KY Farm Manager of Year Award renamed in honor of Bates

Effective September 2014, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers' Club Farm

Manager of the Year Award has been renamed the Ted Bates Farm Manager of the

Year Award in honor of life member, 1968 President and 1979 Farm Manager of the

Year, Ted Bates. He is the permanent committee chairman for the annual selection

committee for this award which is made up of the past and current Farm Managers

of the Year and the past and current KTFMC Presidents along with Ted.

Ted, born Theodore Bright Bates in 1923 in Carrollton, Kentucky, comes from a

farming background that includes his grandfather, Newton Bright, who served

several terms in the Kentucky Senate and then was elected Commissioner of

Agriculture. As a boy, Ted moved from Carrollton to Eminence where his

grandfather's farms were located and where his father, Theodore W. Bates, began

his law career in nearby New Castle. Ted later moved with his family to

Louisville and graduated from Louisville Male High School. Ted always considered

Eminence "home" and moved back there after high school where he spent a lot of

time with his grandparents working on their farms as well as others in the area.

Ted eventually continued his education at the University of Kentucky where he

obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture.

Ted's first job in the Thoroughbred industry was at Coldstream Farm under

farm manager Charlie Kenney. Charlie also happened to have a foreman working for

him by the name of Melvin Cinnamon with whom Ted developed a lifelong

friendship. Ted said, "Mr. Kenney taught me the horse business, and Melvin

Cinnamon taught me horse husbandry." Not able to afford marriage on his salary

at Coldstream, Ted became the assistant county extension agent for Shelby County

and shortly thereafter married his wife, Evelyn Nash.

In 1956 Melvin Cinnamon convinced Ted to become his assistant manager at

Maine Chance Farm owned by Elizabeth Arden Graham. Not an easy lady to work for,

Melvin Cinnamon, taking Ted with him, moved to Calumet in 1958 for Mrs. Gene

Markey after her manager, Mr. Paul Eblehardt, was struck by lightning while

playing golf and never completely recovered. In a career there lasting five

years, Ted worked with a great roster of stallions headed by the premiere sire,

Bull Lea. Ted's favorite horse while at Calumet was Triple Crown Champion

Citation who impressed him with his speed, determination and intelligence.

While managing Foxtail Farm on Keene Road in Nicholasville, Fasig-Tipton

approached Ted about bringing that sales company back to Kentucky and hired him

as general manager in 1970. After a breeding stock and mixed sale the first few

years, the decision was made to have a yearling sale in 1974. Fasig-Tipton had

lost its lease at the Thoroughbred Training Center and leased Henry Alexander's

farm on the Old Frankfort Pike where two barns were built for their first

yearling sale. Out of that first July Sale of forty-eight yearlings came Derby

and Belmont winner, Bold Forbes, and Preakness winner, Elocutionist. The next

year Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew came out of the Fasig-Tipton July Sale and

Fasig-Tipton was firmly established as an auction house once again in Central

Kentucky.

Feeling an orientation towards the farm, Ted left Fasig-Tipton in 1978 and

worked as manager of Wimbledon Farm for Hilary Boone for four years and then

served a brief stint with BKY farm. After this he served in an advisory capacity

for Paul Miller and Kermit Blackburn. When Elmer Whitaker had a dispersal of his

stock, Ted moved onto a tract of Bwamazon Farm on the Paris Pike where he

started and maintained his own breeding, boarding, breaking and sales operation

under the banner of Ted Bates Farm for more than twenty-two years. Probably one

of his favorite runners during this time was a filly named Miss Landy who was

named for one of Ted's best clients over the years, Ms. Landy Armstrong, a New

Jersey lady who bred and raced the dam of Miss Landy, the stakes winning mare

All the Vees. When she died, Ted bought All the Vees from her estate and

continued to keep her there and breed her.

Ted has been the recipient of many honors and has held many offices over the

years in addition to being a Past President, Farm Manager of the Year and

permanent member of the Farm Manager of the Year selection committee for the

Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers' Club. He has served as a trustee for the

University of Kentucky and is a past president of the University of Kentucky

Alumni Association. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of Fasig-Tipton

and is currently a Director Emeritus of Fasig-Tipton. He has also served as the

1976-77 President of the Thoroughbred Club of America. Ted is the 2013 recipient

of the TOBA Hardboot Breeders Award which pays tribute to distinctive but unsung

breeders that help make up the backbone of the Thoroughbred industry. He is also

the father of Ted Bates, a vice president at Hilliard Lyons in Lexington, and

Eve Bates Greathouse, a Scott County resident.

It is with great admiration, respect and gratitude for Bates and his service

that the Club renames the Thoroughbred Farm Manager of the Year Award in his

honor. By proclamation of the officers and board of directors of the Kentucky

Thoroughbred Farm Managers' Club, it shall henceforth be known as the "Ted Bates

Thoroughbred Farm Manager of the Year Award."

Bet Horseracing Free Online at TwinSpires.com