Ted Bassett

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....

I was feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness May 7, 1984. It was my first day at Daily Racing Form, hired to report on the breeding industry, farm news, and horse sales. At the time, the paper's Midwest offices were located at Keeneland, in fact on the ground floor of the clubhouse in what were some of the original stalls when the track first opened in 1936. I was not long removed from having earned a degree in Journalism from the University of Kentucky, where I was a rare...

"Your Mr. Bassett doesn't come to Japan because of the war," said a junior executive of the Japan Racing Association in late August 2004. It was close to midnight in Sapporo, where I had accompanied Rogers Beasley on my first trip to Japan. We had dined with Masayuki Goto, a very sharp man, then a general manager of corporate planning, who the same junior executive whispered would in time ascend to the top job. Gotosan insisted on karaoke after dinner, and I learned later such occasions bring out candor, laughter,...

Services have been set for James E. "Ted" Bassett, who passed away Thursday at the age of 103. Visitation will be held Monday, January 27, from 3 to 7 p.m. in the Keeneland Clubhouse, 4201 Versailles Road Lexington, KY. Services are scheduled for Tuesday, January 28, at 11 a.m. at the Central Christian Church, 205 E. Short St. in Lexington. Bassett will be laid to rest privately at the Lexington Cemetery.

With the news of the passing of industry titan James E. "Ted" Bassett III, tributes from the Thoroughbred industry recount the enormous impact Bassett had in shaping the sport for generations to come. Elected president of the Breeders' Cup four years after the inaugural running in 1984, Bassett spearheaded the organization's growth and making the World Championships into the global affair it's known as, today. "Mr. Bassett served the Breeders' Cup, Keeneland, and a multitude of Thoroughbred racing industry organizations with magnificent honor and distinction, and his legacy will continue...

James E. "Ted" Bassett III, who led Keeneland through historic expansion during his 38-year tenure serving as President, Chairman and Trustee, died Thursday at his home in Lexington. He was 103. So he was not immortal, after all. But those of us privileged to have known James E. Bassett III will know how rare it is not only for human life to stretch to so wide a span but yet to conclude with the emphasis so unequivocally on quality, rather than mere quantity. It began [and ended] in Lexington, aptly...

Needless to say, all four tried to reject their billing. Between them, after all, they have spent the better part of three centuries dealing with that vehicle of humility, the Thoroughbred. To everyone else present, however, the opportunity to tap into the experience of four such sages as Bill Landes, Frank Penn, Tom Thornbury and John Williams fully justified the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers Club in promoting their latest meeting in Lexington as "An Evening with Legends." Each, moreover, could be consoled that one of the first tasks addressed--an acknowledgement...

It must have become rather irritating for virologists, over the past couple of years, to hear so many of us appointing ourselves overnight experts on the best ways to tackle a pandemic. But that was a familiar enough experience for Dr. Peter Timoney, thinking back 20 years to the harrowing time when the Bluegrass was gripped by panic over Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome (MRLS). At the very time when his skills were most precious, as a world authority on equine virology based right there at the University of Kentucky, so...

Nobody in our community is more eligible than Ted Bassett to say that he has seen it all before, but something will be attempted Saturday that falls outside even the long experience encompassed by his 100th birthday in just a few days' time. For a Keeneland showpiece that Mr. Bassett helped to inaugurate in 1984, as host to the lady for whom it was named, could well present one of her subjects with the opportunity to complete a unique double. First, in the backyard of Windsor Castle, William Haggas saddles...

Breeders' Cup and Maker's Mark released the 2020 limited-edition Maker's Mark bottle from the Charity for Champions program, which began in 2015, with the goal of raising money for Thoroughbred industry charities. The limited-edition Breeders' Cup bottles are auctioned off inc conjunction with the Breeders' Cup. The third bottle in the latest collection of limited-edition Maker's Mark® bottles will feature James E. "Ted" Bassett III, a former Keeneland and Breeders' Cup President. Proceeds from the 2020 auction will support Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement Farms, the National Museum of Racing and...