Cynthia Phipps dies at 62
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Longtime Thoroughbred owner and breeder Cynthia Phipps, who campaigned 1982 champion 3-year-old filly Christmas Past, died Wednesday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital as a result of injuries she sustained in an early morning fire in her Manhattan apartment, according to a release from the Jockey Club. She was 62.
Phipps, daughter of the late Ogden and Lillian Phipps, is the sister of Jockey Club chairman Ogden Mills "Dinny" Phipps. She also was chairman of the non-profit veterinary hospital Animal Medical Center in Manhattan.
A member of one of the Thoroughbred sport's most successful and influential families, Phipps enjoyed success in her own right as an owner and breeder. Her homebred Christmas Past won six stakes, most notably the 1982 Coaching Club American Oaks and Ruffian Handicap and the 1983 Gulfstream Park Handicap, and counted among her stakes-placings a third-place finish behind Lemhi Gold in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.
Phipps also bred and raced four-time Grade 1 winner and millionaire Versailles Treaty. The Danzig mare also finished second in six Grade 1 events, including the 1991 and 1992 Breeders' Cup Distaff. She went on to produce another Grade 1 performer for Phipps, Saarland. An Unbridled colt, now a stallion at Darby Dan Farm in Lexington, Saarland won the Grade 2 Remsen in 2001 and was runner-up in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap.
Versailles Treaty is at Claiborne Farm near Paris, Ky., and is carrying an Unbridled's Song foal.
Another homebred filly to achieve graded-stakes success was Lead Kindly Light, winner of the Grade 3 Athenia in 1987. Phipps later bred 1996 NYRA Mile winner Gold Fever from Lead Kindly Light; the Grade 1 winner now stands for Questroyal at Metropolitan Stud in New York.
Phipps is survived by her brother; half-brother Robert L. Phipps; and half-sisters Lillian Rousseau and Florence Chase.
Services will be held at the Church of the Advent in Old Westbury, N.Y., at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. The family has requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Animal Medical Center, 510 East 62nd Street, New York, NY 10065.