Owner-breeder Helen Groves, of King Ranch fame, dies at age 94
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Helen Kleberg Groves, the King Ranch heiress who bred the champion Althea in partnership and raced and bred many other stakes winners, died on Friday in San Antonio, Texas, her hometown, according to her family. She was 94.
Groves, who grew up on King Ranch and worked horses and cattle as a young woman, had strong and varied connections to Thoroughbred racing and breeding, beginning with her father, Robert Kleberg Jr., the owner of King Ranch, and continuing through to her children, which include Helen Alexander, the owner of Middlebrook Farm.
Groves and Alexander bred and raced Althea in partnership with David Akroyd. By Alydar out of Courtly Dee, Althea was named the champion 2-year-old filly in 1983 and won the 1984 Arkansas Derby as a 3-year-old before being retired at the end of the year with a career record of 8 wins from 15 starts.
Althea would play a leading role in many of Groves’s later successes. Her daughter Aurora produced Arch, a popular stallion bred by Groves and Alexander; Acoma, who won the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes at Keeneland in 2010; and Antics, the dam of Covfefe, another Grade 1 winner.
Earlier this year, Emmanuel, who Groves bred, finished third in the Blue Grass Stakes. Other Grade 1 winners bred by Groves included Serape, Free Drop Billy, and Hawkbill.
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Groves was well-known outside of the racing world and was a skilled rider. She was known as the “First Lady of Cutting” and was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1998. She served on the boards of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the National Cutting Horse Association, and the U.S. Equestrian Team. She was also a director of King Ranch from 1956 to 1988.
Groves’s first husband, Dr. John Deaver Alexander, and her second husband, Lloyd J. Groves, preceded her in death. She is survived by six children: Helen Alexander, Emory A. Hamilton, John D. Alexander, Carolina A. Forgason, Henrietta Alexander, and Dorothy Matz, who is married to the Thoroughbred trainer Michael Matz.