Horseman Barry Abrams dead at 66

Barry Abrams, the former Southern California trainer who in recent years was a successful owner and breeder, died Friday after a lengthy battle with cancer, according to his family and friends.

Abrams was 66.

Along with his wife, Dyan, Abrams owned horses under the name Bardy Farm. The stable has been led in the last year by the five-time graded stakes winner Mo Forza, winner of the Grade 2 City of Hope Mile on Oct. 3 at Santa Anita and a leading contender for the Breeders’ Cup Mile on Nov. 7 at Keeneland.

Peter Miller trains Mo Forza and paid tribute to Abrams on Saturday.

“It’s a tremendous loss,” Miller said. “It’s very rare on the racetrack that you find someone that everyone likes.”

Abrams was born in Russia. The family lived in Poland and Israel before emigrating to Southern California in the early 1960s. Initially, Abrams was involved in harness racing and was a successful trainer of that breed before switching to Thoroughbreds in the late 1980s.

After working as an assistant for Roger Stein, Abrams began training in 1993. He won 688 Thoroughbred races with runners that earned $30.7 million. Abrams had his final starter in 2016 at a time when he was being treated for cancer.

Abrams won Grade 1 races with Famous Digger in the 1997 Del Mar Oaks, Golden Doc A in the 1998 Santa Anita Oaks, and Unusual Suspect in the 2010 Hollywood Turf Cup. In 2008, Abrams had a career best of $2,999,839 in earnings. He won 13 stakes with eight horses that season.

Abrams was successful as a California breeder in last 15 years after claiming the Nureyev horse Unusual Heat for $80,000 at Hollywood Park in 1996 along with the Auerbach family. Within two years, Unusual Heat was standing at stud in California and was the state’s leading sire in progeny earnings six times, from 2008 to 2013.

Abrams trained many of Unusual Heat’s leading runners, such as Golden Doc A, Lethal Heat, Pretty Unusual, and Unusual Suspect, to name a few. The horses were often owned in small partnerships. Unusual Heat is the broodmare sire of Mo Forza.

In 2009, Lethal Heat finished third in the Grade 1 Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar and second in the Lady’s Secret Stakes at Santa Anita, losing both races to Zenyatta.

Abrams had been hospitalized since Monday after a recent fall, Dyan Abrams said.

Abrams is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Anoakia doesn’t fill

Santa Anita has an eight-race program Monday without the scheduled $75,000 Anoakia Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at six furlongs. The race did not draw sufficient entries and could be run Friday.

The leading race Monday is a second-level allowance race at 5 1/2 furlongs on turf with a field of five.

Grit and Curiosity, third in the Grade 2 Eddie D Stakes over the same course and distance Sept. 25 in his first start since February, faces the improving gelding Tilted Towers, who won consecutive starts in turf sprints at the Del Mar summer meeting in a maiden special weight race and a first-condition allowance.