Famous Father-Son Horse Racing Legacies

Richard and Gary Mandella are one of many father-son pairs involved in horse racing. (Photo by Eclipse Sportswire)
In honor of Father’s Day – a day of celebrating fathers and paternal bonds - here are some of racing’s most well-known father-son duos. Like horses, many people are born and bred into this game. There’s a long history of horsemen involved in racing passing down the bug to their families – from trainers, owners, jockeys, officials and may other jobs within the industry to their children, this sport runs deep.
H. Allen “Chief” Jerkens, Jimmy Jerkens and Steve Jerkens
After a short stint as a steeplechase jockey the late Allen Jerkens, son of a retired Austrian cavalry captain who ran a riding academy, decided to start training Thoroughbreds and the rest is history. “The Chief’ won countless training titles at New York tracks, was leading New York trainer five times and was, at the time of his induction, the youngest trainer to be named a member of the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame. Allen may have been wildly competitive, but he was considered by many to be a horseman’s horseman, a legend and an incredible person and is greatly missed since his passing earlier this year. He was also known as the "Giant Killer" for upsetting some of racing's biggest stars with his horses. He beat five-time horse of the year Kelso three times with Beau Purple, Buckpasser with Handsome Boy and the great Secretariat twice, once with Onion and then with Prove Out.
ALLEN, JIMMY AND STEVE JERKENS

Photos by NYRA
Before going out on his own in 1997 son Jimmy Jerkens was an assistant to his father for 20 years. Encouraged by his father, he started his stable with seven of Peter Blum's horses. Ninth Inning was not only Jimmy's first win in 1997, but she also went on to be his first stakes win and graded stakes win. He most recently celebrated Wicked Strong’s Wood Memorial and Jim Dandy Stakes wins as well as finishing one-two in the 2014 Travers Stakes with V.E. Day and Wicked Strong.
Allen’s son Steve Jerkens is also a graded stakes winning trainer, though he has toned down his stable in recent years.
The Hancocks of Claiborne Farm
Claiborne Farm is steeped in family history over multiple generations. Not only has the farm been run and passed down in the Hancock family, but their employees and clients have continued to be involved as their family has grown and generations continue – a particularly loyal bunch. Some of current employees have stories of being born on the farm, helping in foaling barns as kids and following in their fathers’ and grandfathers’ footsteps; bloodlines of all types flourish at Claiborne.
Civil War veteran Captain Richard Hancock bred Thoroughbreds on his Ellerslie Farm in Virginia. His son, Arthur Boyd Hancock Sr., would later move the operation to Kentucky, to property owned by his wife's family, the Clays, and Claiborne Farm was born as he began syndicating stallions. He syndicated Sir Gallahad III, sire of Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox and Blenheim II, sire of Triple Crown winner Whirlaway.
Eventually the farm was passed on to son A.B. “Bull” Hancock Jr., who continued to expand the family farm as he brought in leading sires of sires. During this time Claiborne’s Nasrullah sired Bold Ruler who went on to win the Preakness for Gladys Mills Phipps. Bull Hancock’s motto, 'Do the usual unusually well,' is still the farm’s mantra.
Bull’s sons Arthur and Seth followed him into the business and upon his death 23-year-old Seth was chosen as his successor. Arthur eventually sold his interest in Claiborne and went on to develop Stone Farm. Arthur would breed and race Gato Del Sol to win the 1982 Kentucky Derby for Stone Farm and then two short years later in 1984 Swale would win the Derby for Seth and the Claiborne team - both brothers had their day!
SWALE IN THE CLAIBORNE SILKS

Photo by HorsePhotos
Seth's most well-known sire may have been Secretariat, but both Danzig and Mr. Prospector were phenomenal horses under his management too. Seth and his sisters Dell and Clay Hancock are fourth-generation breeders.
Walker Hancock, son of Seth Hancock, has become the next generation to take on a major role the farm as the managing director and president. From working with horses at an early age and interning within various facets of the industry (yearling prep with Claiborne, Keeneland Sales inspection team, working for trainer Al Stall and resident vet tech at the family farm) he went on to graduate from the University of Florida where he majored in Animal Sciences and minored in Agricultural Sales and Marketing. After graduation Walker began getting more involved with the daily life of Claiborne Farm and in 2014 became the farm’s president.
The Phipps Family
Odgen Mills “Dinny” Phipps is the current Phipps family patriarch as the son of Thoroughbred owner Ogden Phipps. His grandmother Gladys Mills Phipps owned Wheatley Stable, and her father, Ogden Mills, had Thoroughbreds of his own around the end of the 19th century. This family is steeped in racing royalty.
Dinny owns many Thoroughbreds with cousin Stuart S. Janney III. After inheriting the family stable in 1988 Janney decided to move his family's breeding operation to Claiborne Farm under the care of Seth W. Hancock. Janney’s parents bred the famous filly Ruffian.
The Phipps family (whose ancestors were connected with the Carnegie Steel empire) has long been involved in the Sport of Kings. Rather than buying horses at auction, they've heavily invested in female bloodlines and maintain their own band of mares. They breed to race, not sell. They are one of the few families left in the sport that not only was able to hand down their monetary blessings, but more importantly the love of horse racing and virtue of patience.
Four generations of breeding knowledge (bloodlines, pedigrees, physicality of horses and more) put their heads together to decide what stallions will mate with their mares and sometimes they truly strike gold.
PHIPPS (left), TRAINER MCGAUGHEY AND JANNEY WITH DERBY TROPHY

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire
The 2013 Kentucky Derby winner, Orb, is a seventh-generation descendant of a mare named Erin that was bought by Gladys Mills Phipps when she first got the family involved in racing in the late 1920s. Gladys is known for selling an underperforming 3-year-old who ended up being one of racing's greats: Seabiscuit. They also passed up on Secretariat in the 1969 coin toss with Penny Chenery when they decided to wait for a daughter of Bold Ruler. They know that playing in this game requires patience and it paid off when their homebred won the Derby in 2013.
Ben and Jimmy Jones of Calumet Farm
Transformed to a Thoroughbred operation in 1932, Calumet didn't have to wait to long to have not one, but two Triple Crown winners - Whirlaway in 1941 and Citation in 1948. The 91-year-old Calumet Farm is now owned by Brad Kelley but has tons of history behind it.
Father-son training duo of Ben and Jimmy Jones played a huge part in the farm’s domination from the 1940s to the 1960s thanks to sire Bull Lea. Combined, the father-son training duo won the Kentucky Derby eight times.
BEN JONES AND WHIRLAWAY

Photo by HorsePhotos
Four Ben Jones trainees were honored as Horse of the Year and he is credited on record with six of their Kentucky Derby winners. His son, Jimmy Jones, was the first trainer to win over $1 million in purses, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1959 and was the country's leading trainer five times. After retiring from Calumet he went on to work as the director of racing at Monmouth Park for 12 years.
Lafitt Pincay Jr. and Lafitt Pincay III
Lafitt Pincay Jr. learned to ride by watching his father, a jockey in Panama and Venezuela. Pincay Jr. rode in the U.S. for 37 years and was racing's all-time winningest jockey until Russell Baze captured win No. 9,531. Despite being retired since 2003, Pincay Jr. still holds second place. He is a five-time Eclipse Award winner for Outstanding Jockey and has seven Breeders’ Cup wins and four Triple Crown race victories - he won the Kentucky Derby aboard Swale in 1984 and won three consecutive Belmont Stakes (Conquistador Cielo, Caveat and Swale, from 1982 to 1984).
PINCAY JR. AND PINCAY III

Photos by NYRA and Eclipse Sportswire
His son, Lafitt Pincay III, is a horse racing commentator that can be regularly seen talking horse racing as part of the NBC network and NBC Sports coverage of the Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup in addition to HRTV in the past.
Richard Mandella and Gary Mandella
Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella was introduced to horses by his father who was a blacksmith. After a short stint training horses at a nearby ranch while in high school, he assisted trainer Lefty Nickerson in New York and Texas horseman Roger Braugh. Richard then returned to California to open up a stable all his own. From 1996 to 1998 he won six back-to-back million-dollar races on the Southern California circuit. He has saddled six horses to run in the Kentucky Derby, saddled the 2004 Dubai World Cup winner Pleasantly Perfect and has had seven Breeders' Cup wins. One of his most well-known current winners is the 5-year-old champion mare Beholder who won the Grade 3 Adoration Stakes at Santa Anita Park on June 13, 2015 in addition to two Eclipse Awards and a pair of Breeders’ Cup races.
RICHARD AND GARY MANDELLA

Photos by Eclipse Sportswire 
Richard’s son, Gary, is currently a trainer and HRTV analyst. After a five-month tenure at Claiborne Farm he worked for his father full-time from 1995 to 1999. He dabbled in on-air racing analysis but in 2002 he went out on his own as a trainer and has had multiple graded stakes wins and two Breeders’ Cup placings since. In 2010 he joined HRTV as a racing analyst, and he also maintains a string of horses.
The Mandella men won stakes on the same card in 2012 when Richard saddled Jimmy Creed in the Malibu Stakes and Gary won the Sir Beaufort Stakes with Silentio.
Shout-out to a few of my past and present ABR colleagues:
Jose Contreras
Not only did Contreras’s father introduce him to the game, but when Jose married his wife Karina he gained jockey Agapito Delgadillo (who can be found riding on the California circuit) as a father-in-law and jockey Jose Delgadillo (riding in Pennsylvania) as a brother-in-law.
John F. Cox
Cox, a 2013 ABR Brand Ambassador, has had his fair share of horse racing gigs – he went to auctioneer school, worked at Lane's End Farm as an assistant barn foreman, was a Keeneland marketing and events intern, operated the tote board for Fasig-Tipton and was a staff writer at Churchill Downs. He was introduced to the sport by his father, John A. Cox, who is well known in the industry for his business Thorough-Graphics, where he designs and creates beautiful signage for multiple Thoroughbred farms, owners, consignors and trainers nationwide (and which John F. Cox also sometimes works at). It’s always a treat to see his work when I go to the Fasig-Tipton sales in Saratoga.
Chip McGaughey
Chip was fellow ABR Brand Ambassador in 2013 and currently works for Keeneland’s sales staff and is a son of Hall of Fame trainer Claude R. “Shug” McGaughey III. Shug has been training horses since 1979 and has been the Phipps family trainer since 1988. His many major racing wins include Orb's 2013 Kentucky Derby win and the 1989 Belmont Stakes with Hall of Fame horse Easy Goer. Shug ist tied for third behind D. Wayne Lukas and Bob Baffert for most Breeders’ Cup wins with nine. Chip’s brother, Reeve McGaughey, works for trainer (and uncle) Charlie LoPresti, best known as trainer of Wise Dan. Their entire family is ingrained in the sport – it’s awesome.
And let’s not forget some of horseracing’s best father-son duos haven’t been human - we’ve got plenty of amazing equine duos too. But note, these lucky fathers sire somewhere around 100 – 150 horses a year. Even champion racehorses have famous dads! Here are a few: 
Bold Ruler and son Secretariat  Seattle Slew and son A.P. IndyPioneerof the Nile and son American Pharoah