendous passion for the horse. And Mr Mellon has decided to let you have him for the second highest bid.’ Wasn’t that unbelievable? What a gentleman!”

What Walden has always sought in a stallion is “that flash of brilliance”. That was certainly the case with Red Ransom; he sees it in Point Of Entry, too, and above all in Ghostzapper. “He was probably the best horse America had seen in long time,” he suggests. “Remember he was dual-entered in the Sprint and the Classic at the Breeders’ Cup-and was morning-line favourite in both. He was an unbelievable athlete.”

But he has always believed, first and foremost, that blood tells; always insisted on deep families for his broodmares. His father made physical balance the priority in a mating, ahead of any kind of nick. But Walden also absorbed the early lesson of Multiply (Easy Goer), bought for $20,000 as a short yearling from Claiborne in 1994, a granddaughter of none other than Special, the dam of Nureyev and grand-dam of Sadler’s Wells.

“And Multiply wound up being the dam of Corinthian (Pulpit) and Desert Hero (Sea Hero),” recalls Walden. “We sold about $5 million worth of foals out of that mare, and she kind of set my perspective that deep pedigree is paramount. So I tried to stay within those Claiborne families, over the years, or other deep families. As a result, I sacrificed a little on the physical side, because I couldn’t always afford the better physicals from those great families. I guess that was what hurt us a little at our dispersal: great families permeated our group of horses, but not the perfect sales-horse conformation people seek today.”

Walden also had to make some compromises on pedigree, naturally, in stallion acquisition. Otherwise you could hardly go from zero to 30 in a decade, as he did at Vinery. “But I can tell you right now that was strictly a product of timing,” he stresses. “It certainly wasn’t talent. Nerve, maybe. And luck. I did realise that breeding commercially is very difficult, and that stallions were the key. But the timing was everything. People didn’t want stallions. I was really the only person in the early ’90s who was aggressive. It was almost like they were there for the asking. And I was able to land some really nice horses: Lost Code (Codex), Cryptoclearance (Fappiano), Marquetry (Conquistador Cielo), Black Tie Affair (Miswaki).”

Black Tie Affair-now that was another good story. Walden and his wife went to Keeneland to see Housebuster (Mt Livermore) run as heavy favourite for the Commonwealth Breeders’ Cup, thinking they might have a shot at him. After all, the Levys were old family friends.

“But Housebuster was one of the few horses everyone wanted: everybody was around his tree in the paddock, I couldn’t even get close enough to wave!” Walden says with a laugh. “So then I see this big, gorgeous, dappled grey, and his trainer leaning against a cane, and a guy in a $1,000 suit. No-one there, except the groom. So I thought: ‘Black Tie Affair, he’s by Miswaki, the mare’s well enough bred, let’s go talk to this guy.’ Car dealer from Arlington Heights, Chicago. I just started talking to him: ‘Hey, nice horse you got here.’ A really nice guy, Jeff Sullivan.

“Well that horse devoured Housebuster halfway down the lane and drew off by eight lengths! And then he won the Iselin, and several Grade 1s in a row. After the first of them, I drove to Chicago and we did a deal on a napkin. He said: ‘We don’t need to worry about a contract, we can sort all that out after the Breeders’ Cup.’ I said: ‘You got it, Jeff.’ And I drove home thinking: ‘I wonder is this guy’s handshake is going to hold up?’

“And then he goes and wins the Breeders’ Cup Classic, he’s going to be Horse of the Year, and the Japanese are coming in with way more money than I had. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. And I called Jeff at his hotel next morning, just to take his temperature. He said: ‘Ben, my phone’s been ringing.’ I said: ‘I bet it has.’ And he said: ‘Yeah, well, you call the van.’ His handshake was as good as gold.”

As with the Mellon story, then, another example of the trust and probity to be found in a walk of life that can offer as many challenges to a man of faith as any other. Walden-this big, open, amiable fellow-makes no claims for his own ability to reconcile spiritual life with the worldly business of horsetrading. Far more exemplary, he reckons, was his brother’s response after their late mother took them to the Rupp Arena to hear Pat Day give his testimony.

“Elliott was still training then and extremely competitive,” Walden explains. “And he came away and said: ‘Out of every ten horses I lead over there, eight times I’m ripping my guts out.’ And that led him straight to the foot of the cross. Again, the very real challenges of the horse industry proved to be the perfect platform for Elliott to seek the Lord. He’s a much better example than me of someone who has poured his heart and soul into this business, with a ton of competitive spirit, but also with the spirit of Christ and a heart for others that has grown and grown, as he’s grown in the Lord, showing that side of him more and more to people in our industry who might be hurting.”

For his own part, Walden deprecates himself as no more immune to the temporal demands of the industry than the next horseman. “And ours is a business of scoundrels, no question!” he says with a grin. “But it is also a melting pot of some of the most talented people God has ever created: from all walks of life, all countries, all backgrounds. You’ve heard the adage that our World War 2 veterans were ‘the greatest generation’. Well, in many ways-when you look across it and see such incredible intellect, talent and entrepreneurship-ours is the greatest industry.”

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