Klein to Sell All of His Horses, Get Out of the Racing Business

Gene Klein, a three-time winner of the Eclipse Award as America’s leading owner of thoroughbreds, announced Friday that he is pulling the plug on his multimillion-dollar racing stable after six years of meteoric success.

Klein, former owner of the Chargers, has decided to sell his nearly 150 race horses, broodmares, yearlings and weanlings at a public auction Nov. 6 in Lexington, Ky.

Among those going on the block will be Winning Colors, 1988 Kentucky Derby winner; Lady’s Secret, 1986 horse of the year, and current stable stars Open Mind and On the Line.

Winning Colors, who has not won since her Derby victory, is recuperating from a throat operation, and Lady’s Secret, who already has been auctioned twice without selling, recently gave birth to a filly by Alydar.

Klein’s bombshell triggered speculation as to the impact it will have on Wayne Lukas, the country’s top money-winning trainer. Lukas has guided Klein’s racing dynasty since the two men met in 1982.

Lukas has been cultivating other major clients during the last three years, among them Peter Brant, William T. Young and Daniel Wildenstein.

Lukas was en route from Oklahoma to Los Angeles Friday and could not be reached for comment. Klein’s horses provided more than $23 million to the $64.7 million won by horses in the Lukas stable between 1984 and 1988. In 1988 alone, Klein’s horses won $5,632,639, nearly a third of Lukas’ horses’ $17,502,110 total.

Klein, 68, said he is getting out of racing because he no longer wants to commit the energy and attention required to maintain his unprecedented success.

“I’d been thinking about cutting back on my horses for a long time,” he said. “I thought at first that I could scale back, not be quite so involved.

“But that’s not my style. I found out I couldn’t lighten my load and still be competitive in the sport the way I wanted to be.”

Klein said he and his wife, Joyce, would travel to New York for today’s Belmont Stakes and then leave for Europe. He said they are considering taking his plane on an around-the-world trip.

“I’d just like not to have a large business thing” to handle, he said.

Not many owners have been able to compete with the Klein interest, which has been fueled mainly by high-priced purchases of well-bred yearlings.

Klein and his wife won their first race on Jan. 30, 1983, with a filly named Cassie’s Prospect. Over the next six seasons their horses won 11 championships, seven Breeders’ Cup races, a Kentucky Derby, a Preakness and a horse-of-the-year title while flying Klein’s blue-and-gold silks with the lightning bolt logo borrowed from the Chargers.

But the race that he will forever remember was Winning Colors’ victory by a neck over Forty Niner in the 1988 Derby, only the third time a filly has won the race.

“I’ve been in sports 25, 30 years, and I’ve got to say this is the greatest thrill I’ve ever had in sports,” Klein said at the time.

Klein said that the 1989 Breeders’ Cup Nov. 4 at Gulfstream Park in Florida--two days before his dispersal sale--would be his swan song. At least for now, that is.

“I want to do it like Joe DiMaggio,” Klein said. “I hope we can go out on top.”

But Klein did not dismiss the possibility that he might re-enter the sport later with a lower profile. In the meantime, he will continue to lease Lukas the 140-acre training center adjacent to his Del Rayo Farm near Klein’s home in Rancho Santa Fe.

“Wayne and I will always be fast friends,” Klein said. “I’m not worried about him at all. He’s always turning people down who want to give him horses, so I’m sure they’ll be lining up to fill my spot.”

Times staff writer Bill Christine contributed to this story.