Despite Divorce, They Have Stable Marriage

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Community property isn’t usually an issue at the Kentucky Derby, but it is for John Ed Anthony and Mary Lynn Dudley. With their gelding, Prairie Bayou, being tabbed as the favorite for Saturday’s race, they aren’t going to let a little thing like a divorce come between them and the winner’s circle.

Till the finish line do they part.

For 27 years, they were married, with children and horses--Anthony, the king of the Arkansas lumber business, and Dudley, who parted ways with him in 1988 and now is married to a judge from that state’s Supreme Court. But they remain equal partners in Loblolly Stable in what some perceive as “an unusual arrangement,” Dudley says.

When Pine Bluff’s performance in the last Belmont qualified the stable for a $1-million Chrysler Triple Crown Challenge bonus, half of it belonged to Dudley. She still is listed as secretary-treasurer of the organization, with Anthony the president. He, too, has remarried.

“You divorce your husband, but you don’t divorce your friend,” Dudley says.

No Loblolly horse has ever won a Kentucky Derby. There was a time not long ago when so many of the stable’s 3-year-olds were making spectacular bids, Anthony actually considered the possibility of entering three horses at Churchill Downs, or five or possibly even six. That’s how astounding things got. No owner in the last 62 years has ever run more than three horses in a single Derby.

Then came the big fade. Marked Tree, favored in the Wood Memorial, ran third, with one of his stablemates sixth. Dalhart, going off a 3-5 favorite in the Arkansas Derby, ran a distant ninth to a 108-1 beast from nowhere named Rockamundo. After a victory at the Rebel Handicap on March 27, many thought Dalhart to be the best animal in the Loblolly barn. But even one of the stable’s lesser thoroughbreds, Over Jack Mountain, outran Dalhart in the Arkansas Derby, finishing seventh.

So, next thing they knew, Anthony and Dudley were down to one Kentucky Derby starter, Prairie Bayou.

“I know how the Japanese felt after the battle of Midway,” Anthony says. “Take all your carriers out there and hardly any come home.”

But that one remaining carrier is definitely one to watch. Over a five-furlong workout here Monday on a sloppy track, Prairie Bayou, the winner of the Jim Beam and Blue Grass stakes, was timed in 1:01, which was nearly two seconds faster than any other horse on the track that worked at that distance. Prairie Bayou’s trainer, Tom Bohannon, even said he personally timed the gelding in a minute flat.

Bohannon is another interesting character in the Loblolly racing team, a 37-year-old Lexington, Ky., native who built homes, sold real estate, took dental X-rays, did golf course maintenance and studied to become a pilot before deciding to train horses for a living. He evidently knows what he’s doing; Bohannon trained Preakness winner Pine Bluff.

Anthony makes most of the decisions for the stable and receives most of the credit, with his partner and former housemate pretty much relegated to the background.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Dudley says. “I have a very full life. I know they’re half mine. He knows they’re half mine.”

Anthony Timberlands, Inc., had sales of $125 million last year, making it one of the largest privately owned lumber companies in the South. His home state of Arkansas holds such a place in Anthony’s heart that he names many of his horses after geographical landmarks from his childhood--Pine Bluff, for instance; or Temperence Hill, the 1980 Belmont champion; or Prairie Bayou, which is a tiny creek not far from Arkansas 84 in Hot Springs, near his stable.

Horse racing is not his life.

“I think horses have to be secondary toward some higher purpose in life,” Anthony says. “Except maybe if you’re in the Pony Express and the Indians are chasing you, how fast a horse can run is not really very important in the whole grand scheme of things.”

As a child, Anthony cared for his mother, an invalid with rheumatoid arthritis who could move only her neck and arms. He enrolled in the University of Arkansas law school, but returned home when his father died to help his grandfather run the family lumber business.

Having bought his first horses from a friend 22 years ago, Anthony dedicated himself almost totally to his two businesses, saying: “When I think of all the hours I’ve wasted playing golf, it makes me want to throw up.”

Now what he wants most out of life is one Kentucky Derby winner.

Or half of one.