John Gaines

Celebrating 40 Years of the Breeders' Cup Can you imagine being a horse racing-crazy kid with a ringside seat to the creation of the Breeders' Cup? Mark Taylor can, because he was. Fast forward more than four decades and now he is president and CEO of the Central Kentucky farm that is believed to have raised and/or sold more Breeders' Cup winners than any other. There's also the matter of having stood the Breeders' Cup winner who currently holds the record for siring the most Breeders' Cup winners in turn....

If you are a student of pedigrees, you'll know of Franco Varola and Abram S. Hewitt. If not, take my word for it that they were two giants in the field of pedigree research, and both were excellent writers. Varola, an Italian whose first name was Francesco, is known for two iconic books, "Typology of the Racehorse" and "The Functional Development of the Thoroughbred," both of which examined influential stallions by aptitude and classified them as "chefs-de-race" within the dosage framework originally developed by Lt. Col. J.J. Vuillier at the...