Story of Trainer McAnally’s First Horse Purchase Has a Silver Ending

Ron McAnally has trained some great race horses--John Henry and Cassaleria to name two. But he had never owned one.

“My wife had been after me for many years to buy her a horse,” McAnally said.

So, one fall night in Lexington, Ky., in 1988, he phoned home to the West Coast with some exciting news. He had just been to the Keeneland sales, and he and his wife finally were owners of a yearling colt named Silver Ending.

“I said, ‘Honey, I bought you a horse,’ ” McAnally recalled. “She asked, ‘What did you pay?’ I told her $1,500. She said, ‘Cripes, he must not be worth much.’ ”

These days, you can’t even get a good used car for that price, but on Jan. 21, Silver Ending won the $300,000 El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows for his third win in six career starts. A lifetime winner of $338,900 already, Silver Ending has proved quite a bargain, and now McAnally has visions of Kentucky in the spring.

“Our plans right now are not to run him too hard, maybe once a month or every six weeks,” McAnally said, aiming him for the Santa Anita Derby on April 7, then the Kentucky Derby in Louisville on May 5, if all goes well.

Although it’s too early to place Silver Ending among the early Derby favorites, his name is being mentioned along with Summer Squall, Red Ransom, Grand Canyon and 1989 juvenile champion Rhythm.

“I would say if they were to run the Santa Anita Derby next week, Silver Ending would have to be one of the favorites,” McAnally said.

One thing that attracted McAnally to Silver Ending as a yearling was his ancestry. He is the son of Silver Hawk, an 11-year-old sire of five stakes winners, including the McAnally-trained Hawkster. McAnally could do no better than fifth with Hawkster in the Triple Crown races last year, but he then turned the colt into a successful grass specialist.

McAnally said that when Silver Ending was led into the ring at the Keeneland sales, “there were very few people there. I was prepared to go for a lot more. I probably would have gone up to $20,000, knowing that Hawkster brought $27,000. But I didn’t need to.”

Silver Ending was purchased from William F. and Annabel Murphy, natives of South Africa who bred the colt at their farm at Ocala, Fla.

In a telephone interview from his Santa Anita stable Monday, McAnally described Silver Ending as “an average-sized horse” with good balance and strong-looking legs. He likes to come from behind, although McAnally said he has speed “if you want to use it.”

“His first two races at Del Mar were at six furlongs,” McAnally said. “That’s the way I like to start them out, but I knew all along he was bred to go the distance. Then, we brought him here, to Santa Anita, for the Oak Tree meeting, and he won his first time at distance.

“We took him to the fall meeting at Hollywood Park, and he was in the ninth race under lights, his first time on grass, and he won. The next time, he ran third to Grand Canyon in the Hollywood Futurity, and his last race was the one up in San Francisco.”

McAnally now co-owns Silver Ending with longtime friend and Arcadia restaurateur Angelo Constanza.

“He’s a real good friend of mine, and an avid horse fan,” McAnally said. “I guess he likes to play them more than anything. But he’d shared ownership in some horses before that never really did anything, so I decided if I could do this guy a favor, I’d do it.”

After McAnally sent Silver Ending to Texas to be broken, he called Constanza and they flew down for a look.

“That’s how it happened. I asked him if he’d like to buy part interest in a bargain horse for $750,” McAnally said. “Hey, that’s not even an afternoon’s bet for him.”