Keeneland Homecoming for Markey Van Dyck
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Photo:
Keeneland Photo
Among the fans at Keeneland on Friday, closing day of the Spring Meet, was Melinda “Mims” Markey Van Dyck. Her father was Adm. Gene Markey, who was married to Lucille Parker Wright of the world-famous Calumet Farm near Keeneland. She was the namesake for Calumet’s champion Our Mims.
On April 27, 1978, Van Dyck accompanied her father and stepmother to Keeneland when they watched Our Mims’ half-brother Alydar win the Blue Grass (G1). Photographs of the Markeys and their party standing along the outside rail on the Clubhouse Lawn while jockey Jorge Velasquez walked Alydar near them during the post parade are among the most famous images ever taken at Keeneland.
Alydar won the Blue Grass by 13 lengths and finished second to Affirmed in the Triple Crown. He was trained by John Veitch, now Keeneland’s Assistant Paddock Judge.
Van Dyck, who lives in South Carolina, returned to Lexington Thursday and attended the races with Veitch’s wife, Ellen, and Bob Bell, a noted member of the show jumping world who is a frequent Keeneland patron. On Thursday, Van Dyck visited Calumet, now owned by Brad Kelley’s Calumet Investment Group and recent subject of an expanded piece by The Blood-Horse.
“It just made my heart pound,” she said. “It is so wonderful what Mr. Kelley has done. It just looks like it did when I lived here before.
“What he has done is superb. To even build back my dad’s cabin, where he used to do all his writing and painting … It had been torn down, and Mr. Kelley rebuilt it. I can’t wait to see John (Veitch) and tell him what it was like to go back to the farm. So many memories.”
Van Dyck and Bell planned to attend the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event at the Kentucky Horse Park on Saturday and return home Sunday.
“I’m so glad to be back,” she said about her Kentucky visit. “It is being home. The lilacs are blooming. The birds are all over the place. The grass is still blue. I love it.”
Source: Keeneland Press Release
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