John Veitch Knows He Has a Good Thing Going : One of Trainer’s Top Horses, Proud Truth, Will Be Running in the Florida Derby Today

Back in the 1960s, John Veitch studied history at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., and ran the ball as a halfback for the school’s football team.

“I don’t know whether I had anything to do with the demise of the school’s football program or not,” Veitch was saying the other morning at Hialeah, where he trains an expensive stable of horses for the Galbreath clan from Columbus, Ohio. “As for history, it was just something to study, because I knew I wanted to make a career in racing.”

If Veitch, 39, had become anything but a trainer, it would have been contrary to his bloodlines. He’s the only son of Syl Veitch, who once trained for C.V. Whitney and is in racing’s Hall of Fame. Under the elder Veitch’s handling, Whitney’s Counterpoint was Horse of the Year in 1951.

The elder Veitch, who turned 75 last month, still trains in New York. “What else would I do?” he asks. “Go crazy? Jump off a bridge?”

John Veitch has had reason to go crazy, having known the gamut of frustrations in his relatively short training career. Still, at every turn, good jobs and good horses have continued coming his way. The only sign of wear and tear is Veitch’s cueball head, as devoid of hair as Charlie Whittingham’s.

The latest of Veitch’s runners to hit the spotlight is Proud Truth, a huge 3-year-old son of Graustark and one of 11 horses scheduled to start in today’s $300,000 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park.

“This is the biggest good horse I’ve ever had,” Veitch said. “Most of my other standouts have been more ordinary in size. I had a big colt for Calumet a few years ago named Tim the Tiger. He was brilliant as a 2-year-old. Naturally, I ruined him before he got to be three.”

Self-deprecation is Veitch’s calling card. Among horsemen, he leads the league in putting himself down. Even his lack of hair is material for Veitch’s wit. “If I told you I’ve been pulling my hair out over getting Proud Truth ready for the Florida Derby, I’d be telling a lie,” he said.

His days with Calumet Farm, a six-year association that ended in 1982, were the best and worst of times. He trained three champions for Calumet--Davona Dale, Before Dawn and Our Mims--but his best horse, Alydar, was unfortunately a contemporary of the great Affirmed. Their 1-2 finishes in the 1978 Triple Crown races, with Affirmed prevailing by combined margins of less than two lengths, are must inclusions for any tableau on the sport.

Calumet, once a monolith among racing stables, had run into hard times before Veitch came along. “In 1978, Calumet finished more than $1 million in the black,” he said. “That was the first time that happened since 1957.”

When Lucille Markey, the grande dame of Calumet, died at 85 in July, 1982, the woman who had hired Veitch was gone and control of the farm was assumed by J.T. Lundy, who had married one of Markey’s daughters. Lundy made sweeping changes, starting with the farm manager and even included Calumet’s longtime bookkeeper.

Veitch said that it was no surprise when he was dropped. “It was expected and anticipated,” he said. “What happened is not unheard of. I don’t think it had anything to do with the way I was training. The main reason for the change was that they just wanted to make a change.”

It was not coincidental, however, that Calumet changed the name of a colt called John the Bald, a full brother to Alydar. With Veitch, whose shiny pate had been the inspiration for the name, no longer at Calumet, John the Bald became Foyt, as in A.J., the race driver and a friend and partner of Lundy.

Veitch then ran a public stable for two years, which were highlighted by the development of Dr. Carter, one of last year’s top 3-year-olds before a debilitating influenza attack ended his season in Florida.

Shortly after Dr. Carter went to the sidelines, Veitch was approached by John Galbreath and his son, Dan, who had fired several managers of their Pittsburgh Pirates and were in the process of changing horse trainers.

Lou Rondinello had been with the Galbreaths since 1959, becoming head trainer in 1970. He won the Preakness and Belmont Stakes with Little Current in ’74.

“One of the reasons we wanted to make a change was that Lou was reluctant to take horses out of New York to run,” Dan Galbreath said. “That was all right with Dad, but now we have a different mix of owners in the family. I have more horses than Dad, and my sister and brother-in-law have horses, and we’d all like to take shots at other races around the country if we feel we have a chance.

“John Veitch had a proven record in developing champions. And he grew up in a family-type environment, like ours. He’ll give us a lot of help with our overall program, eventually assisting in the breeding matchups we make for our stallions. That should help him when he gets the horses to run. With Rondinello, we’d just send him the horses off the farm and it was like he was getting a bunch of orphans that he wasn’t familiar with.”

John Galbreath, 87, has recovered from a major heart attack and will watch Proud Truth run today. Galbreath won the Kentucky Derby with Chateaugay in 1963 and Proud Clarion in ‘67, and Veitch’s assignment with his stable parallels his task under Lucille Markey--trying to crank out a few more major victories for an owner well along in years.

Veitch has another top 3-year-old, Dan Galbreath’s Script Ohio, who won the Young America Stakes at the Meadowlands last year. Script Ohio will begin his 3-year-old campaign at Hialeah this month.

“I’ll keep the two of them apart until we get to Kentucky,” Veitch said. “I’m thinking of running Proud Truth back in the Flamingo (at Hialeah March 30) and maybe sending Script Ohio to the Louisiana Derby (at the Fair Grounds), which is run the next day.”

Then Veitch chastised himself for looking too far ahead on the calendar. “I’ve been in this game long enough to know that you shouldn’t make too many plans,” he said. “Making plans just gives the trainer time to screw them up in the interim.”