Happy Birthday Bob

Jude T. Feld

My grandmother was standing over the ironing board, spraying starch on one of my Dad’s white shirts when the phone rang.

“Oh precioso,” she said in Spanglish. “Roberto. Oh precioso.”

It was then I knew I had another brother and I knew his name was Robert.

It was May 11, 1962.

Back in that dark age, there was no fetal sexing. When a child was born the sex was mystery until they popped out – hence the large number of yellow and mint green bedrooms in family homes across the United States.

I know my Mom was secretly hoping for a girl, but she would have to wait a couple more years for that blessed event.

My newest brother was a dark and handsome baby, named in honor of the priest, Father Robert Gipson, an old friend of our dad, who would baptize him a few days later.

The early life of Robert Gerard Feld was pretty low key. A small family birthday party and Christmas being the highlights of the year along with trips to the San Bernardino mountains, where Father Bob would race us around Lake Arrowhead on his Chris-Craft ski boat and we would spend days at Lake Gregory swimming, sunning and paddle-boarding.

Weekends consisted mostly of yardwork and housework and a jaunt to Santa Anita on Saturdays for the horse races. These junkets to the track, with our dad and our Uncle Neil, were highly coveted by all the kids in our families, but Bob and I wanted to be in on them the most.

In 1973, near my sixteenth birthday, my grandfather gave me his 1962 Impala. This would prove a boon to us. My mom told me I could drive to the track whenever I wanted, but I had to take Bob with me – music to our ears!

We’d go to Holy Angels church for 9:30 mass on Sunday mornings and then head across Huntington Drive to Santa Anita, getting in the clubhouse admission line well ahead of the rest of the crowd. When gates opened, Bob would run under the turnstile and dash upstairs with a copy of the Pasadena Star News, placing sections of the newspaper on free clubhouse seats that we would save for a band of usual horseplayers who made the long drive from West L.A.

Lew Herrmann and his wife “Shorty,” Harris, “The guy that always plays the Elmendorf horses,” “The Mexican man that smiles all the time,” and a few other irregular regulars -we played the horses with this unlikely band of friends every Sunday for years.

Bob had a very small bankroll as most chores around our house paid a quarter. The guy would work his ass off just to have two bucks to bet. Consequentially, he was a very conservative bettor. He would agonize over whether or not it was the right time to wager $2.00 to show on a horse.

I invented a little handicapping system for him and one Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita Bob went 100% for the meet on his show bets. I will never forget the glow on his face when we cashed his final wager on the last day of the meet.

When I ventured to Kentucky the first time in 1978, I wrote Bob and my Dad constantly. They would regularly get packages of Daily Racing Forms and programs from River Downs, Ellis Park, Churchill Downs and Latonia.

Bob poured over these ‘Forms, studying every horse. When I was making the charts of the races at Ellis Park, an envelope arrived at the track. It was a note from Bob with $2.00 in it.

“Please bet this $2.00 to win on He’s a Fizzle the next time he runs.” Bob wrote.

About 10 days later, He’s a Fizzle ran and won paying over $100!

I returned to California and we were back to the races on an even more regular basis now that I was employed by the DRF. Soon Bob and I bought our first horse. She was a pretty chestnut filly we named Fanciness, who although she never raced for us, turned out to be a decent runner and eventually a stakes producer. We paid $4,000 for her and sold her for $16,000, not too shabby for a couple of young guys.

In 1980, I took out my trainers license, and with Bob in tow, my stable immediately got on a roll, winning five out of our first seven starts.

One day, while passing science class for the daily double at Santa Anita, Bob saw this beautiful horse named Pewter Grey run an intriguing race.

“You should have seen this race,” he told me excitedly. “Pierce never let this horse run. I know Larry Perkins is setting him up for a gamble. You have got to claim him!”

As luck would have it, I had a group for four doctors that wanted to claim something and we haltered Pewter Grey for $20,000 from his next start.

He was a mean and nasty colt by Grey Dawn II out of Young Libby by Hawaii. He kicked me the first day we had him and we never got warm and fuzzy with each other, but he took a liking to Bob, who became his groom.

The first time we worked him, he went :58 2/5. Bob and I were like kids in a candy store. We finally had a horse that could really run. After going through his conditions in his three-year-old year, he won The Sierra Nevada (G3) at Santa Anita, our first hundred-grander and our first graded victory.

Around that time, Bob and I both got married and had kids. Bob left the track for a while to work with his father-in-law. Lucky for him, a few years later, that family business was sold and Bob came back to Jude Feld Racing Stable.

He took the two-year-olds at Hollywood Park and we had a heck of a meet, leading everybody in juvenile wins.

Looking to spend more time with his family, Bob was hired by Barry Irwin and Jeff Siegel for their Clover Racing partnership. It was there that he met John and Jerry Amerman who would change his life forever.

On behalf of Clover, Bob sold them part of Star of Cozzene, a real “Saturday horse” as Mr. Kilroe would call him. This experience led the Amerman’s to start their own racing stable and they wanted Bob for their adviser.

Adoration, Balance, Siphonic, Chattahoochee War, Drama Critic, Demarcation and Fencelineneighbor are all horses Bob has purchased for Amerman Racing.

He’s had a hand in purchasing four Breeders’ Cup winners too – Champions Reraise and Action This Day as well as Adoration and Shared Account.

Even with all these accomplishments, Bob hasn’t changed that much. He is still as conservative with his client’s money as he was when he was making show bets. He loves the track and the sales and the people who are involved with both. He wears shorts – a lot, and a baseball cap, even when it’s 20 degrees at the Keeneland January Sale. He is the life of the party everywhere he goes and he knows everybody (even the most interesting man in the world).

Hardly a day goes by that somebody doesn’t ask me if I am Bob Feld’s brother. I have never denied it nor will I ever. We have shared a lot. We don’t always agree but who does? There aren’t many people in this world who you can count on, but we have each other’s back, always.

It is impossible for me to believe that it has been half a century since the day he was born, but I am sure glad he was. I have enjoyed every minute.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2012 at 6:21 am and is filed under Featured Articles. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.