There are six emails from Ed Bowen in my inbox. First off, the jockeyclub.com address – still in service long after he retired – made me smile every time I saw it. Second, the emails span nearly 10 years. The first came in January 2014, the last in December 2024.
I probably deleted a few reply-alls we were connected on, but three messages will never leave the folder.
Jan. 28, 2014. Subject: Tom Voss. “Wonderful piece on Tom Voss. A very innovative way to remember him partially through others’ eyes. I was surprised he was so young. Seems like I’ve known him forever, but I now realize he was very young when I first met him, but he always seemed the same.”
Those last five words pretty much summed up Voss, the trainer who died at 63 but seemed far older, wiser, more historic. I wrote a column about my sons Jack (then 17) and Ryan (20) wanting to go to the funeral because they felt a connection to Voss.
Ed Bowen, turf writer, Eclipse Award winner, editor of The Blood-Horse, author, man who covered Secretariat, read that column and emailed me about it. I’m still somewhat stunned.
Jan. 22, 2018. Subject: Secretariat issue: “Thank you so much for your commentary on the Secretariat Belmont as presented by The Blood-Horse in that issue long ago. I am sure that anyone involved in covering or commenting on that event was struck by the weight of it and felt obligated to try to give the reader a sense of something out of the ordinary. It is very gratifying that someone with so much depth of appreciation for the sport as you have felt those efforts were deserving of comment many years later. I am particularly pleased that your son was involved in those discussions.”
This was after another column. Jack was clearing out some space around the office and found the June 18, 1973 edition of The Blood-Horse. The nearly 45-year-old weekly magazine covered Secretariat’s Belmont Stakes tour de force. Bowen was one of the main writers. I was struck by the mix of simplicity and majesty. Bowen, Kent Hollingsworth, William H. Rudy, Joe Estes and the team covered one of Thoroughbred racing’s seminal moments – in the moment – and it all still held up. They were factual and lyrical at the same time. Bowen carved out some space to appreciate Sham, who finished second in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness and gave Big Red a run in the Belmont too before fading to last. Bowen gave Sham his due, but also provided a world-class kicker. “This was a great horse letting a good horse have his run, and then he would smash him.”
That magazine, still around this office somewhere, brightened a mundane task on a winter day and made me write about it. That Bowen read my column, again, brought punch and recognition. Like Steph Curry commenting on the shot of some YMCA gym rat.
Bowen being Bowen, his email included an aside that made me laugh out loud.
“On the totally trite side, I have always clung to the memory that Charlie Stone and I had a martini in the Plaza Oak Bar before heading to Belmont that day. We were taken aback by the high price — $1.70 — and duly chastened by the bartender’s comment, “Well you ARE drinking at the Plaza, after all.” Over the years as New York martini prices followed the multiples of stallion syndications, I have enjoyed thinking back to that conversation. I believe my current New York martini record is $20 in the King Cole Bar of the St. Regis Hotel.”
Aug. 16, 2018. Subject: Horse names. “I agree that Therapist is a clever name for a Freud. However, when I was an editor, I always cautioned about this word and the importance of being aware that it never was broken after “the” at the end of a line. Makes for an awkward situation in which the meaning is changed dramatically. Love your publication.”
While we’re on the subject of laughing, here was Bowen reading The Saratoga Special and coming up with yet another reason to worry about how things appeared in print. We’d made the horse Therapist a Name of the Day based on his sire Freud. I went back and looked and best I can tell there was no awkward line break showing The- at the end of one line and rapist at the start of another. Whew. An editor of Bowen’s experience knew what time bombs certain things were and Therapist was just waiting to explode.
His last sentence, “Love your publication,” meant the world. Still does.
Ed Bowen, 82, died Jan. 20 at his home in Versailles, Ky. Born in 1942 in West Virginia, he moved to Florida with his family and grew up in Fort Lauderdale. The Black Stallion books kindled an interest in horses. During summer breaks from the University of Florida, he worked at the Sun-Sentinel newspaper, at Ocala Stud in Floria and as a hotwalker/groom at Monmouth Park in New Jersey. In 1963, he got a job with The Blood-Horse and moved to Kentucky, transferring to the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Among his various positions in racing he edited the Canadian Horse, a monthly in Toronto, and was the managing editor and editor-in-chief (succeeding Hollingsworth) of The Blood-Horse. After five years at that desk, he left the magazine and was hired as the president of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation. Bowen spent 24 years there, helping raise money and awareness. The foundation funded $22 million for research projects that benefited all horses. Bowen authored 22 racing books and contributed articles for numerous publications. As a racing historian, he served on several committees with the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and was a museum trustee. He regularly introduced inductees and Hall of Fame members at the annual ceremonies in Saratoga.
The annual Eclipse Awards dinner Jan. 23 was dedicated to Bowen, who won an Eclipse for writing in 1972 and was a regular contributor to the event. He wrote the event’s introduction for 53 years, including the 2024 version you can access here (two minutes that will make you listen from the 5:30 mark to 7:30 at the start of the show).
Racing lost all that and more when Bowen died, but racing isn’t alone. Bowen’s survivors include his wife Ruthie, whose graphic-design work and artistic talent have been a regular part of The Saratoga Special and our other projects for years; son George, daughters Jennifer Schafhauser and Tracy Bowen, two granddaughters and a slew of friends and family.
Hang on to your emails.
