Former Wimborne Farm owner Diane Perkins dies
Diane Perkins, esteemed and successful owner, breeder, and trainer, died Wednesday in Switzerland.
The trainer Ignacio Correas, who trained for Mrs. Perkins in Argentina for some 15 years, then again in America, and remained her friend up to the time of her passing, reported news of her death.
Perkins, the daughter of owner-breeder Diane Manning, took over the family bloodstock operation upon her mother’s death. She married Peter Perkins, a horseman who began training American Thoroughbreds in 1990. The Perkins owned Haras San Francisco Pilar in Argentina, where they bred the champion Lord at War in 1980, eventually sending the horse to America and turning him over to trainer Charlie Whittingham, for whom Lord At War won the 1985 Santa Anita Handicap.
Lord At War went to stud in 1986 at Walmac International, moved in 1991 to the Perkins’ Wimborne Farm, located in Paris, Kentucky and adjacent to the famed Claiborne Farm, and became a successful stallion, siring 47 stakes winners. Among them was La Gueriere, a Perkins homebred who won the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland and produced Grade 1 winner Icon Project and multiple graded-stakes winner Lasting Approval, who would become another Wimborne stallion.
Mrs. Perkins, who began training the family stable in 1996 after Peter Perkins’ death, trained Lasting Approval and 55 other winners before retiring in 2005. Among them was Wimborne-bred Better Talk Now, a son of Lasting Approval whom Perkins trained for his first five starts before selling the horse to Brushwood Stable. Racing for trainer Graham Motion, Better Talk Now, among his many successes, captured the 2004 Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Perkins sold Wimborne and most of her breeding stock in 2002, when she moved to Lexington and based her small stable at the Thoroughbred Training Center. Correas trained her last high-level runner, Kasaqui, bred at San Francisco de Pilar, second by a neck in the 2016 Arlington Million.
“She was a tough woman. We argued all the time,” Correas said, with utmost respect and fondness. “She did everything: She trained, she bred. She worked hard all her life.”
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