Whittingham Would Have Been 100 Saturday
Charlie Whittingham, legendary Hall of Fame trainer of champions such as Ack Ack, Cougar II, Turkish Trousers, Ferdinand and Sunday Silence, would have been 100 years old on Saturday, and as such, Santa Anita Park will honor the occasion with an array of video tributes available to on-track attendees and those at simulcast outlets.
Although “The Bald Eagle,” Santa Anita’s all-time leading stakes winning trainer with 204 added money tallies, succumbed to leukemia at age 86 in April, 1999, his presence and contributions to Thoroughbred racing and to The Great Race Place are anything but forgotten.
A large bronze bust of his likeness adorns Santa Anita’s East Paddock Gardens and a monogrammed tack box, with his signature “CW” stable logo and a small plaque entitled “In Memory of Charlie Whittingham,” remains intact at Barn 4, his longtime base of operation that currently is home to Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella.
Perhaps more important is the fact that memories of the self-effacing Whittingham are still vivid in the minds of not only those who knew him well, but also those who were merely casual acquaintances.
The late trainer Willard Proctor summed up the character of his longtime friend and confidant in succinct fashion upon Whittingham’s passing: “Charlie wore winning well,” said Proctor. “He could win the Santa Anita Handicap (nine times) or the Hollywood Gold Cup (eight times) and he was just the same guy.”
Multiple Eclipse Award-winning Daily Racing Form columnist Jay Hovdey captured the essence of Whittingham’s success and appeal thusly in Saturday’s DRF: “His best horses became popular older horses, full grown and magnificent, able to cultivate loyal fans and sustain serious careers at the top of the game. Whittingham won those seven (national) money championships—all of them without significant help from horses younger than 4—because he could deliver on the promises he made to high-rent patrons that it was better to let other barns make mistakes, run their horses too soon or too steep, and always be there in overwhelming force when the pot was full.”
The following races honoring Whittingham will be shown between live races on Saturday:
--1970 San Juan Capistrano Handicap. Whittingham won his first of a record 14 San Juan’s as his twosome of Fiddle Isle and Quicken Tree dead-heated after 1 ¾ miles on turf.
--1973 Santa Anita Handicap: Whittingham ran one-two with Cougar II and Kennedy Road, as Laffit Pincay, Jr. and Donald Pierce “threw it down” and were separated by a nose at the wire.
--1985 Santa Anita Handicap: Lord At War, with Bill Shoemaker up, put the “Shoe-Charlie Club” center stage before a record on-track crowd of 85,527.
--1987 Breeders’ Cup Classic: Run at Hollywood Park, Whittingham’s Ferdinand, winner of the 1986 Kentucky Derby, defeated ’87 Derby winner Alysheba in one of the greatest moments in Breeders’ Cup history.
--1989 Santa Anita Derby: Whittingham’s Sunday Silence annihilated the competition and went on to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Breeders’ Cup Classic and was thus crowned Horse of the Year.
On the 100th anniversary of his birth, the “pot” remains full and as Charlie would have said, ”We got ‘em surrounded.”
And how, Mr. Whittingham. And now.