Hall of Famer John Veitch, trainer of Alydar, dead at 77

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- John Veitch, the Hall of Fame trainer whose most famous horse, Alydar, was never a champion but wound up in the Hall of Fame alongside him, died on Tuesday in Lexington, Ky., according to friends of the trainer. Veitch was 77.

Veitch, who came from a training family, was most prominently associated with Alydar, who famously finished second to Affirmed in all three Triple Crown races in 1978. While Alydar was never named a champion, he was elected into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1989. Veitch followed him into the Hall of Fame in 2007.

Born in Lexington, Ky., Veitch’s father, Sylvester, was a trainer. The younger Veitch apprenticed for his father and for Elliott Burch before taking out his own trainer’s license in 1974. Just two years after starting his career, at 31, he was hired as the head trainer for Calumet Farm, which at the time was owned by Lucille Markey. One of the first horses he received from Calumet was their homebred Alydar.

Over the course of his career, Veitch also trained for Darby Dan Farm and family members of John Galbreath, who owned Darby Dan, as well as Frances A. Genter. In 1998, he retired to become a consultant to Saudi Arabia’s royal family, but returned to training in the U.S. in 2001, taking on the new owner of Calumet, Henryk deKwiatkowski, as a client.

Veitch retired in 2003 with 410 wins from 2,340 starts and career purse earnings of $20.1 million. From his 410 wins, a stunning 76 were graded stakes, or 18.5 percent of his victories. Graded stakes account for approximately one percent of all races in the U.S.

During his career, he trained four champions, including Davona Dale, who in 1979 won nearly every major race for 3-year-old fillies, including the Kentucky Oaks, the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, the Acorn Stakes, the Mother Goose Stakes, and the Coaching Club American Oaks. His other champions were Before Dawn, the 1981 champion 2-year-old filly; Our Mims, the 1977 champion 3-year-old filly; and Sunshine Forever, the 1988 champion turf horse.

Veitch also trained Proud Truth, the winner of the 1985 Breeders’ Cup Classic, for Darby Dan.

Following his retirement, Veitch was hired as the chief steward of the Kentucky Horseracing Authority, the predecessor to the current Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. He was fired by the authority in 2010 on the grounds that he had mishandled an incident involving Life At Ten at the 2010 Breeders’ Cup. He was later issued a one-year suspension for the incident.

Veitch pursued several legal strategies to be reinstated. He later reached a settlement with the commission that rescinded the suspension. Following that settlement, he went to work at Keeneland, serving as a racing official in various capacities.

Veitch’s third wife, Ellen Conway, died in 2017 at the age of 71. He is survived by a daughter, Shannon, and a son, Jason.

A caption in a previous version of this article misstated the level of some of John Veitch's stakes victories. As stated in the article, of Veitch's 410 career wins, 18.5 percent were graded, not Grade 1.