‘Doc’ Chandler’s Diagnosis of Greatness

[Wandering Eyes]

Just as water finds its level, so the day-to-day functioning of Juddmonte across nearly four decades has permitted the inexorable percolation towards the racetrack of class, in horses and horsemen alike. And, during 33 years as president of the U.S. wing, that class has had one common filter-besides, naturally, Prince Khalid Abdulla himself.

As recorded in the first part of this interview, Dr. John Chandler was raised in South Africa and cut his teeth in Newmarket before coming to the Bluegrass. Marriage to Alice Headley of Mill Ridge, together with his long service to the Prince, qualifies Chandler as a first-hand witness to many defining achievers of the modern Turf.

Above all, he connects two outstanding trainers who had practically nothing in common besides the patronage of the Prince, and the cancer that claimed their lives; but whose names, as a result, will forever be bound together.

As it happens, though he guaranteed the immortality of his name by bestowing it upon his greatest champion, the Prince actually had surprisingly little to do with Bobby Frankel.

“Really, the Prince had very limited personal contact with Frankel,” Chandler admits. “Later he relied on [general manager] Garrett O’Rourke, with whom Bobby had a good rapport.”

Yet the singular alliance of Brooklyn Jew and Saudi prince reproves the notion that our small, obsessive world has nothing to teach the “real” one beyond.

Juddmonte had initially taken on John Gosden in California as trainer of a filly in a package purchased from Robert Sangster. When it was decided to export a couple of Juddmonte horses to the West Coast, Gosden was the obvious choice.

“And he did very well,” Chandler remembers. “So we started sending him more horses, and eventually had maybe 30 with him. But then he got an offer he couldn’t refuse, to repatriate himself [to England]. He sent his horses to Eddie Gregson, but the Prince always liked to pick his own trainers.”

A shortlist was drawn up, and the Prince settled on two: Ron McAnally and Frankel. Chandler rang McAnally, told him Juddmonte would like to send him some horses.

“Well, that’d be great,” said McAnally. “Thank you very much.”

Then he called Frankel, a man he barely knew.

“I told him who I was, and he said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Would you like to train some horses for us?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know. Let me think about it. You call me tomorrow and I’ll tell you.’ And so, not having any particular ego, I said, ‘That’s fine.’ I called him next morning and he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll train for you.’ Later, he explained that to me. He was a very good friend of Eddie Gregson, and knew he’d be taking the horses away from him. So he’d called Eddie, who said, ‘Jesus, take them. That’s the best damned job you’ll ever have!'”

Broodmare legend Toussaud (El Gran Senor) began her career with Gosden, after his move home, but was then sent over to Frankel. Dam of four Grade I winners by four different stallions, Toussaud was notoriously difficult.

“I watched her galloping at Keeneland one day and she suddenly stopped like she’d run into a wall,” remembers Chandler. “And the boy sat there like he was nailed on. And I said to myself: ‘He’s been there before, hasn’t he? He knew what was coming.'”

Because she refused to work left-handed, Frankel took to training Toussaud the “wrong” way round; plus she would only work from the gate. Though he did manage a Grade I with her, when Chandler asked if he would like to train her the following year, Frankel replied: ‘Thank you, that’s very kind, but I don’t think I can put up with her anymore!'”

For all their class, many of her foals were also eccentric. “She had one of the all-time best-looking foals, by Gone West, I thought he was going to be the ultimate,” Chandler says. “And he wouldn’t run a yard. Put him in a race, and you couldn’t get him out of a strong canter. Honest Lady (Seattle Slew) was the same way, there was only one rider she would go for. But she was only beaten half a length in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.”

This affinity with even his most trying charges was the Frankel hallmark. “He had empathy for animals you couldn’t believe,” says Chandler, shaking his head. “I mean, what sort of fellow would forgo the Breeders’ Cup because he has a sick dog? He was such a softie, you have no idea. When [Kentucky Oaks winner] Flute (Seattle Slew) was in the barn, he’d stand for ages talking to her outside the stall.”

And actually that’s another bond between Frankel and a man who was, in many respects, his polar opposite. Cecil had that fey, aristocratic way about him, half-playful, half-bashful, but he always shared a very natural wavelength with Thoroughbreds.

“Henry knew each horse’s individual needs,” Chandler says. “He knew what their limits were. You know, he used to work his horses a lot; and a lot faster than some. But sometimes they’d just be coming up there and doing it. I don’t think Frankel was as easy a horse to train as he might have been, for being such a good one. As a rule, anybody can train a good horse. But I think Frankel had some issues Henry handled with sensitivity.”

Chandler is gratified to have had a hand in introducing his old friend to the Juddmonte fold, having suggested him as trainer to a relative of the Prince who then lost interest. The Prince took over the abandoned string, and so began a partnership that would disclose an exceptional fidelity in a character otherwise largely inscrutable to the wider racing public.

For the equine Frankel, famously, sealed Cecil’s redemption from a nadir where he had been written off professionally, as yesterday’s man, and personally, as very unwell.

“The Prince stuck with him through thick and thin,” Chandler reflects. “He was so loyal, when Henry was down to half his yard. I’ve seen a lot of horse people have bad spells. And he was doing everything the same. We never could work it out. But Henry, he was determined. He had a very strong will to win. And when things went down, it affected him. He wasn’t nearly as devil-may-care as he looked. That was a front.

“He was fiercely competitive, behind that laughing façade. He resented any horse we took away to bring here. Andre Fabre was totally different. Andre would say, ‘You know, I think I’m wasting my time here, this horse would be suited by America.’ But Henry, boy, if you took a horse like Chester House, he resented it bitterly.”

Since the premature loss of both these great trainers, the Prince has rebooted his American operation-breaking with its tried-and-trusted modus operandi by returning to the yearling sales, and soon rewarded by the spectacular Arrogate (Unbridled’s Song). The champion’s arrival at Juddmonte’s Kentucky farm, where Mizzen Mast (Cozzene) had lately been plying a solitary trade, complements an equivalent rejuvenation over the ocean, where Kingman (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) is bidding to emulate Frankel’s remarkable start at stud.

“The Prince liked horses in California,” Chandler explains. “So when Baffert was doing so well he said, ‘I’d like some horses with him.’ And said, ‘He’s a dirt trainer: we don’t have his sort of horse.’ So he said, ‘Well then, buy some.’ It wasn’t particularly the [Juddmonte] style, but Garrett [O’Rourke] and Baffert went out and bought quite a lot of expensive horses. Arrogate was in the third batch-and we hadn’t had a horse worth a damn before him. I was standing next to Bob when Arrogate won the Travers. And he said, ‘Now we can pay for all those bad horses!'”

Perhaps no recent result better condensed Chandler’s overall experience than the Breeders’ Cup Mile. “A good trifecta,” Chandler says with a grin. “Expert Eye (Acclamation), winner, for Juddmonte. Catapult (Kitten’s Joy), second, bred by Garrett. And Analyze It (Point Of Entry), third, that we bred [i.e. the Mill Ridge clan].”

Not that Chandler, approaching his 80th year, entertains the slightest illusion that he has unravelled the mysteries of the Thoroughbred. When he first came over, he met Jack Price in Ocala.

“He had raised Carry Back, the [1961] Kentucky Derby winner,” he muses. “Offset sucker like you’ve never seen. He was by a horse called Saggy, out of mare called Joppy. And he was a super damned horse. Price would always say, ‘You know, they told me to breed the best to the best. I bred the best I had, to the best I could afford.’ There’s a lot of chance with the horse.

“We’re very lucky. Things sort of seem to turn out right. We seem to have bumbled through. It’s all a long time ago now. I knew Teddy [Lord Grimthorpe, the Prince’s racing manager in Newmarket] when he was starting as a junior, at the BBA. But there’s two things I do better than most in the world. I can procrastinate, and I can delegate. Garrett is a very capable man, absolutely great, and has been here a long time himself now.”

Everyone who knows and admires Chandler–and those will essentially be coterminous groups–will attest that even the immense quantity of his experience dwindles next to the quality of its application. His wife has not been in the best of health of late but Chandler remains spry and animated, as engaged as he is engaging. A minute of Doc’s company will teach you more than a week with a lesser man.

“I have made no contribution to mankind,” he insists. “I have spent my entire life trying to find a horse to run from point A to point B faster than another horse. What a pointless thing in the grand scheme of the world.”

But it’s precisely because he disparages himself so earnestly that we cherish him all the more. For the rest of us, the hope that we might waste our lives so usefully will remain a forlorn one.

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