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Shepard: S.C. trainer a symbol of a bygone era
By Dan McCue
Staff Writer
Living long enough to see yourself played by esteemed playwright and actor Sam Shepard might satisfy some, but Frank Whitely says he’s concerned about the upcoming ESPN Original Entertainment film “Ruffian,” which recently wrapped production in New York after several weeks of shooting in Shreveport, La.
The film, which will premiere in June 2007 to coincide with next year’s Belmont Stakes, tells the story of Whitely and his relationship with the racehorse hailed as the “greatest thoroughbred filly of all time.”
Of course, taking the contrary view—especially of anything that might bring him to the attention of the press—is just the kind of thing Whitely does, even at the age of 91.
Case in point: Whitely’s recent visit to the Elloree Trials, the annual day of horse racing held at the Elloree Training Center.
As well-wishers came and went, Whitely would regale them with a story or two, like the one about the time he arrived at a track for a big race and was asked how the horse had slept the night before.
“I told the reporter, ‘How the heck should I know, I didn’t sleep with him,’” Whitely said, his voice one part gravel and one part chuckle.
Asked whether he thought Shepard could adequately convey his orneriness, Whitely didn’t miss a beat.
“He’ll have his work cut out for him,” he said with a smile slowly spreading across his face.
“Hey, I know ornery too,” Shepard said as he laughed at the anecdote.
Interestingly, the actor didn’t reach out to Whitely as he prepared for the role. “Frankly, I had heard that he wasn’t feeling too well, and I didn’t want to bother him,” Shepard told the Business Journal. “Instead, I looked at televisions interviews he had given and talked to people who knew him.”
And what portrait emerged?
“That Frank Whitely was a tough guy who knew everything there was to know about the horses in his barn: When they were sound, when they were well, and when they might be a little off their game,” he said.
Ruffian in South Carolina
Whitely trained Ruffian, who was shipped to South Carolina from Kentucky as a yearling, at the 197-acre facility he owned in Camden. She continued to train in the state until shortly before making her racing debut in New York and went on to win champion juvenile filly honors in 1974 and the filly triple crown in 1975.
“We imported our grain, so it must have been the South Carolina water and sunshine that made her so strong,” Whitely said. “She was a natural runner. My job was just to keep her happy and keep her sound.
“Of course, that’s easier said than done. You always start early, and horses don’t know whether it’s Christmas or Sunday. They demand your attention seven days a week, every week of the year,” he said.
Whitely’s approach to training and personal style drew Shepard to the role.
“There’s a particular kind of individual in the horse-racing game that’s known as a ‘hard boot trainer,’” he explained. “It’s kind of considered old-fashioned now, I guess, but they were people who swore by clean water and oats and bringing the horse along as naturally as possible.
“For example, Ruffian never had shoes on until she got to the racetrack for the first time,” Shepard said. “The other thing is, trainers in Whitely’s day were very hands-on. Today, trainers have these huge operations, relying on assistants to work with 250 horses at a time. These old timers would have, at most, 20 horses in their barns.”
Ruffian left South Carolina to make her racing debut in May 1974, winning her first race by 15 lengths. One reporter called it the greatest race ever run by a first-time horse, colt or filly. Much of the racing world was caught by surprise.
Whitely knew Ruffian was uncommonly talented, but he preferred to let everyone else find out for themselves, he said.
“No, I didn’t advertise her,” he said. “She was a smart horse, a natural runner, and she proved she could outrun anyone put up against her.”
Through the spring of 1974 and into 1975, Ruffian won every race and equaled or set new track records for each of the stakes races. Given that she was running in the wake of Secretariat’s winning of the Triple Crown two years earlier, her appeal extended far beyond those who typically followed horse racing.
In light of her success, and the fact that she had yet to run against male competition, a match race was scheduled for July 6, 1975 between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure, that year’s Kentucky Derby winner.
Hoopla gives way to tragedy
Given the tenor of the times, at the height of the women’s liberation movement, it was billed as something of an equine version of the famous “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. The keenly anticipated race drew 50,764 fans to Belmont Park and was watched live on CBS television by some 18 million viewers, including, it turns out, emerging playwright Sam Shepard.
“The hype … Frank shied away from that,” Shepard said. “All that publicity about the women’s liberation movement, he didn’t want to get involved with it. Nowadays, these modern trainers are showboaters. They embrace the press. Frank Whitely? He disliked the press under the best of circumstances.”
Instead of watching the filly best the year’s top colt, however, Shepard and the rest of the audience witnessed a horrific tragedy as Ruffian broke down in the stretch. Her jockey would later describe the snapping of her leg as sounding like a gun had gone off, and decades later, he would admit to still being haunted by not being able to stop her.
Veterinarians operated on Ruffian well into the night, trying to perform what would have then been considered a miracle surgery at the time but to no avail. As Ruffian came out of the anesthesia, she ripped her cast off, further damaging her leg. Concluding that they were only furthering her agony, Ruffian was put down around 2 a.m. the following morning.
She was buried at 9 p.m. that night in the infield of Belmont Park, her nose pointed toward the finish line.
Shepard was fresh from filming the final scene at Belmont when he talked to the Business Journal.
“One of the interesting aspects of that night was that Frank never broke down, through all this,” Shepard said. “He may have felt all kinds of emotions, but outwardly he was stoic, and from what I gather, he held the whole thing together. He understood that the horse-racing game comes with risks. He understood it and understood it implicitly.”
Whitely said even after all these years, he tries not to think about or reflect on Ruffian’s tragic end.
“Her injury was catastrophic,” he said. “She was just suffering. There was never any question about what had to be done.”
After a pause, he added, “She never was defeated. She was on the lead when it happened.”
Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.
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