A Smile Fit for Sport of Kings

On Thursday afternoon about 2 o’clock, trainer Bob Baffert dialed the Newport Beach home of Bob and Beverly Lewis to tell them their horse, Point Of Impact, had just won the first race at Santa Anita.

“Beverly turned from the phone and told Bob,” Baffert recalled Friday. “She said he seemed to smile, seemed to understand.”

Almost exactly 12 hours later, Bob Lewis died, at 81, giving in to heart failure after several months of decreasingly effective kidney dialysis.

He leaves behind a loving family. And a sport that badly needed him.

Lewis was one of those people the rest of us wish we could be. When he came knocking to join the club in 1990, horse racing couldn’t believe its good fortune.

Here was somebody you couldn’t dislike even if they made a pill to help you. Horse racing, certainly as much as any other sport and maybe more, was full of egos and fast talkers and big thinkers with closed wallets.

Lewis was none of that. He was rich in more than his bank account.

He was fun, self-effacing, generous, tolerant, competitive while being a team player. He was so good for the sport that, at first, horse racing couldn’t believe what had landed in its lap.

Baffert said, “A question I used to get all the time was: ‘Are the Lewises really that nice?’ ”

In 16 years, Lewis bought lots of horses for lots of money, sold lots for even more and managed to walk that line between businessman and sportsman.

Wayne Lukas, speaking for himself and Lewis’ other main trainer, Baffert, said Friday, “He stepped back and let us do our job. You never went over there second-guessing yourself. Win, lose or draw, it was always, ‘OK, we’ll get ‘em next time.’ ”

Baffert said, “I’d always kid him about how loose and funny he was around race time. He always told me, ‘This is easy. I’m not doing the running.’ ”

Sportswriters called the Lewises “the couple from Camelot.” Racing official Tim Smith referred to Bob as “the cure for a bad mood.”

After Charismatic had won the 1999 Preakness, giving Lewis an unheard-of second shot at a Triple Crown in three years following Silver Charm’s run for it in ‘97, Lewis addressed the national media in the Pimlico press box and told them they had treated him and Beverly so kindly that he wanted them all, in the three weeks before the Belmont, to come to California and spend some time, get as much access to them as they wanted, get the stories and interviews they needed.

In this day and age of Barry Bonds and other reticent sports celebrities, those in attendance reacted in silence and shocked disbelief. In the next three weeks, Bob Lewis was seldom without the company of a sportswriter or sportscaster.

Eventually, the media members who came understood something even more stunning. Lewis wasn’t doing this for himself. He was doing it for his sport, and for them, so they could do their jobs better.

As racing struggled with decreasing attendance triggered by the sport’s willingness to let bettors wager from parlors in shopping centers, from tracks three time zones away, even from their own living rooms, its officials wrung their hands and cursed the gods. They had done it to themselves, and now they didn’t know how to undo it.

One idea was to get slot machines at tracks, so the revenue base would grow, along with the racing purses and racing quality.

But when The Times pursued the details of that push for legislative action, nobody in racing would step up and put his name behind it. Fingers pointed elsewhere, necks shrunk into collars. With no confirmation, there would be no story.

A call was made to Lewis, who heard the request, appraised the situation and said, “Hell yes. Put my name on it. Say that’s what we are doing and if it doesn’t get done someday soon, horse racing is in deep trouble.”

Lewis didn’t know how to be bitter, to be negative.

Twice, he had horses within several feet of winning a Triple Crown. Had both won, he would have been $10 million richer with the two bonuses that came with the deal. Twice, he spent the aftermath of the races consoling friends and making sure the planned victory party still felt like a party.

He laughed at sarcasm, understood it, but didn’t initiate it. His humor was more quick-hitting.

Baffert said he called recently, talked to the very ill Lewis at home, and told him how well he sounded.

“Nothing wrong with my vocal cords,” Lewis told him.

He gave millions to charities, from huge hospitals and huge universities to mom-and-pop golf tournaments. He gave a huge donation to a hospital recently and was told that they’d be glad to put his name over the front door. He was mystified.

“Why would they do that?” he asked.

The giving, for Lewis, was for purpose, not publicity.

Lewis’ son Jeff said Friday that the family, led by Beverly, would continue in the horse racing business.

Still, the booming voice will be gone, along with the firm handshake, the upbeat view of the world and the insatiable appetite for doing and seeing good things.

But one theory had it that the smile would stick around.

Friday, at Golden Gate Fields, a horse named Point Determined, owned by Bob and Beverly Lewis and trained by Baffert, won the seventh race. Track announcer Michael Wrona made the call:

“Point Determined. Point made. Bob would be beaming.”

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Times staff writer Bob Mieszerski contributed to this report.