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■- Vjfc **"* ***** BETWEEN RACES * ««• ore CHURCHTLL DOWNS, Louisville, Ky., May 2. — Yesterday we mentioned the bloodline argument, racing over the ability, or lack of it, on the part of Repetoire to go a distance of as far as the 10 furlongs Kentucky Derby requires. The farm background of Repetoire is every bit as amazing as as the the career career of of the the horse. horse. Repetoire Repetoire as as the the career career of of the the horse. horse. Repetoire Repetoire was bred near Warrenton, Va., at the Pine Brook Farm of Dr. F. A. OKeefe. The man is a graduate 1943 of the veterinary school at the University of Pennsylvania. Shortly after his graduation, Dr. OKeefe joined the Army, did not return to civilian life until 1946. "We have been raising horses at Pine Brook since 1939," advises Dr. OKeefe. This farm, in reality two separate pieces of property, comprises about 525 acres, of which 325 is in cleared land, the other in woods. The two farms have been owned in our family for 13 years. This property was originally started with the idea of showing horses at the horse shows and racing some for ourselves. My fathers death in 1942 caused us to change our plans and we decided to raise thoroughbreds and sell them as yearlings. We have been doing that since 1943 with the exception of one year during the war. We have sold 23 yearlings from 1943 to the present. One of the 23 died before he was old enough to race. Of the remaining 22, 15 won for an average of 67 per cent winners, and of the 15 winners, two are stakes winners, Mighty Nice, Who won two stakes last year in Canada, and Repetoire. Three placed in stakes, Nifty, Blue Dream and Miss Oakhurst, for an average of 9 per cent stakes winners from foals and 23 per cent of foals of stakes class. AAA "The first mares we purchased," continues Dr. OKeefe, "were acquired from William Ziegler in the Repetoires Virginia Background Bizarre Half-Brother Named U. S. Champion Hunter Pine Brook Produce Has Enviable Record OKeefe Explains Colts Breeding Pattern fall of 1938. There were four, Phantom Fairy, by Nego-fol; Harp o the Winds, by Man o War; Golden Dream, by Polydor, and Marka, by Sir Martin. Later that fall, my father bought My Hattie dam of Repetoire from Congressman Buckley, of New York City. She was racing at that time. She ran three times in my colors, finishing out of the money in all three starts. She had been bred originally by C. V. Whitney and was sold by the late Tom Healy, trainer for Mr. Whitney, to Matt Colford, a trainer, who named the filly for Mrs. Hattie Strate, wife of George Strate, trainer for Lestor Manor Stable. My Hattie raced twice at two. The first time out she bucked her shins, and the next time she was badly cut down in her right hind leg. Due to this, she did not race again until she was four. She would show a high turn of speed for a short distance and then, when the horses came up around her, she would stop. We always attributed this stopping to the fear of again being cut down. AAA "My Hattie was retired from racing, and, in 1939, was bred to Hilltown. Her first colt by Hilltown was never tried, but was used as a show hunter. He was named Prompt Payment, and his record fitted his name. We showed him in conformation classes as a yearling and he was never beaten, winning four different classes at four different shows. As a two-year-old, he was sold to Mrs. D. N. Lee and at three she sold him to Mrs. John T. Maloney. For Mrs. Maloney, he proved to be the finest show hunter in the country, being voted the leading conformation hunter of the United States in 1947. My Hat-ties next three foals were by Mokatam, one of the first stallions we tried at Pine Brook. The first, Hattie Kat, was unplaced at three, but is the dam of Grass Fire, who ran the fastest five and one -half furlongs at Washington Park last year, 1:04 Ms, beating Ken and Longleat, both stakes winners. Hattie Kat was severely injured during the foaling of Grass Fire and it was necessary to destroy her after Grass Fire was weaned. The next colt was George Woody, a cheap winner, and the next, Rosarina R., was unplaced at three. All the foals by Mokatam had bad knees and this I believe was the reason none of them performed better on the race course. AAA "With Mokatams death, I decided not to have a stallion of my own again, as the war was on," continues Dr. OKeefe. "My Hattie was next bred to Tintagel and was barren, returned to him and the result was a beautiful brown colt named Nifty. This colt was judged by Paul Ebelhardt, of Calumet Farm, the champion of the Virginia horsemens show. He sold for ,000 to the Sagners, and was a fine buy. He won three races at two and was third in the Belmont Park Juvenile Stakes, giving eight pounds to the winner. It was this colt that caused me to breed My Hattie to Happy Argro. I decided that what My Hattie needed for a sire was a real good speed horse, and, after looking around, decided that Happy Argo was the best. He had sired Augury, who was a sensational filly on the West Coast, and in the East he had sired the well known Colchis, who twice beat Alsab and once ran a dead heat with him and was fourth to him in the Continued on Page Forty-Three BETWEEN RACES I By OSCAR OTIS Continued from Page Forty -Eight Preakness. In the Pimlico classic, he was beaten but a length and a half by Alsab, Sun Again and Requested, and he beat Shut Out, Devil Diver, Apache and Valdina Orphan. Happy Argo was 24 years old when he was bred to My Hattie, who conceived on one cover. The result the next spring was Repetoire." AAA That Repetoire is a half-brother to a champion hunter will amaze no one in Virginia, where the adaptation of the thoroughbred to fencejumping is quite common. The colts winter training was somewhat on the bizarre side, too. He trained, as you may recall, at Bowie. Repetoire was bedded down in the biggest barn there, and no matter how cold it was outside, he could gallop under cover. Trainer Al Jensen figured it out that it was about eight and a half laps around the barn to the mile, and the colt could go briskly except on the turns, which were rather sharp. In any event, he was thoroughly "legged up- before he was primed for his seasonal debut at Laurel. Oddly enough, Jensen thinks he might have had an advantage over the colts coming up from Florida, in that the spring was extremely late this year, and whereas Repetoire was used to the chill, some of the Florida horses were actually shivering. This advantage, if advantage it actually was, has now vanished because the weather has turned warm in Kentucky, although the spring here is greatly retarded. Jensen is also happy to discover that Repetoire is a good traveler, often curling up and going to sleep in an express car. The colt showed great curiosity over air travel, and, when unloaded at the Louisville airport, tried to get back onto the plane. Repetoires present plans call for the Preakness and Belmont, with perhaps the Jersey Stakes as an interim affair, the latter depending a good deal on how much racing Jensen deems he needs.
