Horsewoman Connie Ring, 91, Dies

Connie Ring, who bred and raced top horses in California for more than 40 years, died Friday at Good Samaritan Hospital, where she was a patient for two months.

Ring, 91, bought her first horse in 1947, paying $3,500 for a sore-legged animal who never won a race and earned only $130. But that was the start of a long love affair with racing that peaked in 1977, when Crystal Water, a horse she bred, became the first horse to sweep the Santa Anita Handicap, the Californian and the Hollywood Gold Cup.

Crystal Water, who ran with suspect ankles, later won the Oak Tree Invitational at Santa Anita, beating Ancient Title and Vigors, and he was retired with earnings of $845,072--one of the highest totals ever registered by a California-bred.

Crystal Water’s forte was grass.

“If he ran in a different era, he would have earned $2 million as a grass horse,” Ring once said. “He would have taken horses like John Henry and made them look sick. I had a lot of respect for John Henry, but Crystal Water was just fabulous on grass.”

Another of Ring’s standouts was Olympiad King, whom she bought for $16,500. In 1963, Olympiad King won four stakes, including a division of the Del Mar Derby, and earned more than $100,000. He went on to a successful career as a stallion, standing at Ring’s 200-acre Three Rings Farm in Riverside County.

Windy Sands, who was Crystal Water’s sire, was California’s leading stallion in 1976, 1977, 1981, 1982 and 1983. Ring bred 36 stakes winners.

Ring employed only six trainers, including Jack Phillips, who trained Olympiad King, and Roger Clapp, who was Crystal Water’s conditioner. For many years, she had a custom of buying her trainers a drink before her horse ran, and to also join the trainer for a drink afterward.

Connie Ring was born in Memphis, Tenn., and after she moved to California with her mother she became a secretary for George Ring, whom she later married. Ring, who died in 1957, owned the Ring Oil Co. After his death, estate costs forced Ring to choose between the oil company and the racing stable, and she kept the horses.

George Ring didn’t approve when his wife bought her first horse, especially when he saw the condition of the animal. When Ring told her husband that their stable name would be Three Rings--one ring for each of them and a ring representing the horse--George Ring said: “Just make it two rings. I don’t want to have anything to do with the business.”

But the same year she bought that first horse, George Ring bought her two more horses for her birthday, including a yearling filly that cost $46,000.

“I have no children or relatives,” Ring said in an interview in 1982. “But I have my horses and all my friends that I’ve made as the result of those horses.”

Ring sold her horses and her farm at the end of 1988. In her will, she requested that there be no funeral service. She asked that her body be cremated and the ashes be scattered over the mountains.