Hall of Fame trainer Carl Hanford, who trained five-time Horse of the Year Kelso (1960-1964), passed away early Sunday morning at his home in Delaware with family and friends by his side. Hanford was 95.
One of a family of ten, seven brothers and three sisters, Carl grew up in Fairbury, Nebraska. His older brother Buddy left home and eventually landed a job in New York as the contract rider to future Hall of Fame trainer Preston Burch. During a morning workout at Pimlico in 1933, Buddy’s horse clipped heels with another horse alongside in training and fell. Buddy succumbed to head injuries that night and died the week before he was to ride in his first Kentucky Derby. Three years later his brother Ira “Babe” Hanford would win the Run for the Roses as an apprentice rider aboard longshot winner Bold Venture.
Carl quit high school and followed Buddy’s path to the northeast to pursue a career as a race rider. Carl would win his first race on July 10, 1935, aboard Eddie Wrack, in the first race ever run at Suffolk Downs.
After his riding career Hanford began training horses but his new career would be cut short by World War II, where he would serve five years in the Army Remount Corps.
After the war, Hanford took a small string of horses by boxcar to Delaware from Ohio. He eventually ended up in Florida, where he developed a stakes-placed runner named Jupiter Light. His work with that filly helped attract clientele and Hanford began to get noticed as a good conditioner of horses. Hanford trained La Corredora, winner of five stake races including the 1953 Ladies and Comely Handicaps. His work with that filly would attract the attention of Art Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Rooney, would give Hanford a string of horses for him to train, leading to a successful partnership on the racetrack.
In 1960, in what Hanford called a career-changing event, he was told through exercise rider Charley Mahoney, that then-trainer for Bohemia Stable, Dr. John Lee was retiring from training. Mrs. Dupont wanted to increase her stable and was in search of a full-time trainer. Hanford became the private trainer for Bohemia Stable, owned by Allaire du Pont and was given seven fillies and two geldings to train. One of those geldings was Kelso, then off his juvenile year with three races under his belt, one being his maiden breaker at Atlantic City.
Kelso, would go on to win 38 more races, with 31 stakes victories in the mix from 63 starts. Five of those stakes wins would be consecutive Jockey Club Gold Cup victories. At the time of Kelso’s retirement in 1966, the gelding was the all-time money earner with $1,977,896.
“Kelso was an extremely determined horse,” said Hanford at this 2006 Hall of Fame ceremony. “If he saw a horse in front, he wanted to get to him. You could take him back or send him to the front. He was an extremely sound horse who was light on his feet with incredible balance. Kelso could also wheel on a dime, spinning around in a circle and never letting his feet touch the ground.”
After his training career, Hanford worked as a steward at Atlantic City, Garden State, Shenandoah Downs, Delaware Park, Ak-Sar-ben and Keystone (now Parx Racing) before his retirement in 1988. After his retirement, he would spend time helping his daughter Gail, now a thoroughbred trainer at Delaware Park and was said to be a fixture at her barn. His wife Millie of 48 years passed away in June 2005, 14 months before his Hall of Fame acceptance in 2006 at Saratoga.
Known as a man of few words, Hanford, in addition to the Racing Hall of Fame, was inducted to the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1968, the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame in 1999, and the Delaware Park Wall of Fame in 2009.
Fittingly, his daughter Gail won Monday’s first race at Delaware Park with M’s Angel, the first race since his passing on Sunday.
