THOROUGHBRED RACING : Whitham’s Plane Crash Death Leaves a Major Void in Sport

The local racing community received its second jolt in as many days Thursday when word reached Hollywood Park that Frank Whitham, who raced the champion mare Bayakoa in 1989-90, had been killed in the crash of a private plane in West Kansas.

Shortly after a conversation on the Hollywood Park backstretch with trainer Wayne Lukas about the serious injuries suffered by Lukas’ son, Jeff, at Santa Anita on Wednesday, Ron McAnally took a phone call that told him about Whitham’s death. McAnally trained Bayakoa and other stakes winners for Whitham and his wife, Jan.

Whitham’s plane went down Wednesday, about 11 miles south of Goodland, Kan. The pilot and co-pilot also were killed and there were no survivors. According to the Associated Press in Kansas City, Mo., a report that Whitham’s accountant was aboard was erroneous. The plane had been en route from Scott City, Kan., to Glasgow, Mont., where Whitham was a partner in a 155,000-acre ranch and was to complete a land deal with the state Thursday.

McAnally said that a member of the Whitham family told him that the plane ran into bad weather.

Whitham, 62, had spent most of last week in Argentina with McAnally, buying several young horses and watching his recently acquired 4-year-old colt, Cleante, win a major race to virtually clinch horse-of-the-year honors in South America. The horse is expected to be shipped to McAnally in California in a few weeks.

“We talked about his new plane,” McAnally said. “Frank was telling me how much better it was than the plane he used to have. We talked about his pilot, too. Frank said that he had been with him for more than 15 years.”

Whitham, who lived in Leoti, Kan., was a wealthy man, having prospered in cattle, livestock feed and oil, and he owned several banks. But the only time his money showed was when it became necessary to write checks on behalf of his horses. Bayakoa wasn’t eligible for the Breeders’ Cup, because neither the mare nor her sire had been nominated for the series, so Whitham paid $200,000 twice so the Argentine-bred could run in the Distaff at Gulfstream Park in 1989 and at Belmont in 1990.

Winning was worth $450,000 each year.

“It wasn’t a very good gamble,” McAnally recalled Thursday. “But Frank wanted to prove to everybody that he had the best horse and a horse worthy of a championship, so he put it up.”

Bayakoa’s victory at Gulfstream was relatively easy, but at Belmont the next year Whitham’s mare and the heavily favored Go For Wand were in a furious stretch duel when Go For Wand’s leg snapped. In a sickening tableau, Bayakoa coasted to the wire by more than six lengths while Go For Wand, instinctively staggering to her feet after throwing her jockey, careened from from one rail to the other before finally collapsing. Bayakoa’s staunch rival was euthanized within minutes.

In the winner’s circle picture, Frank and Jan Whitham weren’t smiling as they accepted their trophy.

“Frank showed so much class that day,” McAnally said. “The whole thing was so bittersweet for all of us. He was a super low-key guy who was always very generous. It was hard to believe what I heard when I took that phone call.”

Bayakoa became the second horse to win Breeders’ Cup races in successive years. She also was voted best older filly or mare for 1989-90, becoming the first horse to win consecutive Eclipse Awards in that division.

In 1991, the goal was to break the earnings record for a distaffer, but Bayakoa, by then a 7-year-old, couldn’t sustain her top form and Whitham called off the chase after only three races. Bayakoa, who had been running since 1986 and for the Whithams since 1988, finished with 21 victories in 39 starts and purses totaling $2.8 million. In her title years, she was beaten only five times in 21 starts.

Another McAnally-trained horse that raced for Whitham in a partnership was Ibero, also an Argentine-bred, who won important stakes in New York and California this year.

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A spokeswoman for the Lukas stable said that Jeff Lukas remained in serious condition at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, where he was airlifted Wednesday after suffering multiple skull fractures while trying to stop a runaway horse in the barn area at Santa Anita.

“He is scheduled to have another CAT scan Friday,” a spokeswoman said. “His (internal) bleeding is minimal, and so is the swelling.”

Lukas, 36, has been an assistant trainer for his father since 1978. He has shared much of the responsibility for the horses that earned more than $125 million as the Lukas outfit won 10 consecutive national money titles starting in 1983.

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Kent Desormeaux’s roller-coaster year continues. Desormeaux is second nationally in purses, but 1993 has been a bumpy ride, and on Thursday the Hollywood Park stewards threw in another pothole, suspending the jockey for his ride on Yappy the day before. Yappy finished fourth in a five-horse race and was disqualified to last place because of interference.

Desormeaux’s suspension starts Saturday and covers the last two days of the Hollywood meeting, on Sunday and Monday, plus the first two days of the Santa Anita season, Dec. 26 and 28. It would have been worse for Desormeaux but for California’s designated-race rule, which allows jockeys under suspension to continue riding in important stakes. Making one-shot appearances both days, Desormeaux will be able to ride Private Persuasion on Saturday in the $250,000 Hollywood Starlet and Gracious Ghost in Sunday’s $500,000 Hollywood Futurity.

The suspension will, however, cost Desormeaux the mount on River Special, who is scheduled to run in the $100,000 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita on Dec. 26. The Malibu is not a stake that has been classified as a designated race by the stewards.

With $12.7 million in purses, Desormeaux ranks second to Mike Smith, a New York-based jockey, in the national standings. The Daily Racing Form, racing’s quasi-official record-keeper, recently added more than $600,000 to Desormeaux’s total, as the result of his second-place finish with Kotashaan in the Japanese Cup on Nov. 28. Desormeaux misjudged the finish line, perhaps costing Kotashaan a victory that would have moved the jockey past Smith in the standings. Smith’s total for races through last Sunday was $13.3 million.

Horse Racing Notes

Sardula, second to Phone Chatter by a head in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, drew the No. 4 post in a five-horse field for Saturday’s Hollywood Starlet. The race will be run at 1 1/16 miles, same distance as the Breeders’ Cup. Eddie Delahoussaye will ride Sardula. Others running, with jockeys, are Tricky Code, Corey Nakatani; Princess Mitterand, Chris McCarron; Private Persuasion, Kent Desormeaux; and Viz, Alex Solis. Princess Mitterand and Private Persuasion will be supplemented into the race at a cost of $12,500 apiece.

Brocco, who will be challenged by a small field in Sunday’s Hollywood Futurity, worked five furlongs in 59 1/5 seconds over a fast track at Hollywood Park on Thursday. That was the fastest time for 33 horses working that distance. . . . Randy Bradshaw, who used to work for Wayne Lukas, saddled the victorious Mississippi Darlin for his former boss Thursday. Lukas was at the hospital to be with his son Jeff. . . . Sandy Shulman saddled another winner Thursday, giving him a six-race lead in the trainers’ standings with four days to go. Shulman had two winners Wednesday, on his 57th birthday.