Spending Time Reflecting

We reflect more as we age, mostly because we simply have more to reflect on.

If only wisdom worked the same way.

So, it is a reflective state of mind I find myself in today with the news of the passing of Mary Anne Hockensmith, who died at age 97 Monday at her beloved Woodlake Farm outside my hometown of Frankfort, Ky.

Having spent some time there as a youth, I was fortunate for about 14 years, until last fall, to live on a farm that–as the crow flies–was a very short distance from Woodlake. I would drive by her farm every day, glancing at the old farmhouse situated well off Georgetown Road.

I often wondered how Mary Anne was doing, and wish now I had stopped one day just to say hi.

The last time I saw Mary Anne was a few years ago at the community's annual Farm/City Field Day, an event held at a different local farm each year to bridge the gap between the farmers and city folk.

I became more closely acquainted with Mary Anne and her late husband, Freeman, through Jeff Noel, president of my class at nearby Franklin County High School. A sweeter woman you would never meet.

Jeff's late father (Mary Anne's brother), John Noel, was then president of State National Bank, now Whitaker Bank, owed by the family of Elmer Whitaker, who before his death owned Bwamazon Farm.

I will forever be indebted to John Noel, as are countless other local members of my generation who were aided by his kindness and small-town banking skills.

(I am also indebted to Jeff, who taught me to strip tobacco and drink bourbon. The former I have not done in more than 40 years; the latter I still occasionally enjoy.)

Though she was mother to 12 children, Mary Anne's true love was horses. She was passionate about riding, breeding and racing, and many times showed me the cover-worn volumes she had of stud books, stallion registers and catalogues.

Just after we finished high school, the Hockensmiths raced a nice filly named Clear Conscience, bred by Freeman in Ohio.

Clear Conscience (Court Recess–Debby Gail, by Portherhouse) was a hard-knocking mare, winning 10 of 34 races including five Ohio-bred stakes in 1978 and 1979 for trainer Kenny Davis.

With Mary Anne's passing, they are all gone now, the men and women who indulged a young Thoroughbred enthusiast so many years ago. There were others in town, but my late father's introductions led me to the kind souls of Fred Bradley, Sidney Turner, Bill May … and Mary Anne Hockensmith.

Fred Bradley had the most success–later in life–but they all got in the game for the right reason, love of the horse.

Frankfort, Kentucky, is unique, being a state capital town with a population of only 25,000 (about 40,000 in the county). A large number also commute in each day to work, fewer today though after COVID-19 alerted the world to work-at-home opportunities.

My father was born in Irvington, N.J.; my mother in Brooklyn, N.Y. They ended up in Frankfort, where they marveled at being able to live in a small town, home to the workings of state government yet surrounded by countless tobacco and cattle farms, most of which had horses of some breed.

My father, an attorney and judge, not only pulled me along each year to the Farm/City Field Day but to the Farm/City Banquet. Though he lived and worked in the city, his words were not lost on me of the importance of the farming community and we counted many of them among our closest friends.

We still have connections to our town in the Thoroughbred world. Though the Taylor boys of Taylor Made Sales Agency were not born here, their father, the late Joe Taylor, longtime manager at Gainesway Farm, was.

So, too, Fred Bradley's son, recently retired trainer Buff Bradley (one of Mary Anne Hockensmith's conditioners); Ryan Mahan, head auctioneer at Keeneland; Courtney Schneider of Shawhan Place, current president of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers' Club; and trainer Rick Hiles, longtime president of the Kentucky HBPA.

Frankfort also boasts the Ramspring Farm of Dr. O.M. (Mac) Patrick and his family, the leading Franklin County breeders today. Mac and his wife, Mary Leigh, started their operation a bit later than the others, in the mid '70s, but have enjoyed considerable success.

And, there is a retired magazine editor, who has more time to reflect today on how the farmers of the small community in which he was raised helped him to understand it is fine to be a small cog in the workings of the global Thoroughbred enterprise.

Around the world they will always exist, and the industry will always be better off because they do.