Bob Lewis, 81; Business Owner Made a Late but Highly Successful Entry Into Horse Racing

Horse owner and philanthropist Bob Lewis, who won two Kentucky Derbys, three Preaknesses, a Belmont and several Breeders Cups, as well as the admiration of the entire racing industry, died Friday of heart failure at his home in Newport Beach. He was 81.

“He was a gracious guy, but it was more than that,” said Bob Baffert, who handled many of Lewis’ horses and trained Silver Charm to victories in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, the first two legs of racing’s Triple Crown, in 1997. “He was something unimaginable in our sport. Everybody rooted for him. There was never any jealousy about him. Never. I never heard anybody say a bad thing about Bob Lewis.”

D. Wayne Lukas, who shared much of Lewis’ racing stable with Baffert and gave Lewis a second shot at a Triple Crown with Charismatic in 1999, jokingly called Lewis a yes man.

“He would always say yes, and then ask what the question was,” Lukas said. “I would go to charity events with him, and you could see what an effect he had on people.”

Lewis’ first win, in 1990, was by the aptly named Sunshine Machine. To horse racing, a sport that has struggled financially and aesthetically, that first winner signified exactly what Lewis became in the next 16 years. A sunshine machine

Sherwood Chillingworth, director of the Oak Tree Racing Assn. at Santa Anita, said Lewis “would light up a room when he walked in.”

Santa Anita held a moment of silence on his behalf Friday and will have a special ceremony during its Presidents Day holiday card Monday.

A native of Minneapolis, Lewis was raised in Glendale and served in the Army during World War II.

He met his future wife, Beverly, when they were attending the University of Oregon in the mid-1940s. They honeymooned near Del Mar so they could go to the races.

Lewis, who shared all racing ownership and honors with his wife, was a relative newcomer to the business side of the sport. He had acquired sizable wealth through his ownership of several companies in the Pomona area, most notably Foothill Beverage, a Budweiser distributorship that he established in 1956 and sold back to the parent company in 2003.

One of his clients was Santa Anita racetrack, and so, while he wasn’t an active owner until 1990, he always was interested in horse racing.

As he parceled out more and more of his duties at Foothill Beverage to his son, Jeff, he looked to stay involved in something.

Quickly, he became a force in horse racing, owning a piece of a horse named Timber Country that won the 1994 Breeders Cup Juvenile and the ’95 Preakness.

More success came quickly after that, with Lewis horses -- mostly trained by two of the premier trainers in the game, Lukas and Baffert, and flying the green and gold colors of their alma mater, Oregon -- winning big races at a startling pace.

Besides Timber Country, Silver Charm and Charismatic -- the latter a cheap acquisition that had been run in two claiming races before winning the Kentucky Derby at 31-1 odds -- there was Belmont winner Commendable in 2000, two more Breeders cup winners in Orientate and Folklore, and Serena’s Song, for a while the winningest filly in the sport’s history. In 1998, Silver Charm won the $2 million Dubai Cup.

The Lewises won eight Eclipse Awards, horse racing’s annual awards for the best in the sport, one of which was presented to them as a couple for their service to the sport.

As successful as Lewis was in business and horse racing, he was equally generous.

Although he lived in Newport Beach, the bulk of his charity work was in the Pomona area, where his main business had been.

An initial donation by the Lewises led to a $12-million project at Pomona Valley Hospital that became the Bob and Beverly Lewis Cancer Center.

At Casa Colina Hospitals for Rehabilitation, also in Pomona, which has as part of its continuum of care a series of group homes for the developmentally disabled in the Claremont area, Lewis began a golf tournament 24 years ago, called the Padua Village Golf Classic. It has contributed nearly $4 million to that cause.

And when Casa Colina was in the final stages of construction of its new $70-million facility last year, Lewis quietly contributed a sizable gift.

“He was an angel when we needed one,” said Phil Loverso, chief executive of Casa Colina.

There are many stories of Lewis’ generosity and gracious nature.

Charismatic stumbled near the end of the Belmont in 1999 and broke his leg, giving the world the memorable moment of jockey Chris Antley on his knees, on the turf, cradling the horse’s leg in an attempt to avoid further damage.

That night, in what was to have been a victory party, Antley was inconsolable until Bob Lewis put his arm around him, spoke softly and convinced him that the horse would survive, which it did. But most memorable of all was Lewis’ decision, after Silver Charm won the Preakness in 1997, to take along to the Belmont, at his expense, 150 of his closest friends.

To do so, he chartered a Lockheed L-1011, had it painted with the Silver Charm emblem and reconfigured into first-class seats, and flew the entire group to New York City.

Rich Yocum, chief executive of Pomona Valley Hospital, was among those on the trip and recalled that experience Friday.

“Since then, I can’t fly,” Yocum said. “I can’t even go first-class. Everything else looks like steerage.”

In addition to his wife and son, Lewis is survived by another son, Jimmy, and a daughter, Nancy Schulze, as well as four grandchildren.

Visitation will be Wednesday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Todd Funeral Home in Pomona. The funeral will be Thursday at 11 a.m. at St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations to the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center Foundation.

*

Times staff writer Bob Mieszerski contributed to this report.