William E. Graves, longtime Fasig-Tipton executive, dies at 69

Lifelong horseman William E. Graves, a senior vice president with Fasig-Tipton for 26 years, died following a short illness on Wednesday in Lexington, Ky. He was 69.

Tributes from the bloodstock community and prominent Thoroughbred owners and trainers were beginning to flood in on Wednesday night as news of Graves’s death spread.

“Walking into Fasig-Tipton will never be the same,” owner Samantha Siegel said via Twitter.

“Bill Graves had as good an eye for a horse as anyone I have ever met,” wrote Conrad Bandoroff, vice president of his family’s Denali Stud. “He was a mentor to many and friend to all. I will miss his smile and quick-witted humor. Damn glad to have known him and called him a friend.”

Graves, a native of Lynchburg, Va., was an equestrian competitor on the national level early in his life, and was inducted into the Virginia Horse Show Association’s Hall of Fame in 2007. He began working in the Thoroughbred industry in his early 20s, first as a yearling showman, and worked for several farms before opening his own Graves Stable. His variety of roles over the years included breeding graded stakes performers, working as a trainer, and working as a sales agent and consultant.

“There was no aspect of the Thoroughbred industry which Bill did not master,” Fasig-Tipton said in a release announcing Graves’s death.

Graves Stable primarily focused on training and selling 2-year-olds in training. Graves and his late wife, Michele, were perennial leading consignors at Fasig-Tipton’s premier juvenile sale at Calder Race Course. In 1992, the auction company recruited Graves to review and manage its selected yearling sale process. In the release announcing his death, Fasig-Tipton noted that up to the last 10 days of his life Graves was working with consignors to assemble catalogs for Fasig-Tipton’s July sale, which formally kicks off the yearling sale season in North America, and the boutique Saratoga selected yearling sale.

Graves described his team’s yearling selection process for Fasig-Tipton in a 2012 question-and-answer session with Daily Racing Form.

“We’ve always taken a lot of pride in not disappointing people when they come to look at a select horse, even if he is a little short on pedigree,” Graves said. “So the physical horse, for Fasig-Tipton, is very important. The combination of the great physical along with a deep pedigree is what commands the big money these days.”

Graves also advised on every phase of Art and Gordon Stollery’s Angus Glen Farm. That operation brought the Mr. Prospector colt Ochoco to the 1999 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale, and he sold for a sale-topping $3 million.

Graves’s passion for the Thoroughbred industry carried over to a second generation, as his son Brian works as the director of public sales at Gainesway Farm.

“Through a life-time of achievements, Bill was unquestionably proudest of the accomplishments of his son Brian as a horseman, and, with his wife Lesley, as the parents of Bill’s three treasured grandchildren, Will, Catherine and Carson,” Fasig-Tipton said.

Graves is also survived by his brother, Reed Graves, and his sister, Elizabeth (Ditty) Stone, both of Lynchburg. Funeral arrangements are pending.