New England Horseman Stone Dies at 100
Description:
Longtime New England multiple stakes winning owner, trainer, breeder and World War II veteran Edward H. Stone died Jan. 29 in Burlington, Mass. He was 100.
After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1941 and serving as a captain in the U.S. Army's 24th Quartermaster Regiment until the end of the war, the Massachusetts native turned his attention to Thoroughbred racing and his horses competed on the old New England circuit and at other East Coast tracks for the rest of his life.
The centenarian's lone starter in 2019, a 3-year-old second generation homebred named Jump For Alex, won an allowance race Jan. 19 at Parx Racing, 10 days before Stone passed. The Pennsylvania-bred is a 2019 Triple Crown nominee.
A long active member of the New England Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association, Stone was still serving as an alternate board member of the Massachusetts Thoroughbred Breeders Association at the time of his death.
According to Equibase, horses owned and bred by Stone made 89 starts and earned $183,622 since 2008 and his trainees made 416 starts to bankroll $634,276 since 1994. Starters running in the name of his late wife, Lois, made 120 starts with earnings of $278,085 from 2000-2013.
But the Stones achieved success at Suffolk Downs and the defunct Rockingham Park, Lincoln Downs and Naragansett Park for decades prior and he counted the New England Futurity among his many stakes victories.
Jill's Layup, a second generation homebred, won five stakes at Suffolk Downs in 2002-03 and earned a Special Achievement Award from the New England Turf Writers Association. The Massachussetts-bred is the dam of the last horse Stone saddled as trainer—at the age of 98—Tango, who finished third in the Louise Kimball Stakes for state-breds at Suffolk Downs Aug. 6, 2017.
Stone was preceded in death by Lois, to whom he was married for more than 50 years. He is survived by sons Richard Stone and Robert Stone, daughters Carol Stone and Pamela Custudio, five grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and his sister Ruth Stone Dwinell.
His wake will be Saturday, Feb. 2 at 10 a.m. in the McDonald Funeral Home, 19 Yale Ave., Wakefield, Mass., followed by a funeral service at 12:30 p.m.