Gato Del Sol Trainer Gregson Is Found Dead

Trainer Eddie Gregson, who saddled longshot Gato Del Sol to win the Kentucky Derby in 1982, died of what police believed was a self-inflicted gunshot wound Sunday night at his office in South Pasadena.

The South Pasadena police, who said that Gregson’s body was discovered by his wife, Gail, at 9:45 p.m. Sunday, were treating the death as a suicide, pending an investigation.

“There’s nothing that would indicate foul play,” officer Matt Peterson said.

Peterson added that Gregson, 61, left “more than one” farewell note to his family, which includes adult twin daughters, Esme and Brooke.

Gregson’s wife told police her husband had been facing personal problems unrelated to his training.

“She knew he had been depressed and unhappy for some time,” police Sgt. Mark Miller said.

The death of the tall, affable Gregson stunned the racing community. He was still training a group of horses at Santa Anita and ran two of them Sunday at Hollywood Park, hours before his death.

Last month, Gregson was the high bidder on an unraced 2-year-old at a Pomona auction and was telling friends that this was the best crop of young horses he ever had.

“I’m totally shocked,” said Trudy McCaffery, one of the last people to see Gregson alive.

McCaffery, who, in a partnership with John Toffan, raced Free House--winner of the Santa Anita Derby and the Santa Anita Handicap--accompanied Gregson and his wife, Gail, to the barn after Gregson’s previously unraced filly, Street Cat, finished seventh in Sunday’s sixth race.

After looking in on Street Cat, Gregson drove his wife and McCaffery to the Gregsons’ home in South Pasadena, where McCaffery had left her car. After a short time, McCaffery said, Gregson told his wife that he was going to the office, which is about three miles from their house.

“That was nothing unusual,” McCaffery said. “Eddie liked to spend time there. He’d catch up on things, and even play bridge on his computer.”

After a while, McCaffery left Gail and drove home. Sometime after 9 p.m., Toffan received a call informing him of Gregson’s death.

“When John came in to tell me, I couldn’t believe it,” McCaffery said. “It’s such a tragedy.”

People in horse racing had no indication that Gregson was having any difficulty.

“My barn’s not far from his at Santa Anita,” said Noble Threewitt, the veteran trainer who knew Gregson since Gregson was 8. “I saw him every day, and Sunday morning he didn’t look to me like somebody who was depressed.”

Another survivor is Gregson’s sister, Patricia Millington, who lives in Idaho. There will be a memorial service at 11 a.m. Monday at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena.

Edwin Janss Gregson was little-known in the East when he brought Gato Del Sol, a gray son of the champion Cougar II, to Kentucky in 1982.

Gato Del Sol, who liked to run from far back, had won the Del Mar Futurity in September of 1981, then went on a seven-racing losing streak.

After a fourth-place finish in the Santa Anita Derby, Gregson wanted to give his colt four weeks before he ran in the Kentucky Derby, but Gato Del Sol’s owners, Arthur B. Hancock III and Leone Peters, preferred to run at Keeneland in the Blue Grass Stakes, only nine days before the Derby.

After Gato Del Sol ran second in the Blue Grass, Hancock and Peters wanted to hire Bill Shoemaker to ride their horse in the Derby, but Gregson fought to keep Eddie Delahoussaye.

Under Delahoussaye, Gato Del Sol, a 21-1 longshot, made up 16 lengths to win by 2 1/2 lengths. He won from the No. 18 post position in a 19-horse field, the first Derby winner to break from the auxiliary starting gate in 53 years.

“I thought we had a good chance,” Gregson said. “I had the soundest horse in the field, and I knew the big crowd wouldn’t bother him. You could fire off a cannon next to this horse, and he wouldn’t notice.”

Minutes after the Derby, Gregson said on national television that Gato Del Sol wouldn’t run two weeks later in the Preakness, the middle leg of the Triple Crown, and Hancock and Peters backed his decision.

Gato Del Sol’s plodding running style wasn’t conducive to Pimlico, where the Preakness is run, and Gregson wanted to rest him for the Triple Crown finale, the Belmont Stakes.

Chick Lang, the general manager at Pimlico, was furious. A Derby winner hadn’t skipped the Preakness since Tomy Lee in 1959.

For a couple of days, Lang put a mule in the Preakness barn, in the stall usually reserved for the Derby winner.

Three weeks after the Preakness, Gato Del Sol caught a sloppy track in the Belmont, and although he finished second, Conquistador Cielo beat him by 14 lengths.

After that, Gato Del Sol’s career went downhill. Racing until he was a 6-year-old, he won only four of 26 starts, finishing up in the barn of trainer Charlie Whittingham.

Gregson returned to the Derby only once, finishing eighth with Candi’s Gold in 1987.

In 1986, owner William J. Fleming was eager to run Icy Groom, second in the Santa Anita Derby and fourth in the Blue Grass, in the Kentucky Derby. Gregson didn’t think the colt could handle 1 1/4 miles and told Fleming to find another trainer. Sam Ramer took over as Icy Groom ran eighth in the Derby.

“That’s Eddie,” McCaffery said. “We used to say that he fired more owners than any trainer around. He didn’t train horses for the money or even the recognition. He did it because he loved what he was doing.”

Although as a young boy he spent summers on his grandfather’s 10,000-acre Conejo Ranch, where the 1954 Derby winner Determine was raised, Gregson took a while before settling in at the racetrack.

Enrolled in pre-law, he dropped out after two years of college, studied acting in New York, appeared in summer stock and landed a small part in the filming of Norman Mailer’s bestseller, “The Naked and the Dead.” Gregson played a soldier who died after being bitten by a snake.

There was a brief marriage to May Britt, the Swedish actress, after which Gregson returned to Stanford, where he graduated with a major in European history.

Gregson worked as a cowboy, made $30,000 speculating in cattle and then went to work at Threewitt’s barn.

His family, which helped develop Westwood Village, thought he would eventually turn to the real estate business, but Gregson, at 29, took a $60-a-week job as a groom with trainer Woody Stephens in New York. Before Gregson returned to California, Stephens gave him this advice: “Go someplace so small that they won’t notice your mistakes.”

Gregson worked in Northern California, training a division for Threewitt, before saddling his first stakes winner, Call Me Proper, in the Princess Stakes at Hollywood Park in 1975.

Besides Gato Del Sol, Gregson’s other top horses included Tsunami Slew, Super Diamond and Royal Chariot. Super Diamond won the Hollywood Gold Cup in 1986 and Royal Chariot won the Hollywood Turf Cup in 1995.

Gregson was also an industry leader. He was the current president of the California Thoroughbred Trainers Assn., secretary and a director of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Assn., and several years ago helped revitalize the floundering Del Mar yearling sale.

*

The Associated Press contributed to this story.