Bid Spotter

Heading back to the rostrum from a break, Ryan Mahan was stopped by Wayne Lukas. "This filly coming up, three hips from now," the great trainer said. "I'm going to put my pen in my pocket. As long as it stays there, keep me in." "Wayne, please don't do this," Mahan replied. "This kind of thing--if my glasses are on, if I take my hat off--it just never works." But Lukas was insistent: that was what they were going to do. "So we get to $400,000," Mahan recalls, decades later....

Bill Robbins, who served as a bid spotter at Fasig-Tipton for 50 years among other industry roles, passed away peacefully at his home in Lexington on Monday, June 17. He was 88 years old. Robbins was born in Maysville, Kentucky on Tuesday, August 13, 1935. His family moved to Lexington in 1936 where he called home for the next 87 years. He went to Ashland Elementary School, Morton Middle School, Henry Clay High School and graduated with a degree in economics from the University of Kentucky in 1956. Upon his graduation,...

Pete McCormick, a longtime Keeneland bid spotter and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, passed away Thursday at the age of 75.  A native of Ontario, California,  Pete was just a boy when given his first job in the auction business from Tom Caldwell, the longtime head auctioneer at Keeneland, who took McCormick under his wing. "The Keeneland family mourns the passing of Pete McCormick, who was an iconic presence in the Keeneland Sales Pavilion during his four decades as a bid spotter," Keeneland said Friday in a statement. "Pete famously said,...