July 25, 2010 - EVENING JEWEL KEEPS HER SPARKLE IN 'CLEMENTE as reported by Jack Shinar on bloodhorse.com

Favored Evening Jewel swept to victory in the $150,000 San Clemente Handicap (gr. IIT) (VIDEO) July 25, giving trainer James Cassidy and jockey Victor Espinoza a sweep of the graded turf stakes on the opening weekend of the 2010 Del Mar opening weekend.

A day earlier, The Usual Q. T. was victorious for Cassidy and Espinoza as the favorite in the Eddie Read Stakes (gr. IT).

"We couldn't duplicate it (such a weekend)," exclaimed Cassidy on TVG immediately after Evening Jewel registered a three-quarters of a length win in the San Clemente. "This is unbelieveble."

The versatile Evening Jewel appears comfortable on any surface and has shown the ability to win on the front end as well as rate. In fact, she is a couple of nose defeats to Blind Luck in the Las Virgenes Stakes (gr. I) and the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) from being a leading contender for the this year's Eclipse Award for 3-year-old fillies. The California-bred daughter of Northern Afleet  --Jewel of the Night, by Giant's Causeway   has three wins, including a grade I triumph in the Ashland Stakes, and three seconds in six starts this year.

Evening Jewel, who took the lead nearing the eighth pole, completed the one-mile event for 3-year-old fillies in 1:35.36 over a firm course while carrying top weight of 123 pounds.

Espinoza kept Evening Jewel on the outside of Del Mar's tight turf course while stalking in fourth position as outsider Southern Fireball, pushed along by Crisis of Spirit and recent Hollywood Oaks (gr. II) winner Switch, posted modest quarter-mile splits of :23.11, :47.89 and 1:12.22.

Evening Jewel advanced off the turn three wide to get a narrow advantage approaching mid-stretch. She finished strongly under urging from Espinoza to keep the closers City to City and Weekend Magic at bay in the final furlong.

City to City, ridden by Rafael Bejarano at 9-1 odds, outlasted the 27-1 shot Weekend Magic, with Alonso Quinonez aboard, by a head for second. Crisp, who clipped heels and nearly went down when impeded by a rank Fortunia on the first turn, recovered to finish a gallant fourth, three parts of a length behind Weekend Magic.

Owned by Tom and Marilyn Braly, Evening Jewel improved her career mark to 5-5-0 in 11 lifetime races, her only out-of-the-money performance coming in a sixth-place showing in her maiden debut on Del Mar's main track last August. The bay filly is two-for-two on turf, coming off a head victory over Cozi Rosie in the Honeymoon Handicap (gr. IIT) on the Hollywood lawn May 31.

Betty and Larry Mabee bred Evening Jewel, an $8,000 buy as a yearling at Keeneland in September 2008. She has earned $696,943 with the winner's purse of $90,000 from the San Clemente.

The Jerry Hollendorfer-trained City To City, a game second from off the pace, won the Providencia Stakes (gr. IIT) at Santa Anita in April and was most recently fifth in the 10-furlong American Oaks (gr. IT) at Hollywood Park July 3. Weekend Magic, also game in defeat for owner/trainer Myung Kwon Chu, ran third in the American Oaks in her turf debut last time out.

Sent off at odds of 8-5, Evening Jewel paid $5.40, $3.20 and $3.60 while topping a $44.60 exacta. City to City, in the money in seven of eight turf starts in 2007 with three victories, returned $7.20 and $5.40. The improving Weekend Magic was $10 to show.

Crisp was followed by her John Sadler-trained stablemate Switch. Then came It Tiz, Conniption, Crisis of Spirit, Southern Fireball and Fortunia. Got an Itch and Our Georgia, who were on the also-eligible list, and Repo scratched.

May 28,2010 - JOCKEY ROMERO, THREE HORSES TO HALL OF FAME by Ron Mitchell of the Bloodhorse.com

Jockey Randy Romero and three horses--Azeri, Best Pal, and Point Given—have been elected into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. for 2010.

The induction ceremony will take place Aug. 13 at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion in Saratoga.

Under a new voting format undertaken by the Hall of Fame committee this year, candidates were no longer segmented by category. Voters could vote for up to four of the horses and individuals listed on the ballot, and the four with the highest number of votes were elected. As a result of the new process, neither of the two trainers who were among the finalists—Gary Jones and Robert Wheeler—were elected.

As the only jockey elected to the Hall this year, Romero will be inducted on the basis of a career in which he won 4,294 races from 26,091 from 1973-99. With a career win rate of 16%, Romero’s mounts earned more than $75.2 million. Included among his 122 graded stakes victories were Breeders’ Cup World Championship wins with top distaffers Go for Wand and the undefeated Personal Ensign. With 342 total stakes wins to his credit, Romero won titles at 10 tracks, including Belmont Park, Arlington Park, Gulfstream Park, Keeneland, and Fair Grounds.

Azeri, who was bred by the late Allen E. Paulson and raced for the Allen E. Paulson Living Trust, won 17 of 24 starts and was the all-time leading female earner at the time of her retirement with $4,079,820, which has since been eclipsed by Zenyatta. Trained for two seasons by Laura De Seroux and then by D. Wayne Lukas, the daughter of Jade Hunter was voted 2002 Horse of the Year and champion older female in 2002-04. Included among her dozen grade I victories were the 2002 Breeders’ Cup Distaff and three consecutive runnings of the Apple Blossom, from 2002-04.

A homebred racing for Mr. and Mrs. John C. Mabee’s Golden Eagle Farm, Best Pal was a durable campaigner who won 18 of 47 starts in seven years of competition while trained by Ian Jory, Gary Jones, and Richard Mandella. The gelded son of Habitony earned $5.6 million and is only one of four horses to win the Santa Anita Handicap, Hollywood Gold Cup, and Charles H. Strub Stakes, all grade I. In addition, Best Pal won the 1991 Pacific Classic and finished second in Kentucky Derby (gr. I), and Santa Anita Derby (gr. I).

Trained by Bob Baffert, Point Given raced for his breeder, The Thoroughbred Corporation, while winning nine of 13 starts and compiling earnings of $3.9 million. The son of Thunder Gulch was Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male in 2001 after winning the Preakness Stakes, Belmont Stakes, Haskell Invitational, and Travers Stakes, all grade I, in succession. Point Given finished fifth in the 2001 Kentucky Derby.

Romero, Azeri, Best Pal and Point Given were elected in the contemporary category by the 182 members of the Hall of Fame’s voting panel. The Hall of Fame’s historic review committee will announce its selections on June 9.

February 23, 2010 - REMEMBERING BETTY MABEE as reported by Morton Cathro for Bloodhorse.com

(Originally published in the February 27, 2010 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.) 

What’s in a name?...That is the question Betty Mabee must have asked herself when, back at the beginning, she assumed the pleasantly daunting task of naming newborn foals and yearlings at newly “born” Golden Eagle Farm.

While husband John plunged into pedigrees and plotted matings that would propel Golden Eagle to dizzying heights as one of the most formidable, successful breeding and racing operations in California history, Betty questioned the doomed heroine’s protestation—voiced in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet—that one’s name is but an artificial, meaningless convention.

When it came to horses, Betty Mabee thought otherwise. She believed a Thoroughbred should bear a name commensurate with its stature as one of God’s noblest creatures.

Garden of Roses...Beautiful Gem...Evening Starlight...Golden Sunrise...Magical Allure...Grand and Glorious: These and countless other lovely names—Heart of Joy especially comes to mind—evoked Betty’s reverence for the Thoroughbred, a reverence and respect that dwelt in her own joyous heart.

No frivolous names. No 18-letter tongue-twisters. No suggestive or off-color names designed to slip by The Jockey Club undetected when submitted for official approval.

Along with respect for the racehorse, the names Betty Mabee chose reflected the love and respect she held for her country: Avenue of Flags...Sea to Shining Sea...American Day...Commander’s Flag...Precious Peace...Early Pioneer...Firm and Fair.

My wife, Jean, and I were privileged to be frequent guests of the Mabees at Del Mar during their dream-like golden decade of the ’90s—a decade in which they won three Eclipse Awards as owners/breeders of Thoroughbreds that swept to victory in many a prestigious race.

I was a guest, not as a journalist but as a racing fan, introduced by a long-time horsewoman and mutual friend, the late Mary Jane Gallaher-Kissling of Lexington. Never during those weekends at the track, those happy gatherings in the winner’s circle, those visits to the farm, the dinners and social gatherings, did the Mabees ever seek to compromise the integrity of our growing friendship.

They, in fact, shunned personal publicity and allowed their horses to make headlines: The famous Best Pal, “the people’s horse”; General Challenge; Dramatic Gold; Jeanne Jones; Notable Career; Excellent Meeting; Yearly Report; the ill-fated Event of the Year—Golden Eagle’s long list of stakes winners, many of them million-dollar earners, said all that needed saying.

Betty Mabee also shunned the spotlight while quietly living her “other” life, far removed from the luxury boxes and Directors’ Room at Del Mar. She was so modest about her work with the underprivileged and downtrodden that only after several annual visits were we to learn fully the scope of her compassion, commitment, and generosity.

Those virtues she extended to all creatures, great and small: Among her many charities was her favorite, Heifer International. Since 1944 this global organization has helped millions of impoverished rural families in some 130 countries by providing food- and income-producing farm animals, whose offspring in turn are passed along to others in need.

Betty was generous, too, in her correspondence with us. Her handwriting flowed gracefully across the page, like a Thoroughbred breezing effortlessly during morning exercise. Our file folder bulges with her artistic cards and letters—and with copies of those lists of names she submitted to The Jockey Club.

Soft-spoken and dignified, Betty Mabee was stoic in the face of adversity. Yet when a neighboring farm was devastated by fire, and she helped rescue and stable the equine survivors, she broke down and wept as she described the tragedy to us.

Our souvenir cabinet of racing mementoes holds programs, photographs, and other fading evidence of adventures experienced in a lifetime of following the Sport of Kings. Occupying a special place therein is a picture taken in the Bay Meadows winner’s circle in 1994 as Jean and I presented a trophy to the winning connections of the Golden Eagle Farm Handicap, a race named to recognize the farm’s importance to the sport.

That photo is a treasured souvenir, indeed—and a nostalgic reminder of those golden moments we shared with the beloved "First Lady of California Racing." 

A retired California newspaperman, Morton Cathro has written for The Blood-Horse, Daily Racing Form, and California Thoroughbred.

February 16, 2010 - BETTY MABEE, RACED BEST PAL, DIES as reported by Bloodhorse.com

                                                    Picture by Jim Baird~San Diego Union Tribune at the 2003 Pacific Classic at Del Mar.

Betty Mabee, who with her late husband, John, built one of the West Coast’s leading Thoroughbred empires, died "peacefully and quietly," according to her son, Larry,  who noted in a family release that his mother had succumbed to an extended illness She was 88.

A native of Unionville, Mo., Betty Mabee grew up in Iowa and married John, her high school sweetheart, to start a partnership that was to last for 60 years and see them reach great heights in the world of business and Thoroughbreds.
 
The Mabees moved to San Diego during World War II and opened a mom-and-pop grocery store that evolved into the 30-store Big Bear Supermarket chain. Subsequently, the Mabees started and ran Golden Eagle Insurance Company, which would become California's third-largest workers' compensation carrier with more than 1,300 employees. They started in racing after buying two horses for $6,000 at the 1957 Del Mar yearling sale.
 
That small investment led to the founding of Golden Eagle Farm near Ramona, Calif., which grew from 197 acres to 568 acres in the early part of the last decade. The farm began with a handful of horses that expanded to more than 400 racing and breeding horses—supplemented by an additional 150 head that were quartered in Kentucky—during a highly successful run that saw the Mabees become not only the leading breeders in California but Eclipse Award winners in 1991 and in 1997-98.
 
Among the Mabees many equine successes, the best of all—and Betty Mabee’s personal favorite—was homebred Best Pal, a rugged California champion foaled at their farm. Best Pal went on to earn $5.6 million, including the 1991 inaugural running of Del Mar's most prestigious race, the $1-million Pacific Classic.
 
Following the death of her husband in 2002, Mabee agreed to join the board of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club as a director, a role she served in until 2008, when she took on the title of Director Emeritus.

John Mabee, while serving as president and chairman of the board of Del Mar, had devoted numerous hours into transforming the track into a well-maintain and stylish place to watch racing.

At the time of his death, the Mabees were the breeders of 173 stakes winners and the owners of 111 added-money winners. The totals for each have increased.

In addition to Best Pal,  the Mabees raced such other top runners as General Challenge, Dramatic Gold, Excellent Meeting, and Event of the Year.

Betty Mabee made a point of carving out time in her busy life to be deeply involved in numerous charitable organizations and programs in the San Diego area. She had a special love for projects involved with children in need and was a founding member of Voices for Children and the Angels of Aseltine Auxiliary.
Besides her son, Mabee is survived by three grandchildren.
 
Service arrangements have not been made final.

December 9, 2009 - SAUCEY EVENING IN LONGSHOT WIN as reported by CTBA Weekly

California-bred longshot Saucey Evening scored an upset win in the $61,150 Starine Stakes on Dec. 3 for three-year-old fillies at Hollywood Park. 

Saucey Evening is by More Than Ready, out of the General Meeting mare Jeweled Lady who is a full sister to millionaire General Challenge and a half-sister to grade I winner Notable Career.  She was bred by Betty and Larry Mabee, foaled at their Golden Eagle Farm, and is owned by Augustin Stable and trained by Graham Motion.

She has four wins in 12 starts, earnings of $351,939 and was coming off a third in the Nov. 8 Cascapedia Stakes.  She won last year's California Cup Juvenile Fillies Stakes.  She ran the mile on turf in 1:35.61 and won by a neck at odds of 10-1.

August 2009 - HRTV's INSIDE INFORMATION SPECIAL ON GENERAL CHALLENGE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTF8kTxm6SM

July 9, 2009 - HRTV COMES TO GOLDEN EAGLE FARM

General Challenge, despite being a retired racehorse, found himself in the spotlight once again on July 9th.  HRTV, the horseracing network, came out to the farm to do a documentary on the thirteen-year-old gelding.  General Challenge, a son of the late Golden Eagle stallion General Meeting, posed for the camera and enjoyed a day of lavish attention.  While the film crew took footage of the gelding in the field, they also interviewed Janine McCullough, General Manager of the farm and Lori Piedra, head of Equine Operations.

                                                                                                               Photo by Piedra Photos

General Challenge, a winner of $2,877,178, was trained by Bob Baffert and turned in memorable victories at the Santa Anity Derby (gr I), Pacific Classic Stakes (gr I) and the Santa Anita Handicap (gr I), among others.  General Challenge currently resides on the farm in Ramona, basking in his well-earned retirement.

May 30, 2009 - GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN (as reported by Golden Eagle Farm and CTBA Mag) 

Grade I winner Fantastic Look, an important broodmare for the Mabee family's Golden Eagle Farm in Ramona, died after foaling a colt by the farm's resident sire Salt Lake on May 30.  The 23-year-old daughter of Green Dancer won Oaklawn Park's 1989 Fantasy Stakes (grade I) and earned $681,247 from 23 starts as a homebred for John and Betty Mabee.

Among her three stakes-winning offspring is the $973,660-earner Designed for Luck, a Rahy gelding who won the 2004 Shoemaker Breeders' Cup Mile Stakes (grade I) at Hollywood Park.

Fantastic Look is represented by a two-year-old Salt Lake filly named Saltendipity.  Her final foal has been placed on a nurse mare.