Vanderbilt, Whitney Added to HOF

Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and John H. Whitney, two names synonymous with Thoroughbred racing and breeding, will join the 2015 class of the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame after being elected as ‘Pillars of the Turf,’ it was announced Wednesday.

The London-born and Massachusetts-raised Vanderbilt assumed control of his mother’s 600-acre farm–named Sagamore–in Glyndon, Maryland, at the age of 21 in 1933, registered his silks and scooped up a horse he would name Discovery for $25,000. It was the beginning of a rich seven decades in the business. While still in his 20s, Vanderbilt purchased and took over the management of Pimlico Race Course, consolidating major stakes races on a single program to create buzz at the track and helped to increase the visibility and popularity of the track’s Preakness S. Elected to The Jockey Club in 1937 at the age of 24, Vanderbilt helped arrange the historic match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral, and in 1940, began running Belmont Park. He ran both tracks until military service in World War II.

Vanderbilt bred no fewer than 77 stakes winners in his illustrious career, including Next Move, Bed o’Roses, Now What, Petrify and Native Dancer, his most famous runner. He later joined Discovery and Bed o’Roses in the Hall of Fame after winning 21 of his 22 career starts. Winner of the Eclipse Award of Merit in 1994, Vanderbilt died five years later at the age of 87.

Born in Maine, John Whitney–like Vanderbilt–was a Yale graduate and studied at Oxford, England, until his father’s passing in 1927. Always passionate about racing, Whitney received two yearlings as a gift from his father and joined The Jockey Club at the age of 24 in 1928. He campaigned his first American stakes winner in 1931, and Shining Wood gave him his first U.S. stakes success when winning the Futurity S. in 1933. Appointed to the state commission of racing in New York in 1934, Whitney helped found the American Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association, the organization which would morph into TOBA over time. Upon his mother’s death in 1944, Whitney inherited a 63% controlling interest in her Greentree Stud in Lexington, while his sister, Joan Whitney Payson, received the remaining 37%. Together, the brother-and-sister team bred its first $100,000 earner in 1945 (Mesmer), and Capot, the 1949 Horse of the Year. Greentree also bred Stage Door Johnny, Late Bloomer and Bowl Game among 91 stakes winners. Whitney’s best horse was Tom Fool, a private purchase from breeder Duval Headley as a yearling. He became the Horse of the Year in 1953, winning the Metropolitan, Suburban, Brooklyn, Whitney and Carter Handicaps. Upon Joan Whitney Payson’s death in 1975, her stake in Greentree passed to her husband, Charles Shipman Payson. Whitney bought out that interest in 1980 to obtain sole ownership of Greentree. He died two years later at the age of 77. 

A committee of racing experts and historians, under the guidance of chairman D.G. Van Clief, comprise the Pillars of the Turf Selection Committee: Van Clief, Edward L. Bowen, Christopher Dragone, Jane Goldstein, Ken Grayson, Jay Hovdey, G. Watts Humphrey, Bill Marshall, Leverett Miller, Bill Mooney, Mary Simon, Michael Veitch and Gary West.