COMMENTARY : Unbridled’s Derby Victory: No Fluke for Frances Genter

After Unbridled crossed the finish line, television cameras focused on the little lady in the polka-dot suit, and a nationwide audience was touched by the sentimentality of the moment. At the age of 92, Frances Genter had entered a horse in the Kentucky Derby for the first time--and she had won it.

This may have appeared to be a wondrous stroke of fortune, but people in the racing business know that neither luck nor sentiment had anything to do with it. Few operations in the sport have been managed in such an intelligent and businesslike fashion, or have achieved such consistent success, as the Frances A. Genter Stable.

The Thoroughbred Times analyzed the performance of horses bred by the stable over a 25-year period, and the results are stunning. More than 90% of these horses got to the races; 74% won at least one race; 18% won stakes. The average Genter-bred horse earned $63,000 in purse money. The Derby triumph was no fluke; it was the culmination of decades of preparation, as well as one fateful decision that Frances Genter made in 1957.

Genter and her late husband, Harold, initially became interested in the sport as fans and bettors. Their longtime friend, John Nerud, said: “He was a horseplayer and she was a horseplayer. She was a good handicapper, and she still loves to bet.” When they decided they would like to buy some horses, the Genters had the wherewithal to do it, for Harold was chief executive officer of the Toastmaster Corp. and the inventor of the pop-up toaster. They acquired their first horse in 1940, but it was their 1950 purchase of a horse named Rough ‘n Tumble that spurred them to get seriously involved in racing and breeding.

Rough ‘n Tumble had a successful career, winning the Santa Anita Derby and other stakes, before he was retired to stud in Florida. The Genters then made a deal with the farm owner, trading him a part interest in the stallion in exchange for one foal from Rough ‘n Tumble’s first crop of offspring. According to Nerud, it was Frances Genter who said, “Let’s take the filly”--and acquired the daughter of Rough ‘n Tumble, who would leave an indelible stamp on American racing.

Whenever Harold Genter was perturbed, he would archly address his wife, “My dear girl!” Frances bestowed this name on their new filly, and My Dear Girl went on to become the champion 2-year-old of her generation. But what she did after her retirement eclipsed any of her feats on the track.

She produced seven stakes winners, among them In Reality, who earned nearly $800,000 in the 1960s and went on to sire 74 stakes winners. (One was Frances Genter’s champion sprinter, Smile.) My Dear Girl’s daughters produced countless stakes winners, including Dr. Carter, who earned nearly $900,000. My Dear Girl’s blood would be found in most of the Genters’ successful horses for the next three decades--including Unbridled.

“That broodmare was a gold mine,” said John Veitch, who formerly trained for the Genter Stable. “But they also knew what to do with that gold mine. They managed their whole band of broodmares very well.”

The Genters kept their horses at Tartan Farm in Florida, where they had the benefit of the counsel of Tartan’s president, Nerud, an exceptional horseman who is enshrined in the Racing Hall of Fame. But Harold Genter didn’t need--or want--anybody’s advice. He would listen to his wife, but otherwise, Nerud said: “Old Man Genter ran the operation absolutely by himself.

“He traveled and stayed wherever the stable was. He had his own ideas. He stayed with speed--all those pedigrees with the Rough ‘n Tumble background. And he had a theory that when a mare was 12 years old you might as well sell her, even though for most breeders that’s still prime time.”

So Harold Genter was constantly culling and selling his and his wife’s horses, running the stable in a businesslike fashion. The exception to this policy was My Dear Girl, who stayed at Tartan Farm until her death at age 30. “She was a whole lot of their life,” Nerud said.

When Harold’s health began to fail--he died in 1981--Frances’ son-in-law Bentley Smith took over the management of the stable and viewed the job with the same kind of pragmatism.

“We have to be profitable,” Smith said. “If we’re not, we’re out. We have an overhead of $3 million a year.” He continually culls his older and less-successful stock horses; last fall alone the stable sold 40 horses. But Smith also buys horses to infuse the breeding operation with new blood.

Because so much of the Genter bloodlines are speed-oriented, he looks for acquisitions that will bring some stamina to the gene pool. When Tartan Farm was holding its dispersal sale, Smith listened to Nerud’s advice and spent $275,000 for a stoutly bred mare named Gana Facil and another $70,000 for her weanling son, who was to be named Unbridled.

But although the Genter Stable has always been concerned with the bottom line, it has never pushed its trainers to get results fast--the surest way to ruin promising horses. In fact, the Genters never push their trainers to do anything, which is one reason they have had exceptionally long and amicable relationships with all of the horsemen they employ.

“They were first-class people running a first-class outfit, and you never heard one word of criticism from them,” Nerud said. Frances Genter could have made a trip to Louisville as long ago as 1967, but trainer Sunshine Calvert thought it might be asking too much too soon to run In Reality in the Derby--and the owners never questioned his decision.

The combination of a hands-on approach to the breeding operation and a hands-off approach to the training continues to work for the Genter Stable. Smith said the stable has shown a profit in 14 of the last 15 years--a remarkable performance in a sport where the vast majority of owners lose money every year.

In the context of this record, it is evident that Frances Genter did not get to the winner’s circle at Churchill Downs because of a random stroke of fate. This was a triumph that she had earned, and that she deserved.