Life in Racing Cut Short : Death of European Trainer Hits Those Close to Home

The moment was so exhilarating that the well-bred Alex Scott forgot his English drawing-room manners.

When Sheikh Albadou, a 3-year-old colt, hit the wire three lengths ahead of Pleasant Tap in the 1991 Sprint Stakes, becoming the first European horse to win a Breeders’ Cup race on dirt, a euphoric Scott raced down from his box seat to track level at Churchill Downs, while shouting a salty anti-American epithet in the direction of trainer Wayne Lukas.

After Scott had recovered from winning his first major race on either side of the Atlantic Ocean, he apologized to the Lukas party.

“Alex was looking for people to hug after he won that one,” said Allen Kershaw, manager of Sheik Maktoum’s Gainsborough Farm near Versailles, Ky.

“His wife was back home, so he hugged my wife, Valerie. Then we had to put up with those expensive Cuban cigars the rest of the night. Those things would bring water to your eyes.”

The short, happy training career of hard-driven Alex Scott ended tragically on the night of Sept. 30. William (Clem) O’Brien, a groom whom Scott was about to discharge, reportedly arrived at Scott’s stud farm near Newmarket, England, and confronted the trainer. As the argument escalated, O’Brien allegedly struck Scott with the butt of a gun, knocking him to the ground. Then O’Brien allegedly fired one round into Scott’s chest.

Police officials, who have been able to piece together the rest of the ruckus, say O’Brien turned on Scott’s gardener, an apparent witness. The gardener fled and O’Brien ran into a wooded area, where bloodhounds were released later in the night.

Julia Scott, who lived at the farm with their three young children, heard the shot and rushed to her husband. The 34-year-old trainer died in her arms.

O’Brien, 57, was apprehended and is in custody, charged with the murder of Scott and the attempted murder of the gardener.

The argument with the groom apparently was over a yearling that Scott had consigned to an auction. When the yearling failed to sell, Scott was furious and blamed O’Brien for bringing the horse into the sales ring in poor condition.

“When O’Brien went home with the reality that Alex was going to sack him, it suddenly hit him,” said Neil Morrice, a British journalist. “He realized that at his age, it was probably going to be impossible for him to get another job in racing.”

Word of Scott’s death reverberated all the way to Santa Anita, where Scott had spent a winter several years ago.

“He came over to see what the differences were in how we run our stables,” said Rick Arthur, a California veterinarian. “He rode with me as I made my rounds for five or six weeks. He was very personable, much brighter than the average guy. . . . He was a fun guy to be around. Then I saw him in Newmarket after that. He was very well liked.”

Cbris Speckert, a Brit who settled in California about 15 years ago, met Scott at Santa Anita and got to know him better during Breeders’ Cup week at the Arcadia track in 1991. Speckert trained Pleasant Tap, who was unable to overtake Sheikh Albadou in the stretch.

“At Churchill, we were just a couple of English guys having fun together,” Speckert said. “I didn’t know it until then, but it turned out that my parents lived next door to about 2,000 acres that Alex’s father owned.”

Scott studied theology at Cambridge, but as a 15-year-old he had wanted to train horses. After college, he worked under several prominent English trainers, spending four years with Maj. Dick Hern.

In 1989, after Olivier Douieb became ill, Scott was hired by Sheik Maktoum.

That first year, Scott trained Cadeaux Genereux, a champion sprinter in England and France. Two years later, Scott won the Italian and Irish Oaks with Possessive Dancer.

The day Scott was killed, Kershaw talked to him on the phone.

“He said that he was having trouble with an employee,” Kershaw said. “He said he was probably going to have to go to lawyers to remove him. Then that night. . . . This is a tragic loss. In England, of all places, where attacks with guns are so rare. You can see something like this happening in South Central Kentucky, or in some areas of Los Angeles, but not over there.

“Alex was a man with tremendous energy, and he was always thinking positive. We used to kid him that he’d get our heart rates up just by being around him. When we’d send him our young horses, he wanted to know everything about them. Not many trainers would be as inquiring as he was. He didn’t want any surprises when he got the horses.”

Sheikh Albadou, who went off at 26-1, was owned by Hilal Salem, a Dubai businessman who is a friend of Sheik Maktoum.

The colt went into the Breeders’ Cup Sprint with a consistent record, three victories and three seconds in seven starts, but all the races were on the grass, and Housebuster, the best sprinter in the United States, was an overwhelming 2-5 favorite.

Housebuster clipped himself leaving the gate, possibly nicking an artery, because the blood from his leg sprayed all the way up to his chest. Nevertheless, he ran a courageous race, clinging to second place all the way around.

But he had been favoring the injured leg and he faded to 10th place, breaking down near the finish line.

Pat Eddery rode Sheikh Albadou.

“I was totally shocked when I heard about Alex,” he said recently. “We had been personal friends for years.”

Since Sheikh Albadou, Arazi, from France, has won a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and another French horse, Arcangues, was the most improbable winner of the Classic a year ago.

On Saturday, the speedy English mare, Lochsong, is dangerous in the Sprint while running on dirt for the first time, and an unprecedented total of six Europeans will also run on the main track in the Classic.

Alex Scott’s colt from three years ago has been their inspiration. That’s the legacy he has left for the Breeders’ Cup.