Look Back: Mare's Name Recalls Stanwyck's Racing Ties

Barbara Stanwyck is best known for gripping performances in films such as "Double Indemnity," "The Lady Eve," and "Ball of Fire," but few can recall the Academy Award winner's impact on the early days of California horse racing in the late 1930s and early 1940s through her breeding and stallion farm Marwyck Ranch, though a mare named after her could change that.

Stanwyck was nominated four times for an Oscar before earning an honorary award. An 8-year-old mare named after her has been a hit as well. Grade 3 winner Stanwyck sold for $2.4 million to Ramona Bass at the 2014 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. Stanwyck's first foal, Tajawoz, by War Front , was purchased for $750,000 by Shadwell Estate from the Claiborne Farm consignment at this year's Keeneland September yearling sale. 

"Names are weird. You know I've named so many horses. Some come through in a way and some don't," said Jerry Moss, co-breeder and co-owner of Stanwyck. "Gormley (his Santa Anita Derby (G1) winner named after a British sculptor) was a name that was floating around in my head. Stanwyck was one of those names as well. I think we wanted an S."

Trainer John Sheriffs told Moss to "pick out a good name" after Stanwyck made an early impression. 

On the track, Stanwyck was a hard knocker like her Brooklyn-born namesake, for a co-owner in Moss who was born in the Bronx. Stanwyck placed in three grade 1s and sported a 3-3-7 record from 18 starts. Her top win was the 2013 Turnback the Alarm Handicap (G3) at Belmont Park, where she dug in under Hall of Fame jockey Alex Solis to win at 21-1. 

Stanwyck, bred by Jerry and Ann Moss, is by Empire Maker —Set Them Free by Stop The Music. Multiple stakes winner Set Them Free, is named after a song by Sting, one of the most successful musicians Moss has worked with as co-founder of A&M Records. The name of the Moss's 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta references an album by Sting's band The Police.

Set Them Free, retired at Mill Ridge in Lexington, produced 2005 Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Giacomo, named after a son of Sting. Stanwyck and Giacomo also are siblings of 2007 Santa Anita Derby (G1) and Goodwood Stakes (G1) winner Tiago, who earned more than $2.3 million. 

"A brilliant mare," Moss said. Set Them Free's sire Stop The Music, a Greentree Stable homebred, was placed first after Secretariat was disqualified to second in the 1972 Champagne Stakes (G1) and he set two track records at Belmont Park.

Ramona Bass and her son Perry Bass see plenty of potential in Stanwyck as a broodmare. 

"Her page speaks for itself, being a half to a Derby winner and Tiago," Perry Bass said. 

Perry Bass said they liked that Stanwyck was a router on dirt and is by 2003 Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Empire Maker.

"She was a hot commodity at the sale," Bass said. "She is a big, strong mare."

Rick Nichols, vice president and general manager of Shadwell Farm, said Tajawoz was shipped to Dubai in November for early training. The goal is to have him in England by March to begin preparing to race. He will be trained by Owen Burrows. 

Stanwyck currently is in foal to Uncle Mo . "We wanted to infuse some speed into her," Bass said. 

Should Stanwyck's foals succeed on the track, it could bring some attention to Stanwyck, the actress, who picked up the horse bug at a time when Hollywood was immersed in racing. Amid the success of Santa Anita Park, Hollywood flocked to the races, leading to the opening of Bing Crosby's Del Mar in 1937 and Hollywood Park one year later. 

Stanwyck and her future husband, actor Robert Taylor, were among the host of celebrities who attended the 1937 opening of Del Mar.

In the mid 1930s Stanwyck's agent Zeppo Marx, one of the Marx brothers who left acting before the team made their famous racetrack picture "A Day at the Races," purchased land about 35 miles from Santa Anita and together with Stanwyck built a Thoroughbred breeding and stallion operation known as Marwyck. They invested approximately $200,000 in the venture, quite a fortune during the Great Depression. Stanwyck and Marx both built homes overlooking the farm, and turned Marwyck into one of the largest stallion operations in the country. The 170-acre property included a six-furlong training track.

The Marwyck farm near Van Nuys, 20 miles from Hollywood, was profiled in the Oct. 31, 1936 edition of The Blood-Horse. Harry Hart, formerly the trainer and manager of Le Mar Stock Farm Stable, was its managing director.  

Their first stallion was The Nut, a son of Mad Hatter—Afternoon, by Prince Palatine. Bred by Harry Whitney, The Nut didn't become a major stallion. But by 1941 the stallion operation was second in size to Claiborne Farm, according to The Blood-Horse. J. A. Estes, writing in that year's April 5 edition, described Marwyck as having "about everything a horse could wish for except automatic tail-swishers."

The visitors were so numerous that a full-size crew was needed to clean up after all of the picnics. Even with a sign up to dissuade sight-seers, "there are still scores of visitors every day," Estes wrote.

"The office has a medicine room that is second only to Hagyard and Hagyard's," he wrote. Hart diversified the diet of the horses with treats such as Argentine corn and soda. 

By this time Stanwyck and Marx were boarding stallions such as Dogaway, Main Man, Roman Soldier, Annapolis Blue, and MGM chief Louis B. Mayer's Torchilla. 

Much was made about the expense of irrigating the farm in the intense heat and dry conditions of California. One paddock under construction in 1938, where horses recovering from injury would be tended to, was to be furnished with soil from the ocean. "Instead of taking horses to the sea, the sea is being brought to the horses," Brownie Leach wrote for The Blood-Horse.

In Victoria Wilson's biography of Stanwyck, "A Life of Barbara Stanwyck," there are photos of her friends Clark Gable and Carole Lombard visiting the farm, as well as details about the farm.

In the 1930s, Santa Anita named a race after Stanwck's farm called the Marwyck Purse. Stanwyck, who in the 1960s would star in the television Western "The Big Valley," had ridden horses in pictures such as Annie Oakley, The Woman in Red, and A Message to Garcia, but after suffering a back injury from being thrown from a horse in Forbidden, she added a clause in her contract to keep her from riding horses in movies, according to the biography.

At one point, there were 20 broodmares at Marwyck including Jane Packard, the 1932 Ashland Oaks runner-up; and Maylite, a half sister to multiple stakes winner Chase Me. Stanwyck and Marx raced some of the foals and sold others.

The first foal at Marwyck was a filly by Hall of Famer Sun Beau, a three-time older Horse of the Year. Future foals by Ladkin, Tick On, and Reveille Boy were also raised there. One of the top foals delivered at the farm was 1946 Santa Anita Handicap winner War Knight, who was owned by Hollywood screenwriter Ethel Hill.

As a breeding farm, Stanwyck viewed Marwyck as a success. "We haven't made a lot of money," Stanwyck said in Wilson's biography of her, "but probably about as much as we could have got in interest from the banks. And look at the fun we've had."

In 1943, the farm was sold to breeder J.H. Ryan, who stood five-time leading California sire Alibhai (GB) there. Actor Jack Oakie purchased Stanwyck's home. The property in Northridge where the farm stood has since been developed, though approximately nine and a half acres surrounding Stanwyck's home has been preserved, according to Patricia LoPresti of the Friends of Oakridge. The organization has partnered with the city of Los Angeles and is focused on working to raise funds to keep the home intact and provides tours.

Moss used to enjoy bringing musicians at A&M Records to the races but said times have changed since the days of the 1930s when 30,000 or more would regularly attend the races in California. In his own days going to the track, he recalls seeing film icons such as Cary Grant, who once sat on the board of directors at Hollywood Park; and Fred Astaire, who married jockey Robyn Smith. 

"Nowadays, a celebrity can't go out in public," Moss said. 

On Stanwyck herself: “She seemed to be a very serious person and serious about what she was doing. They gave actresses a little more rope (back then),” he said.

“I liked her very much. I thought she was a wonderful actress. I think it paid some tribute to her that (her name was used for) a great horse."