Interview with Josephine Abercrombie, March 21, 2007

SMITH: Okay, we should be good.

KENNY: Uh, I'm Dan Kenny. This interview with Josephine Abercrombie was conducted on March 21, 2007. Uh, are we rolling?

SMITH: Yes.

KENNY: Okay, uh.

SMITH: We usually start off by asking your full name, when and where you were born.

ABERCROMBIE: Josephine Avalona Abercrombie, I was born in Kingston, Jamaica in the West Indies 1926.

KENNY: Well that kind of leads me in now to ask the first question. Born in Kingston, Jamaica? Uh, were your parents living in there? Was it uh?

ABERCROMBIE: My father was in Columbia drilling for oil and my, there were no good hospitals in Columbia at the time and of course Jamaica was an English colony and there were good hospitals there so he sent 00:01:00her to Kingston and that's where I was born.

KENNY: I'd always thought you were Texan.

ABERCROMBIE: Well, I lived in Texas all my life.

KENNY: Raised in Texas. Uh, I don't have a particular order and Kim I hope we can sort this out in the editing process but it's hard to know where to start with someone with your background particularly with your show jumping career. You dominated your field in Madison Square Garden.

ABERCROMBIE: I've got to correct you. It wasn't show jumping. It was Saddle Horses.

KENNY: Saddle Horses. Okay, forgive my ignorance. If it's not a Thoroughbred, I don't know much about it. (Abercrombie laughs) Uh and uh raising and racing and campaigning Thoroughbreds, standing Thoroughbred stallions. Uh, and civic affairs, supporting the arts, founding of the Lexington school, songwriter, ballroom dancer, boxing promoter and perhaps the most interesting on top of that is a, is a 00:02:00grower and marketer of asparagus which bring people from miles around. (Abercrombie laughs) I remember when I first came to Kentucky I met Harry Schmidt who was working for you at the time.

ABERCROMBIE: Right, right.

KENNY: I said, "Harry, what's so special about this asparagus?" He said, "Well, just come over on Saturday and you'll see." And the cars were lined up.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: It was at the other farm.

ABERCROMBIE: It was at the other farm.

KENNY: Right.

ABERCROMBIE: We didn't bring it over here because this soil isn't as conducive to raising asparagus as the one.

KENNY: Previous.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah. Because we're closer to rock here and the other land was much deeper.

KENNY: Uh hum. Well let's start with horses obviously that is the most current theme in your life and, and Pin Oak which dates back to the 1940's has always been very well known for racing lesser so as far as standing stallions but at the moment you have three stallions only.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: But all three very successful.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: Uh, let's start with Maria's Mon. Maria's Mon was a champion two year old, but because of his pedigree, they weren't exactly knocking the doors down to stand him at stud. What was it about him that made you want him as a Pin Oak Stud?

ABERCROMBIE: Well, Clifford and I went down to Florida to see some yearlings that we had down there and we know, knew Pug Hart who is a good friend of ours.

KENNY: Uh hum.

ABERCROMBIE: And he said, "Come here I want you to see this horse; a yearling I've got." So we went down there and took a look at it and he was a knockout. And just were crazy about him right from the get go. And then he went on and ran and did well and we followed him very carefully. And when he got done at the track we asked if we could buy an interest in him and stand him here. And they said, "Yes, we could." And we did that. And he has just been very successful for us. He's a wonderful horse, great disposition; he's so good looking and he gets 00:04:00such sound foals. I mean they are really grand looking things. So we're very happy that we have him and of course, he's gone on to be very successful.

KENNY: Well it's interesting and perhaps you can expound on it. Uh, Maria's Mon is I recall was considered a marginal prospect to be a top level stallion because of his pedigree.

ABERCROMIE: Right.

KENNY: Now it turns out you have a top level stallion and people are probably kicking them selves in retrospect. Was soundness part of the main attraction?

ABERCROMBIE: That was part of it, but he was just such a grand looking horse. I'd love to show him to you, but he's right out, out in the paddock right now. But he's a wonderful looking horse. He's beautifully balanced, sound, good bones. He's just what the doctor ordered. And that's what attracted us to him.

KENNY: Did you note the fact that he had no Mr. Prospecter blood, no 00:05:00Northern Dancer blood?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: He's a very useful outcross stallion.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: And that's what's interesting to me as a horseman that most of the stallions that go to stud now have concentrations of both of those stallions.

ABERCROMBIE: Right.

KENNY: And we don't have the outcross.

ABERCROMBIE: The outcross.

KENNY: Type of horse so uh it seems to be paying off.

ABERCROMBIE: It's been very important.

KENNY: And at seventy-five hundred I know he was considered a bargain the first year at stud and now he's sixty thousand.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. And will probably go up.

KENNY: Now he's already sired a Derby winner in Monarchos from the racing side at Pin Oak. What race that you haven't won would be the one race you would want to win in your colors?

ABERCROMBIE: In our colors?

KENNY: Right.

ABERCROMBIE: Of course everybody wants to win the Derby. Everybody wants that. We haven't but won it, but we of course would love to win 00:06:00the Derby. Uh, I don't know, there are just plenty of them out there that we haven't won that we would like to win.

KENNY: What would you consider your number one racing victory to date?

ABERCROMBIE: I guess the Molson Mile in Canada.

KENNY: The million dollar race in Canada?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah. The million-dollar -- the Molson Race in Canada.

KENNY: Uh, one of the reasons you only have three stallions now at Pin Oak is that Peaks and Valleys.

ABERCROMBIE: Gone to Canada.

KENNY: Is up in Canada.

ABERCROMBIE: And he's number one in Canada right now.

KENNY: And I know the Canadians are thrilled to have him.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: He's the type of stallion they have been looking for up there.

ABERCROMBIE: Right.

KENNY: What led to that decision? He was doing well enough in Kentucky.

ABERCROMBIE: He wasn't doing as well as we hoped and so we figured that they knew him so well in Canada and he was such a star up there that he would really be a popular commodity. So that's why we sent him up 00:07:00there and it's worked out well for us.

KENNY: Do you continue to breed to him?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes we do.

KENNY: And send mares to Canada?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes we do.

KENNY: Do you foal them as Canadian breds or bring them home?

ABERCROMBIE: No. We bring them home.

KENNY: I see. And there again, there's another stallion that doesn't have any Mr. Prospector or.

ABERCROMBIE: No.

KENNY: Northern Dancer so you have the ability to breed almost any type of mare.

ABERCROMBIE: Right.

KENNY: Another interesting thing to my mind in your stallion selection is that you've got probably in Nijinsky most successful American horse in Sky Classic and Broken Vale, your brilliant young stallion, is that of a mare by Nijinsky.

ABERCROMBIE: Right.

KENNY: Nijinsky hasn't bred on the way people hoped he had at least in this country per little bit in Europe, but not really here. What is it that you saw in those two stallions that led you to bring them to Pin Oak?

ABERCROMBIE: Well, Sky Classic is such a good looking horse and of 00:08:00course, you know, he's from Canada.

KENNY: Right.

ABERCROMBIE: And we saw him up there because we race up there quite a bit. And we saw him up there and we really liked him and of course the pedigree was one that, we liked Nijinsky and that's what led us to bring him down here and he was very successful up there as you know.

KENNY: Do you have a particular breeding theory or philosophy that has enabled you to develop these successful stallions?

ABERCROMBIE: Not really. I am not terribly good at that, the pedigree end of it. Clifford is excellent.

KENNY: Clifford Barry your farm manager?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. And he's, he's the one that sort of leads the way in that department. We both sit down and make out our pedigree and breeding schedules, but I almost always go with him because he's much 00:09:00better at it than I am. So he, he knows pedigrees better than I do and he has a great memory. I don't.

KENNY: He brings the European outlook to which is sometimes different than what the American breeders look for.

ABERCROMBIE: True. But he, he--yes, but that sort of faded into the background with him. He's right here now.

KENNY: He's part Yankee now?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, yeah.

KENNY: Okay. You've been very generous in giving him a lot of credit for the resurgence of Pin Oak.

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, he's wonderful. He's wonderful.

KENNY: How long has he been your manager?

ABERCROMBIE: I think about twenty two or three years. Uh, he worked for us before at the old farm.

KENNY: I see.

ABERCROMBIE: You know in the barns.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: And I'll tell you a little story, Joe Osborne, who was my farm manager at the time and what's his name, Michael Osborne's son?

KENNY: Right.

ABERCROMBIE: Michael is a friend of mine. Joe is great and he was doing a very good job here and he and I got along real well and you know we 00:10:00had a good relationship going there. One day he came to me and said, Ms. Abercrombie said, "Ms. Abercrombie I'm sorry to tell you this but I have to leave." I said, "Joe you can't go. What am I going to do without you? I can't run this farm without you. You've got to stay." He said, "Well I can't, my father wants me home and I've got to go." I said, "What am I going to do." He said, "Well, you've got Clifford down there." I said, "Clifford is a groom he can't take your job." He said, "You just give him a chance." So Clifford came to work in that job and after a month or two, I called up Joe and I said, "This isn't working. I can't do this. I can't do this with Clifford. It's just not working." He said, "Give him some time, just give him some time Ms. Abercrombie, just take it easy. So I took it easy for another three months and called Joe back and said, "You were so right. This guy is terrific."

KENNY: Really?

ABERCROMBIE: And he's just been wonderful.

KENNY: What made the difference in that early stage?

ABERCROMBIE: My getting to understand his way of operating. I just 00:11:00didn't understand it. It was uh, you know he's from Ireland and he did things a little bit differently. But once I understood what he was doing and the direction he was going, it made all the sense in the world and we are, we are a good team now. He's great.

KENNY: Would it be correct to say that Pin Oaks breeding and racing program right now is as successful as it's ever been?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: It seems like you're at your peak.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. I think so.

KENNY: Uh hum.

ABERCROMBIE: I think so.

KENNY: How do you account for that?

ABERCROMBIE: Well again, Clifford, his understanding the breeding and he study's it very diligently. We have some outside help of course. You know we get input from two or three breeding specialists. And we put it all together with what we think and I think that's what's pulled it together. And, and its working.

KENNY: It appears that you've not joined in with the rest of the 00:12:00breeding farms which have almost unlimited numbers in their stallions books upwards of 200 in some of them.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: What's the range that you like to do in terms of breeding books?

ABERCROMBIE: We'll go we'll maybe go140. That being said, you don't always get 140 and we usually like about 120 is what we would usually like and that's where you pretty well end up if you go with that number. And that's what we like about 120.

KENNY: Do you find that your stallions are benefiting from it like in terms of longevity, lets say?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: And fertility?

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, yes. Look at Sky Classic. He's not a kid.

KENNY: Right. Still going strong.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: Do you still breed to him yourself?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes, we do. Occasionally, we don't breed a lot of our mares to our own stallions. I'll tell you what we do. We breed to 00:13:00outside stallions and stallions that fit the pedigree and the mare and so forth. We will go to the sale and buy yearlings by those stallions. We'll buy--

KENNY: To support them in the market place?

ABERCROMBIE: To support them in the market place. We won't buy more than one from each stallion say three yearlings a year by those stallions. And that's what we do as far as.

KENNY: One change that I noticed lately is that Pin Oak horses will show up at the Keeneland sales, you'll take x number of mares.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: And make them available. Now the last couple of years the public's been extremely spirited in the bidding on those.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: They're considered rare items. You don't get a Pin Oak mare any other way.

ABERCROMBIE: Well, we as we bring fillies back from the track like Alternate. She's been very successful. See how she runs. You know 00:14:00fillies like that come back from the races. We have to make room for them because we are not going to go over 42 mares. That's what we have and we are not going to go over that. We made a decision a long time ago that was all we wanted to do. And so in order to bring them in and keep that number where it's meant to be, we sell. So if we have a family like for instance, Strike A Balance, we've got lots of that family so we'll sell something from that family that we have lots more of. And that's what we do.

KENNY: Getting back to uh your decision not to necessarily breed only on the farm stallions that was uh Tessio's theory as well.

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, really.

KENNY: He said the one reason he sent Nearco to England was because he didn't want to be tempted to breed to him just because he was in Italy.

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, hum.

KENNY: He says, "A mare has to be worth putting on a boat back in those 00:15:00days."

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: And take the long trip to England he said, "You should never breed to your stallion just because it's your own stallion."

ABERCROMBIE: That's very interesting that he said that.

KENNY: And he, of course, was successful beyond the imagination.

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, yeah right.

KENNY: And I've advised a number of people over the years John Franks and some others who bred and I said, "You can't just breed on the farm. Breed the cheaper mares on the farm, but the ones that merit it should go to whoever the stallion is that suits them best."

ABERCROMBIE: Right. I agree with that.

KENNY: Uh, and it's beginning to seem to me that at least that less is more in operating and racing and breeding farm. If you don't cull pretty soon, you're over run with daughters and granddaughters.

ABERCROMBIE: That's true.

KENNY: You hardly know where to begin.

ABERCROMBIE: That's true.

KENNY: After that uh in one of the clippings from the Keeneland Library it mentions you coming back from having run second in a grade one in England. Uh, Steve Cauthen beat you. I think it was the St. Leger.

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, huh.

KENNY: And the article that described the situation where you uh in your 00:16:00hometown of Houston decided to become a boxing promoter. (Abercrombie laughs) And the great boxing writer Barney Negler kind of detailed the whole story so at that time you were racing in England and France having uh a new uh project in the boxing. How did you manage all of that at the same time? You had a farm in Kentucky, horses racing all over the world and in addition to that, the boxing?

ABERCROMBIE: Of course I had a good farm manager that was very important and uh and in those days I didn't live here. I just came back and forth.

KENNY: I see. From Houston?

ABERCROMBIE: From Houston.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: And so I spent a lot of time obviously in Houston and I was at a basketball game one night in Houston. I love basketball. And I 00:17:00was in somebody's box. They had one of those sky boxes.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: And we were all watching the game and I saw the television was on to a boxing program and there was a young man standing over there watching the boxing and I went over to watch as well and we got talking and uh I said, "What's your interest in boxing?" And he said, "Well I've always been a fan of it and I just love boxing." He said, "I boxed when I was younger and I love to box, love the sport." And I said, "Well, what do you do?" And he was an accountant for some big firm down there. And we got talking and we decided to get a boxing stable together and he said, "Do you know any of the managers here?" I said, "No." He said, "I'll take you around and introduce you to them." And we picked somebody out, hired him, got some young guys in there and started our boxing game. And did ----------(??).

KENNY: You ended up with the world's champion.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. Frank Tate.

KENNY: Frank Tate? Now, how did you find him and how did you manage his career to become a champion?

ABERCROMBIE: Well uh, he wasn't a world champion when we had him. He became that later.

KENNY: Later.

ABERCROMBIE: But he, well he was practically a world champion. We took him over to England and he beat the guy over there. Uh, I can't remember how we got all those people uh, the young man. I'll think of his name in a minute.

KENNY: Sure.

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, was the one who found them and he would say, "Well I think this one is good." And he'd bring them in and we'd look at them and decide. Yes or no. And we got a stable together and we, we were quite successful. We did well.

KENNY: How long did that last? How many years?

ABERCROMBIE: About six or seven years.

KENNY: And did you feel like it was successful? And it was just time to 00:19:00move on or was it uh.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. And there was some other reasons, but uh.

KENNY: There was some uh Bob Arem quotes and Don King quotes. And the King was complimentary of you. Bob Arem, the other major promoter at the time, wasn't.

ABERCROMBIE: No. He was not a very nice person. (both laugh) But uh, --(laughs)-- but we had we had a lot of fun doing it. But finally, we learned some things about it that we didn't like. And I decided to get out of it.

KENNY: Yeah. It's pretty tough.

ABERCROMBIE: Tough.

KENNY: Pretty tough at the best of times.

ABERCROMBIE: Right.

KENNY: Uh, I'll tell you a funny story later that we don't have time for ----------(??). (laughs)

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah. I'll tell you one too. (laughs)

KENNY: Uh, actually you had a boxing match at Saratoga. That's where your two worlds met.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: What do you remember about that?

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, I was hoping it would you know be really successful but 00:20:00it wasn't (laughs) very successful.

KENNY: Was it held at the race course?

ABERCROMBIE: No.

KENNY: In an auditorium?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes, in, in town. And it didn't draw the people that we thought it would.

KENNY: What did your friends think? Your racing friends, your society friends?

ABERCROMBIE: Uh.

KENNY: Did they support you? Did they show up or did they ----------(??)?

ABERCROMBIE: Some of them did. They didn't all.

KENNY: Uh, huh. It might have been just too distant the world --------- -(??).

ABERCROMBIE: It was. It was totally different from the racing world.

KENNY: When did you begin to live full time at Pin Oak in Kentucky?

ABERCROMBIE: Twenty-three years ago here on this farm.

KENNY: Now there's been, if correct me if I'm wrong, three farms that were Pin Oak or ----------(??).

ABERCROMBIE: No.

KENNY: Just two?

ABERCROMBIE: Two.

KENNY: Two.

KENNY: So why don't we talk about that uh maybe backtrack now towards the beginning. Uh, your father and yourself were partners?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. When you say three, there was one in Houston, if you 00:21:00want to count that, but I mean here.

KENNY: I was thinking Kentucky.

ABERCROMBIE: No, just two here in Kentucky.

KENNY: Okay. And at some point, after your father's death, the farm was inherited by your sons.

ABERCROMBIE: I gave it to my sons. I traded it for an old piece of property in Texas that they had and I wanted them to have the farm but they really didn't want it.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: And uh, there was a little complication there, which we don't need to go into. But at any rate, they sold it and that is what brought me here to this farm.

KENNY: And was that the property bought by Allen Paulson? When your son sold it? Was it through Allen Paulson? Do I have that story right?

ABERCROMBIE: I maybe, yeah.

KENNY: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what I got out of the notes here.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. And then he sold it ----------(??).

KENNY: And then later on, the University of Kentucky owned it.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah. Yeah.

KENNY: And there was a bit of controversy there about Louie Nunn living there.

ABERCROMBIE: That's right. Yeah.

KENNY: Although I didn't really understand why it was such a big deal. 00:22:00And that's its interesting that the Louie Nunn Library is going to be the home of the work that we're doing. Well, let's go back then to a as a young girl; how did you get introduced to the horse world? And maybe just kind of take it from your earliest memories on through the triumphs in Madison Square Garden. That must have been quite a quite a ride.

ABERCROMBIE: It was. I grew up on a horse. My father loved horses and he had a ranch in west Texas. And I'd go out there with him and I'd ride Quarter Horses with him and herd cattle and do all that stuff from the time I was six. And then uh, I loved to ride so much, loved horses and I wanted one of my own and he said, "Okay, what do you want?" I would ride horses. [dog barking] I would ride you know horses that, 00:23:00just horses that we'd rent you know in the stables. And the, finally there was a polo pony at the stable and I liked the polo pony so much and I rode her a lot and her name was Lomita(??) and I rode her all the time. I was just six at the time and there was a fire there and they got her out and they were holding her and somebody turned around and she broke loose and ran back into the barn and was killed. Isn't that horrible?

KENNY: Yeah.

ABERCROMBIE: And it just broke my heart. I was a wreck. And my father then started buying me, bought me another horse and it was a show horse. A Saddle Horse, so I started there riding Saddle Horses when I 00:24:00was just a child.

KENNY: Taking lessons too.

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, yes.

KENNY: Yeah.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. And he had a bought a piece of property right outside Houston and he named it Pin Oak because he loved pin oak trees. And he called up the landscape place and said he wanted pin oak trees planted all over the farm so they went out and planted trees all over the farm. Somebody came from New York one time and looked at it and said there's not a pin oak on here. Those are all water oaks.

KENNY: Really. (both laugh)

ABERCROMBIE: But uh.

KENNY: Was your dad still alive at the time?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, oh, yeah.

KENNY: Did he know?

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, sure, sure he was. But uh, when we bought this farm we planted pin oaks on this farm so there are plenty of them around. But uh, he built a barn there for me, and hired a trainer, and we bought some Saddle Horses and I showed all over the country. I had a 00:25:00very good horse trainer there at the time. And I had Saddle Horses and harness show ponies, and Hackneys and I drove and all that stuff. And uh, we showed all over the country. We went to California, we went to Louisville, we went here, we went to New York. We went everywhere and showed all over the country and were quite successful. We had a very good trainer and it worked out very well so I had a lot of fun.

SMITH: Who was the trainer?

ABERCROMBIE: Hm?

SMITH: Who was the trainer?

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, Harry Lathrop was his name. He's excellent.

KENNY: With all that traveling, were you home schooled? Or were you just.

ABERCROMBIE: No, no, no, no, no, no.

KENNY: Or did you just leave school for the event?

ABERCROMBIE: No.

KENNY: And come back?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. I went to.

KENNY: Was your father a horseman? Did he enjoy horses?

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, he I was telling you he rode at the ranch all the time.

KENNY: Yeah. I'm sorry I didn't know whether he did anything off the 00:26:00ranch in terms of competition or anything.

ABERCROMBIE: No, oh, no, no, no, he never did anything.

KENNY: Now was his big success in the oil business through drilling or through was an invention alluded to?

ABERCROMBIE: He invented the blowout preventer which is used on all the oil wells in the world.

KENNY: He had the patent on it?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, he invented it. And I have a picture of him with a guy named Harry Cameron and Harry Cameron had a tool shop, wasn't any bigger than this room if that big. I have a picture and my father had him make tools for the, for the oil business for him. And when he invented the blowout preventer he went in there and there was a dirt floor and he drew out the blowout preventer with a stick on the dirt floor.

KENNY: Really?

ABERCROMBIE: And Harry Cameron made it for him and that, then, of course, he bought the shop and all that stuff. And it became Cameron Iron Works, one of the biggest oil tool company's in the country. And 00:27:00he invented a lot of other oil tool products as well. But the blow out preventer was the big one.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: But he, he was he drilled. That was his game. He had been in the business since he was a child. He only went to the sixth grade and dropped out of school and went into the oil fields.

KENNY: So exploration was his main thing.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: Besides the invention.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: You mentioned he was drilling in Columbia. What other countries would he have been drilling in?

ABERCROMBIE: I don't really think there were any other countries that I can remember but he drilled all over Texas and ah.

KENNY: I guess in those days you didn't need any other countries when you have.

ABERCROMBIE: I know.

KENNY: East Texas fields.

ABERCROMBIE: That's right.

KENNY: When first came on.

ABERCROMBIE: And I'm trying to think of the name of the field he discovered is famous. But my memory is terrible.

KENNY: Would that be in that Beaumont area?

ABERCROMBIE: No. It was.

KENNY: Or more the Midland?

ABERCROMBIE: No. It was, it was in the western part of Texas.

KENNY: I see.

ABERCROMBIE: I don't mean way west.

KENNY: Right.

ABERCROMBIE: But west of Houston.

KENNY: Okay. Yeah, I spent enough time down there I have a kind of vague sense of Louisiana.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: And Texas fields.

ABERCROMBIE: He's drilled in Louisiana too. He drilled off the.

KENNY: Off shore?

ABERCROMBIE: Off shore in Louisiana. That's where he met my mother.

KENNY: Oh, is that right?

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, huh.

KENNY: I read where she was from Lake Charles.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, that's where he met her.

KENNY: How did they meet? Do you know?

ABERCROMBIE: Oh sure, I know. He was drilling and my mother had a good friend named Miss Mickey, Emma Mickey and she owned the Majestic Hotel which was the only hotel in Lake Charles and that's where my father would stay when he was down there drilling. And one day he was on the front porch; they had a big porch that went all the way around the Majestic Hotel. And he was on the porch and my mother was out there sitting in the swing and they got talking and they got married.

KENNY: Sounds like a Broadway musical. (laughs)

ABERCROMBIE: It really was. It really was. And they stayed married their whole lives and it was a wonderful relationship. They were very happy together and they were great parents. I can't tell you how wonderful they were.

KENNY: Were you an only child?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. And they moved to Houston and they lived in the Warwick Hotel when they first moved there. And I lived there for eleven years in the Warwick Hotel. And I was a very naughty girl. I'd go around with friends. We'd do terrible things to the people that lived there like stick notes under their door. You know. (laughs)

KENNY: Oh, really (laughs) for entertainment?

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, yeah. And then they moved out to River Oaks which is the residential area in Houston and they moved out there and that's where we lived. That's where I grew up, really.

KENNY: How long did the competition go on the Madison Square Garden 00:30:00type? How long did you do that?

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, till I was in my thirties until I had children.

KENNY: You'd had enough by then?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

KENNY: I see. How about the introduction of Thoroughbreds into your life? Then would that have occurred about the same time when you were done showing? Did you say, "Well I'm done with that now, I'll do Thoroughbreds?"

ABERCROMBIE: No. But I'll tell you how it happened. It was really funny. My father and my uncle, my uncle liked Quarter Horses and he had Quarter Horses and they raced them and what not. [dog enters room] Uh, don't, you dont' want to let him out. And my uncle was crazy about Quarter Horses. He and my father sort of messed around with the quarter horses a little bit and so my uncle said, "I'd like to get into the Thoroughbred business let's go in together," to my father. 00:31:00My father said, "Okay" and they asked me if I wanted to come with them and I said, "Yes, I would love to." I will never forget. We were here at the sale, Keeneland sale and my father always wears a cowboy hat, a Stetson. It wasn't a cowboy hat, it was a Stetson and this hotel room downtown my father, my uncle, and another guy Smith ----------(??) and we and tried to buy some yearlings and weren't successful and we didn't bid enough. So they were all talking about it they said, "We gotta get some horses here, we're just wasting time". And my father tilted his hat back on his head and said, "Boys we gotta raise the ante," and so he raised the ante and we bought a horse for $50,000 which at the time was enormous.

KENNY: This would be?

ABERCROMBIE: Huge back then.

KENNY: Late 40's early 50's?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: There abouts.

ABERCROMBIE: Late 40's I guess, yeah.

KENNY: Yeah, that very was serious money.

ABERCROMBIE: That was serious money at the time. But they bought a yearling. I think it was it might even have been Roman Patrol anyway, they bought some horses and yearlings and they were successful with them and then finally my father said, in 1949, he said, "You know I think we oughta start breeding, you know, get some broodmares and breed these horses buy a farm and everything". So that's what he did. He bought that farm down there and wasn't nearly as successful after he started breeding. You know, buying them out of a yearling sale that's a different ballgame.

KENNY: Right. Yeah, breeding takes a long time to learn.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah. So we didn't do as well, but it was still a lot of fun and we enjoyed it. We still bought yearlings.

KENNY: Was it a hobby at the time? Would you describe it or?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, for him, yeah of course it was. And I got fascinated with it and I spent a lot of time up here, built the house down there 00:33:00on the farm. And spent a lot of time here and just loved it, of course, I loved horses so it was an easy transformation.

KENNY: When did you begin to operate on your own?

ABERCROMBIE: After he died. No, it was before he died. I can't really separate it all. It's all kind of flowing together, but no, it might have been after he died.

KENNY: I see.

ABERCROMBIE: And he left that farm to me. I gave it to the kids. They sold it. I bought this place. I'm trying to put it together, but.

KENNY: Well let's uh, let's maybe uh the thought I was formulating. What's your earliest memory of your first good horse or when you kind 00:34:00of improved from what you had been doing? When did you kind of go this is a good one?

ABERCROMBIE: I can't remember. It's probably out there on the wall somewhere.

KENNY: Well, I was looking at some of them, some of them I remember. I remember Mr. Washington.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: There was one that began with an "A" anyhow a lot of times when people have had a lot of horses for a long time, they can't pick one horse out because.

ABERCROMBIE: Well, I can't I mean I don't but I think Mr. Washington probably was one of the first.

KENNY: Very, very fast horse.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: And then I remember Elevation and the reason I remember Elevation was Dr. Jack Woolsey out in California had Raise-Your-Skirts who was by Elevation.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

KENNY: And I actually bought a horse from Pin Oak was a big Bold Bidder horse that Charlie Whittingham had that Jack Woolsey told me was going to be sold because he was a five year old ----------(??).

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: You had no use for him, just trying to remember his name. He ended up in Canada as a stallion. Now having said that somebody usually at some point somebody will say, "This might not have been my best horse, but I liked him a lot for some reason." Did they ever have a particular favorite may not have been the great one horse or anything but?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah. But I'm really having trouble getting that together. Could we stop this for a minute and let me go look at the?

KENNY: I tell you what, why don't we just keep on and we can add to it at the end.

ABERCROMBIE: If you don't mind.

KENNY: Believe me I'm sympathetic to that. I'm the same way.

ABERCROMBIE: Listen, at this age.

KENNY: Somebody asked me the other day the name of my own mare and it took me a half hour to remember it (laughs).

ABERCROMBIE: (laughs) I'm hopeless, I'm just hopeless.

KENNY: Well you've had a lot of horses over the time. I'm not surprised, it's hard. Well let's kind of again get back to some of the things about your stallions. As I drove up to the farm I know I hadn't 00:36:00been here in day light hours for quite some time. I didn't realize you had turf gallops.

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, hum.

KENNY: And nice uphill. That's certainly the European type of, way of training. Is that something you had before on the other farm or was that just designed here?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes, we had it on the other farm as well. We've always used the turf as a training area.

KENNY: And would the horses just train on the turf occasionally or would you have some horses that you have them on the turf 100% of the time or the majority of the time?

ABERCROMBIE: Well, yeah on the other farm we trained on the turf quite a lot. Here we do occasionally, not constantly, but occasionally, and as, as, when we break them we have them on the turf quite a bit, of course, we had the dirt track as well. It's 5/8ths of a mile and they 00:37:00learned to gallop on the turns and all that stuff and, and they do the grass track as well.

KENNY: What's your feeling about the new polytrack that came --------- -(??)?

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, I think it's wonderful. I really, really have a lot of hope for it. I think it's an answer to soundness problems.

KENNY: To get back to Peaks and Valleys they had polytrack at the Woodbine.

ABERCROMBIE: In Canada, yes.

KENNY: Was that a particular part of an incentive to send him up there?

ABERCOMBIE: Not really, no not really but.

KENNY: You'd already made that decision before they had a polytrack.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes, yes.

KENNY: Is see; and how involved do you get in the training still? Do you like to get up and go out and watch them train?

ABERCROMBIE: I do. I'm not as active as I used to be. I've gotten at this age. I like to sleep in the morning. (Kenny laughs) But like for this afternoon tonight at 7:30 we take off and go to South Carolina. 00:38:00I'll get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning and get breakfast and dressed and go out to the training center and be there by no later than 6:30.

KENNY: Do you keep a barn in Camden or ----------(??)?

ABERCROMBIE: No, we go to a place called Holly Hill. And it's Jane Dunn.

KENNY: Right.

ABERCROMBIE: And she's wonderful. She does Claiborne and a whole bunch of people around here. She's wonderful. She has a wonderful track, training center and the whole nine yards. She has grass, everything.

KENNY: Do you send all the two year olds there?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. And we're going tonight so we can get up at the crack of dawn.

KENNY: Well good, I'm glad we were able to catch you in between trips.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, right.

KENNY: I love the, the Carolinas.

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, it's great there.

KENNY: That's just a great spot.

ABERCROMBIE: It's really good. The weather is good. It's just wonderful. We love to be there.

KENNY: Since you were raised in Texas I would like your opinion on the thing that puzzled me, Texas had pari- mutual racing up until the 30's 00:39:00and it was outlawed.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

KENNY: And then it took years and years to get racing legal again but it hasn't been successful. Why so?

ABERCROMBIE: Well I think it has Dallas just by Houston. I don't know. There's a lot to do in Houston a lot of activities and things to do and the people just haven't got attracted to the horse business. I don't think they're as interested in horses in Houston as they are in Dallas. And Lone Star has been successful. And it's a wonderful track. I like it there.

KENNY: Do you race there?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes, sometimes not a lot, but sometimes. We have some horses in Okalahoma and they'll go to.

KENNY: Right, with Von Hemel.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: He's been with you quite awhile.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, he's great.

KENNY: And who are your major trainers?

ABERCROMBIE: Donnie, Von Hemel, uh Graham Motion, Malcolm Pierce, oh 00:40:00gosh, from Chicago, Stidham, Mike Stidham.

KENNY: You give a lot of young trainers a chance.

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, huh.

KENNY: Malcolm is a good friend of mine.

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, I'm crazy about Malcolm.

KENNY: And Graham I think the world of. I think he's.

ABERCROMBIE: Terrific guy.

KENNY: He's going to be like the next Jonathan Shepherd who's the way his career looks like.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, he's a super guy. We like him so much. We've been with him a long time.

KENNY: Yeah, your getting good results?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. He had Broken Vow.

KENNY: Is that right? Yeah, yeah. That was probably his first good horse.

ABERCROMBIE: Well I don't know. He might have had something before that. You know I think he had something before that.

KENNY: Yeah. What horses by Broken Vow do you have in your racing stable now? Do you have any?

ABERCROMBIE: I'd have to get my book out and see.

KENNY: Okay.

ABERCROMBIE: And tell you. I can do that later.

KENNY: Sure. Another note I had which I had never heard before was 00:41:00that Mattress Mack, James ----------(??) from (laughs) Houston he was partners in the boxing with you for awhile in one of these articles. No?

ABERCROMBIE: No.

KENNY: Okay, he must be some character that fellow.

ABERCROMBIE: He is.

KENNY: Well let's shift off the horses for a while. Some of your other civic endeavors here in Lexington, the Sky Classic series I was lucky enough to go to some of those music shows at U.K. that you had sponsored.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, yeah.

KENNY: And before that I was interested to learn that you founded the Lexington School.

ABERCROMBIE: I did.

KENNY: And they showed a picture of W. T. Young, Jr. was the valedictorian at the first class.

ABERCROMBIE: Right, right.

KENNY: I thought that was interesting. Why don't you tell us about that founding of the Lexington School.

ABERCROMBIE: Well my father said to me, he said, "you've been blessed in your life. You've had a lot of fortunate things happen for you and you 00:42:00need to give something back. You think about what you want to do and I'll help you." So I thought. It took me a couple of years but I came up with the idea of starting a school because I thought education was the most important thing you could give to the children and we founded the Lexington School.

KENNY: Are you still involved with it?

ABERCROMBIE: Well I'm a board member emeritus but you know that kind of thing. But yeah, I go to their functions.

KENNY: Well it's grown to be a big success. You must feel proud of that.

ABERCROMBIE: Yes, yeah. I feel very proud of it, very proud of it. And Chuck Baldecchi has done a wonderful job as headmaster. No, I'm very pleased and happy with the results.

KENNY: In the early days getting it started, were you actively involved?

ABERCROMBIE: (laughs) Oh yeah, very, very actively involved and we only had I think 30 or 40 well not even 40, 30, 20 or 30 kids there when 00:43:00we opened it. It was tiny. It wasn't as big as this office. It was a tiny little building. And it just grew and grew. And got better and better and we were very careful about the teachers we hired and the headmaster his name escapes me but the first headmaster there was a great guy. It, it just evolved and turned into a very successful school.

SMITH: Alice Chandler was telling me her children went there that her father was involved. Is that correct?

ABERCROMBIE: With the Lexington School? He probably was. I don't know exactly. I'm sure he helped finance some stuff and things like that.

KENNY: On a lighter note, how did Pin Oak, this internationally well known racing and breeding outfit get to be known far and wide for producing asparagus?

ABERCROMBIE: (laughs) Well, there was a guy that worked on the farm and he grew asparagus on the farm he lived there and he grew asparagus on the farm for me to eat. It was so good. I decided I'd market it, so we did, we marketed it and it became very successful. It was the perfect place to grown asparagus. The soil is so deep and that soil down there is really good. They say it's the best in the country, you know. I don't mean just that farm that strip.

KENNY: The whole region?

ABERCROMBIE: The whole region.

KENNY: Is that the maury loam?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, I guess. And this isn't, I mean it's good, it's really good but it's too close to rock to grow asparagus, great for grass, but not for asparagus. And they tell me, I don't know anything about this, but this is what I've heard that being that close to rock is really great because it puts a lot of minerals and stuff.

KENNY: Calcium and trace minerals?

ABERCROMBIE: Things in the grass that you don't get anywhere else and the only other place that has that sort of situation is Oregon.

KENNY: That's interesting.

ABERCROMBIE: They don't raise horses up there but that's.

KENNY: Yeah, it's too wet.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: For one thing. I wondered if Ocala has the limestone but it may not be close to the.

ABERCROMBIE: I don't think its close enough to the surface but I don't know.

KENNY: What were your goals for racing in Europe? Did you ever send a lot of horses over there or did you just go horse by horse?

ABERCROMBIE: Just horse by horse. We had, we were with Mark Prescott and I can see him now a great trainer and Mark was the.

KENNY: Now, Sir Mark.

ABERCROMBIE: Sir Mark.

KENNY: Right (laughs).

ABERCROMBIE: Great guy.

KENNY: He is (laughs) he's a character.

ABERCROMBIE: I really like him. But we had a wonderful time with the 00:46:00horses over there. I loved it. I had a wonderful time. I think he had six or seven horses for me I think, if I recall, and we were successful. It was just a great experience. I went over there for all races.

KENNY: Now that was a fairly common occurrence in the 60's and 70's, as I recall, Bunker Hunt had a big stable over there and plenty of Americans raced in Europe. That seems to have died out.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, I think everybody felt the same way. I mean it was so much trouble to go over there for the races. You know in order to see the horses you had to travel a long way and it was, it was hard. And then to fly over there every time we had a horse running, tough. So I finally said, this is, you know I can't spend all my time flying back and forth, so I quit."

KENNY: Now when you first started out, in the 50's, 60's even into the 00:47:0070's, the big traditional eastern stables kind of the Ivey league type of owners.

ABERCROMBIE: Right.

KENNY: There was eight or nine maybe ten outfits that were still pretty strong maybe wouldn't take forty stalls at Belmont other than that the Phipps family that's pretty much all gone.

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, hum.

KENNY: What do you think happened? How did some of these real foundation family stables not, counting that I guess you could add to that to the Phipps but beyond that?

ABERCROMBIE: I don't know.

KENNY: What changed?

ABERCROMBIE: I really don't know. I really don't know.

KENNY: Uh, hum. Some people say the tax bill in '86 had a major effect because people couldn't write off as much as they did but even before that, the Bancrofts and half a dozen stables like them, Elliott Burch's 00:48:00people. It's a pity in a way because.

ABERCROMBIE: I think so too.

KENNY: You know you see the Paul Mellon horses come out and you knew the families and they had all been descended from

ABERCROMBIE: They just sort of went down hill and I guess the off spring of those families just, they weren't interested.

KENNY: Weren't interested, yeah. Do you think they will ever get back to where racing has the type of attendance and?

ABERCROMBIE: I hope. (laughs) I don't know but I hope so.

KENNY: I think that's what we all say now I think is we hope. But what about, what's your own opinion of racing having to depend on other forms of gambling, like slot machines and casinos, the racino as they call them.

ABERCROMBIE: I'm not I'm not big on that. Excuse me just a minute.

KENNY: Sure.

ABERCROMBIE: I don't, for instance, in Delaware they've got the slots 00:49:00and all that stuff. You go there and the parking lot is packed with cars and you go in, and you go out to watch your horse run and there is nobody out there. They are all in the.

KENNY: Slots parlor.

ABERCROMBIE: Playing slots so for me it's not going to promote racing in my opinion.

KENNY: Right. I saw the same at Louisiana Downs.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: The only place I've seen it blend. David Beaumont is a good friend of mine. I think Toronto Woodbine.

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, hum, I agree.

KENNY: Has made it.

ABERCROMBIE: I agree.

KENNY: It's pretty classy. It's not a dark first floor thing.

ABERCROMBIE: I agree and people go out and watch the races in Canada. They are more interested in horse than they are here.

KENNY: Yeah, they have a great setting for it there with the walking ring with all the willows and all.

ABERCROMBIE: Absolutely.

KENNY: Well I guess time will tell. Oh, I don't think we had the tape 00:50:00running before. You have a bit of marketing showmanship yourself, the introduction of Broken Vow when he retired.

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, hum, that was fun.

KENNY: Tell us about that because that was a great piece of social interaction with a market purpose.

ABERCROMBIE: When you said, "We had a tent," it was there in the stallion barn.

KENNY: It was in the stallion? I wasn't sure.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: Okay. That makes more sense.

ABERCROMBIE: But we just got talking about it and thinking about it. I thought it would be fun to have dinner tables and all that stuff and a red carpet and lead the horses out and show them. You know we did that with Peaks and Valleys, we did it with most of the horses that retired.

KENNY: I see.

ABERCOMBIE: And uh.

KENNY: It was very well received as I recall.

ABERCROMBIE: It was. People enjoyed it and we got a caterer to do us a nice dinner and uh, then we had the horses led out and people could 00:51:00look at them and you know. It worked out real well, real well.

KENNY: What impressed me about it was that racing has traditionally been so social that there was a social cachet to breed a mare or to own a race horse or whatever and that seems to be drifting away a little bit as we get commercialized breeding as opposed to people breeding to raise some, and knowing the person who owns the stallion and those types of things.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, I think that's right. It's getting to be, as you say, much less personal much more uh, commercial.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: Except for Keeneland which is the greatest. In my opinion that's the greatest racing anywhere because the place is so wonderful.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: The atmosphere is perfect. There's no other race track in the country like that. I just love it. And everybody dresses, they 00:52:00don't, I mean its respect for the horse I think.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: To dress and not come in your blue jeans and.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: Your overalls and stuff like that. And uh, the walking ring I mean the uh.

KENNY: The walking ring and paddock?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, the paddock and the walking ring and all that stuff is so pleasant to go to. It's just delightful.

KENNY: Do you still spend a lot of time at Saratoga?

ABERCROMBIE: No, I don't. I, of course.

KENNY: Any particular reason?

ABERCROMBIE: It's just time. I need to be here and I used to rent a house there and I spent the whole month up there.

KENNY: Right.

ABERCROMBIE: But I don't do that anymore. I just go up for a race or something like that.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: Of course I had practically all my horses were there at the time and now they're not.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: You know maybe Bill might take his stable up there.

KENNY: Right.

ABERCROMBIE: But there won't be many others. So I just don't go up as 00:53:00much as I used to. I just go up for the race. It's getting.

KENNY: Yeah, keep me on time because I know you have a schedule. Uh, really the last thing I had in my notes was just without being overly irreverent uh, you've had a few husbands.

ABERCROMBIE: (laughs) Yeah, I have.

KENNY: (laughs) Who's your favorite? (laughs)

ABERCROMBIE: Favorite (laughs) that's not fair. (laughs)

KENNY: (laughs) Well you could have a favorite horse or a--

ABERCROMBIE: --(laughs) I can't do that.

KENNY: --(laughs) not for publication.

ABERCROMBIE: --(laughs) no.

SMITH: I did have one question. What are your first memories of coming to Kentucky? Did you like the state?

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, loved it. I showed here. The reason I came here was to show the horses and.

SMITH: In Louisville?

ABERCROMBIE: No here.

SMITH: Oh, okay.

ABERCROMBIE: At the Junior League Horse Show and uh, I just adored it. I thought it was the most beautiful place I had ever been. It's so much prettier than Texas really. And I said to my father, "Look, let's 00:54:00just buy a little piece of land, a little tiny piece of land just to have a place in Kentucky. And that's when he bought that farm.

KENNY: Three thousand acres. (laughs)

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah (laughs). He wasn't fooling around with a little piece of land but uh, oh, I just fell in love with it. It's so beautiful and horses all over the place.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

SMITH: So Kentucky has pretty much been your home for the last twenty- three years?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes. I have lived here for twenty-three years absolutely positively. I don't have a house anywhere else.

KENNY: No. The only other note that I didn't have just briefly is the music Sky Classic series. How did you get that idea to have those concerts?

ABERCROMBIE: I don't remember.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: I'm sorry I just.

KENNY: Well kind of.

ABERCROMBIE: I guess it was.

KENNY: Like your fathers theme of giving back to the community.

ABERCROMBIE: I guess it was with Bob Shay, the Dean of Fine Arts there.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: Uh, we probably got talking about it and came up with the idea.

KENNY: Yeah. Well it was great. I remember going to some type of opera 00:55:00with a bunch of young kids in that memorial hall there right on.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: Campus I saw that you were doing that and it was I just remember how great it was.

ABERCROMBIE: It was fun. Yeah.

SMITH: You've given a lot to Kentucky now is this

ABERCROMBIE: Well it's given a lot to me. I mean Kentucky has been just a delight for me and people have been great and I've really had a. Of course I was married here early, early on and let's see, my son is 58, so I guess I was, you know, I've been here for 60 years.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: You know so uh.

KENNY: So you're more of a Kentuckian than a Texan?

ABERCROMBIE: I am now. Yeah, I am I'm a Kentuckian fully, completely.

KENNY: Well, we're glad you are.

ABERCROMBIE: Well thank you. (Kenny laughs) I'm glad to be a Kentuckian.

SMITH: There was one other question and we appreciate your time; but being a woman in the industry, how has that, has that ever been an obstacle for you?

ABERCROMBIE: No.

SMITH: You see as a challenge?

ABERCROMBIE: No, not at all, not at all. You know I trained horses myself I don't know whether you know that or not.

KENNY: No, I did not know that.

ABERCROMBIE: I trained, I lived in Ohio at the time and of course I had this farm but I lived in Ohio and I would get up every morning at 4:00 o'clock and drive to Cleveland and I trained. I was the leading money winner and trainer there.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: And I did that for two years two or three years. My stepdaughter went with me when she could and.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: And galloped horses for me. But I did train and I loved doing that. I just adored it. It was one of my favorite things to do. What was the question, I'm kind of talking around it.

SMITH: That's okay. You led me to another question. So you were training Thoroughbreds?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes.

SMITH: Is that correct? How long did you do that?

ABERCROMBIE: Two or three years.

SMITH: Okay.

ABERCROMBIE: And I was going to continue to do when we moved from Akron, Ohio to St. Louis but the track was in such a bad part of town and my husband didn't want me to go over there at 4:00 o'clock in the morning.

KENNY: At Fairmont Park?

ABERCROMBIE: Was it Fairmont?

KENNY: Right across from St. Louis.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SMITH: Was it unusual for a woman to be a trainer at that time?

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah, I think there was only one other one.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: At the time I think. There might have been more but that's just what I think.

KENNY: Was competition something that you enjoyed at being starting at such a young age that was the driving force?

ABERCROMBIE: Yes, yes.

KENNY: Did anybody ever tell you that you couldn't do it that you weren't going?

ABERCROMBIE: No.

KENNY: Going to succeed right. (both laugh)

ABERCROMBIE: My father told me you know, put your mind to it you're 00:58:00going to do it.

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: I'll not ever forget he said to me I graduated from Pine Manor which is in the east and at that time there were only, it was only two years junior college. And I had finished my college education so I went back to Texas and I went to the University of Texas and I hated it and after about six weeks I called up my father and I said, "I cannot stay here this is just awful I can't bear it, too many students in the classes and I'm used to 8 or 9, you know."

KENNY: Uh, hum.

ABERCROMBIE: "I can't I can't do this and I want to quit." And he said, "We Abercrombie's we're not quitters." He said, "You can't quit." And I said, "If I tell you I'll go to Rice University will you let me quit? He said, "Yeah." (both laugh) So I went to Rice University and graduated from there.

KENNY: Well listen I appreciate the time you were able to give us. I think we can feel in any of the blanks on a couple of horses that maybe 00:59:00we need the names of.

ABERCROMBIE: Yeah.

KENNY: Later on but.

ABERCROMBIE: If you will remind me of what I couldn't remember I'll try to get them for you.

KENNY: Sure, yeah that will be easy enough.

SMITH: Okay, I'll go ahead and stop this. Thank you so much.

ABERCROMBIE: Oh, I'm delighted.

[End of interview.]