Liebman: Logan Bailey taught and led by example

My first day of employment for Daily Racing Form was the Monday after the 1984 Kentucky Derby.

I was hired by Logan Bailey, who will be laid to rest on the Monday after the 2015 Derby.

I took his passing at age 75 hard, tears flowing several times the night after learning the news from another person Logan hired, Tammy Curlin.

I didn’t have to think long to figure out how old Logan was. He used to always say he was from the same crop as Count Fleet.

When Logan turned 50, DRF colleague Woody Coyle and I placed an ad in the paper. We ran a photo of Logan and a photo of Count Fleet, and underneath it said: “Happy Birthday, Logan. From the same crop as Count Fleet.”

Logan loved it.

Logan interviewed me while I was still a journalism student at the University of Kentucky. He did so as a courtesy to my father, who knew Logan’s well-known father, Clay Wade Bailey, a Capitol beat reporter for the Kentucky Post.

During my first full-time job in journalism, with the Frankfort State Journal, I received a call one day from Logan. The Kentucky Bureau chief, Ercel Ellis, was leaving DRF, and Logan was being promoted. That opened up a spot writing the Kentucky breeding column and covering the sales, farms, and bloodstock beat. Logan asked if I would be interested.

Interested?

I would have crawled the 20 miles from Frankfort to Keeneland, where the Form offices were at the time, to speak with Logan about the position.

My first day on the job, Logan sat me down and said the following: “If I had two candidates for the job, and one could write and knew a little about racing and the other knew racing but could not write, I would take the writer every day. I can teach you about racing, but I don’t have the time to teach you to write.”

Teach he did. Logan took me under his wing; he became my mentor.

I loved racing, but I was a handicapper. Logan taught me about the breeding industry, how horse sales really work, and how to become a professional reporter.

I couldn’t believe one person knew so much about every facet of racing and breeding. More importantly, he was willing to share it.

Logan was passionate about racing and passionate about good journalism, and he worked tirelessly to teach me how both work in concert. He taught me how to approach owners and breeders and to understand how difficult it is to raise, sell, or race a good horse.

Once, I got upset when a buyer wouldn’t speak with me at a sale.

“He’s under no obligation to speak to you,” Logan said, instructing a young journalist. “Figure out how you write a good story without it.”

Besides our love of the Thoroughbred industry, Logan and I had other things in common. He and I were both born in Frankfort, though he graduated from Frankfort High School, and I came from Franklin County High School. It was once a true rivalry, which Logan reminded me of on many occasions.

We also shared a passion for baseball. Appropriately, Logan’s obituary noted that in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a youth baseball league that he was involved with for 40 years.

Logan’s two sons played baseball, and Logan was a true student of the finer points of the game. Summer vacations often included a night at a baseball stadium.

During my tenure with the Form, my beloved Cincinnati Reds won the 1990 World Series. Logan could see the delight that team brought me.

At least three times a week for seven years, Logan and I not only worked side-by-side, but we had lunch together. We often got confused over whose turn it was to buy and laughed about it.

He wasn’t just a boss; Logan was a true friend.

When I left DRF for The Racing Times, and subsequently The Blood-Horse and back to the State Journal, Logan was my biggest cheerleader.

I nominated Logan for inclusion in the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame and was there when he was inducted.

One night, at a charity auction for the journalism school at UK, there was an item I simply had to buy: the manual typewriter used by Logan’s father during his newspaper days. I bought the typewriter and gave it to Logan’s son Rick with instructions to wrap it as a gift for Logan at Christmas.

I will never forget the emotion in Logan’s voice when he called to thank me.

One day, Logan made a small wager on a horse.

“How did he finish?” someone asked.

“Absolutely,” Logan said, of course meaning absolutely last.

In the race of those who impacted my life, who are responsible for any measure of success I have achieved, Logan Bailey finished first.

Dan Liebman is a former full-time racing writer and editor who now owns two restaurants in Frankfort, Ky.