Baby, There's Gold Outside

For weeks now, horsemen from around the world have been stopping by E. V. Benjamin's Big Sink Farm near Versailles, Ky. to have a look at a baby race horse who won't even be a year old, officially, until New Year's Day, or, in actuality, until next April 21. "They've been droolin', too," says Benjamin with a smile and a wink. The colt is a winsome little fellow, bright-eyed and frisky, possessed already of the looks and stride that inspire old bluegrass horsemen to dreams of glory.

He is a son of the unforgettable Secretariat, out of the fine race mare Chou Croute (French for sauerkraut), and on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 11, he will become the first Secretariat colt to be sold at public auction. The first filly, consigned by E. Barry Ryan's Normandy Farm, goes under the hammer the night before. And so begins the next installment of the story of the wonder horse who in 1973 became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years, who took the Belmont by a runaway 31 lengths, won 16 of 21 races, earned $1,316,808 and was syndicated as a stallion for $6.08 million—$190,000 for each share.

"There's gonna be some excitement, I'll tell you," says Benjamin. "Talk about your look of eagles, well, this Chou Croute dude has it. Whoever gets him ought to be thrilled to death. As Lucien Laurin [Secretariat's trainer] says, he just wants to live long enough to see this colt hit the racetrack."

In recent weeks, a popular bluegrass pastime has been trying to guess how-much the Secretariat-Chou Croute weanling (Benjamin calls him Triple Sec) will bring at Keeneland's fall sale and second-guessing Benjamin's strategy of selling the colt now instead of waiting for next summer's select yearling auction. Triple Sec is insured for $600,000 by Lloyd's of London, and Benjamin, naturally, wouldn't be unhappy if he goes for that much or more. "All the Secretariats might sell for between $500,000 and a million," says J. B. Faulconer, whose Lexington bloodstock agency owns a share in the sire.

"The breeding on this colt is superb," adds Faulconer. "Of all the mares sent to Secretariat, Chou Croute has to rank as one of the best. I'm sure E.V. wants to sell now to get a jump on everyone else, and because he figures he can get just as much now as he could when the colt gets to be a yearling. On the other hand, the buyers will be thinking they can get a better price by buying now. It should be interesting."

To the public, Benjamin probably is not as well known as his brother Edward, who gained a measure of fame in 1971 when Canonero II, a colt he bred and sold for only $1,200, won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. But it is E.V., not Edward, who has been the more successful breeder. Two decades ago he abandoned his salt, chemical and oil businesses in Louisiana to become a Kentucky gentleman, and thanks in part to the advice of a canny friend, the late Bull Hancock, but mostly because of his own acumen, Benjamin has bred some nice horses and turned some tidy profits at the 500-acre Big Sink spread. In one of his more spectacular moves he bought a mare for $11,000 and sold her for $350,000. Last summer he marketed $1.3 million worth of yearlings at the Keeneland sales.

This kind of shrewd dealing enables E.V., at 66, to support a life-style in the old bluegrass manner. When he moved to Big Sink in 1955, the main house was so rundown, he says, that "we shot rats in the dining room." Today his pastures are dappled with mares and foals worth millions, and his house is a movie-set mansion with tall columns, expensive furniture and paintings and a butler who materializes in the paneled den with a tray of Bloody Marys at the push of a buzzer.

A businessman first, Benjamin spices his Southern drawl with curse words, prefers Scotch to bourbon and once stopped a sale because he thought the buyers weren't bidding high enough on one of his horses. "The idea is to make money," he says, "either at the farm or on the racetrack." Nonetheless, he takes pride in the quality of his products. He buys outstanding mares, breeds to the best stallions and has a high batting average. Of the 73 mares bred last spring at Big Sink, 67 are in foal. "How many farms can say that?" he asks. The Secretariat colt's mother, Chou Croute, was the best runner ever raised by Benjamin. On the track she was a marvelous blend of speed and strength; although best known as a sprinter, she won at every distance from six furlongs to 1? miles in the early 1970s. In her most memorable effort, the 1972 Fall Highweight at Belmont, she carried 131 pounds and still beat colts. At her peak Chou Croute was ranked above such stars as Typecast and Convenience on Racing Secretary Tommy Trotter's free handicap list. "She was the best race mare anyone ever had," asserts Benjamin. "She was more than just a sprinter, she was some kind of filly."

Apparently she is some kind of mother, too. Retired in 1973, she delivered her first foal, a colt by the estimable Damascus, with no assistance. Her second, the Secretariat colt, was born at 10:25 p.m. on April 21 without a hitch. "She just spits 'em out like nothin'," says Benjamin fondly.

Since Secretariat was syndicated before he won the Triple Crown, Benjamin's investment in him was a considerable gamble. He wanted to buy one of the 32 shares as soon as he was contacted by Seth Hancock, son of his old friend Bull and heir to the reins at Claiborne Farm. However, the $190,000 tab was too steep for him to go it alone, so he enlisted two partners—Mrs. George Proskauer of Akron, Ohio and a New York banker who chooses to remain anonymous. Each shareholder has the right to send one mare to Secretariat every year of his breeding life. (This year Benjamin et al. won an extra mating with Secretariat in a drawing among shareholders.)