FINAL DRAFT – FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2014
My uncle, Dr. Charles Edward Hagyard – Uncle Charlie – and my grandfather, Dr. Edward Weddell
Hagyard, were founding members of the Thoroughbred Club of America in 1932. Uncle Charlie was also
a founding member and first president of the Breeder’s Sales Company, which evolved into the
Keeneland Sales. Uncle Charlie was a Thoroughbred Club Honor Guest, as were my colleagues, Dr.
Arthur H. Davidson and Dr. William R. McGee, so you can imagine what a special honor this is for me
tonight, to be included in their company. I represent the fourth of five generations of veterinarians in
my family, which is unique. This also allowed me to grow up in an environment where people were
dedicated to the welfare of horses and the betterment of the various breeds, and that’s something for
which I am most grateful.
I grew up on Beaumont Farm – 2,600 contiguous acres – which was owned by Mr. Hal Price Headley,
who was a founder and the first president of the Keeneland Association. My father, Harold Fallon, was
Mr. Headley’s farm manager, and served as a director and treasurer of Keeneland. When I was 15 years
old, I would drive Mr. Headley’s grader from Keeneland to Beaumont, where Mr. Headley had a threequarter-mile training track, which was near where the Lexington School is now, and across the street
from the Fallon home.
When I graduated from Cornell University, I was 23 years old. In those days we wore neckties when we
tended mares. There weren’t many veterinarians in Central Kentucky back then. At Hagyard, there were
five of us, and we didn’t need name tags. We had our own two-way radio frequency. Doctors Hagyard,
Davidson and McGee were “Radio 101, 102” and “103.” I was “Radio 105.” We had a base station at the
office, and they would radio me and tell me where to go – and being the new guy, that meant I went just
about everywhere in Central Kentucky. All of us knew where the others were, and what they were doing
at the farms – via the radio, there was always an all-day conference going on among us.
Here’s an example of how different things were back then. There was a time when John Wesley Marr,
who had Clarkland Farm, wanted to contact us and there was no one in the office. So he called Duff’s
Gas Station, which was a half-block down the road from the Hagyard Clinic, and asked the owner, “Joe,
is Charlie or Ed in view?” Joe looked down the road and said, “No, Mr. Marr.” And Mr. Marr said, “All
right. Go to hell, and have a good day.”
Nowadays, of course, you call vets on their cell phones. I should mention that Mr. Marr was a splendid
horseman. And I would like to further mention that this year Clarkland experienced its greatest success
at the Keeneland September Sale in the farm’s history. It testifies to the continued quality of Clarkland,
which was founded with a land grant during the Thomas Jefferson administration and whose
generations of excellence now span centuries.
Throughout my career I’ve benefited greatly from the wisdom of others. When I was at Cornell one of
my professors, Dr. Francis Fox, would urge his students to use their senses – “What do you smell? What
do you hear? What do you see? What do you feel?” That’s excellent advice for veterinarians, be they in
a barn, at the track, or in the clinic.
When I was about to graduate from Cornell, Dr. Myron Fincher told me about the palpation of ovaries in
mares that was occurring in Germany. This was also being done in England, and Dr. McGee had just
started doing it in Kentucky. As time passed I became a practitioner of this. And I also got involved with
putting mares under artificial lighting – it had been done for years with chickens to get them to lay more
eggs, so I thought I’d try it. Dr. Robert Loy was instrumental is showing me how to do it the right way.
These innovations allowed for mares to be more receptive to breeding earlier in the year, and provided
an advantage to their foals when they became of racing age.
While I’ve worked a great deal with mares, people most often ask me about the stallions I’ve been
around. They’ve included some truly great racehorses. Mr. John Galbraith asked me to assist in bringing
Ribot from Europe to the United States. I remember when Ribot was on the ramp and about to board
the plane, a groom who was also accompanying him bumped his head on the ceiling above the open
door. Ribot saw that, and ducked his head and walked right through. Ribot had a reputation for having a
terrible temperament, but he was nice to me.
Affirmed, the 1978 Triple Crown winner, was a very kind horse. If he stepped on your toe he’d all but
apologize. Shut Out, who had won the Kentucky Derby in 1942, was difficult. In the breeding shed he
would stand behind the mare and look at the mare, and then bite the groom. That’s what’s called
“ornery.”
There are so many people who I would like to thank for helping me throughout my career. There are the
grooms who held the horses as I worked on them. There are the farm managers; the farm owners; the
secretaries at the farms; the support from the entire staff at Hagyard; the professional collaboration
across many disciplines. I am talking about hundreds and hundreds of people, far too numerous to
individualize by name. But there is one name I do have to mention – that of my dear late friend, brotherin-law, confidant and companion, Dr. John T. Bryans.
When you’re a veterinarian, you’re always on time for the first call of the day. After that you never know
what you are going to run into. A lot of trust is invested in a veterinarian. It’s hard work and a lot of fun.
You work for nice people. You work with nice people. And there’s always that beautiful Central Kentucky
countryside. I’m still with my childhood sweetheart, Priscilla – we’ve been married for 56 years. Priscilla
comes also from a family with five generations of horsemen. We’re blessed that our four children and
seven grandchildren all live in Lexington. It doesn’t get any better.
I would like to close with one of my favorite quotes. It’s from the epilogue of the Brothers Karamazov,
and it goes, “We shall soon part . . . And even if we are occupied with important things, even if we attain
honor or fall into misfortune – still let us remember how good it once was here, when we were all
together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us -- better perhaps then we are.”