Horse Trainer Bobby Frankel dies
Horse racing’s Hall-of-Fame trainer Bobby Frankel lost his battle with lymphoma earlier today, dying at his California home of complications as a result of the cancer. He was 68.
ESPN called Frankel “one of the most successful and respected trainers in the history of thoroughbred racing.” The man devoted more than 40 years to the sport, never having gone without at least one Grade 1 win in any given year since 1988. In 2003, he won 25 Grade 1 races, a single-season world record.
All together, Frankel won 3,654 races, and his horses earned $227,947,775, second all-time on the money list. In 1995, Frankel was inducted in to the sport’s Hall of Fame.
Frankel was born on July 9, 1941 in New York to parents in the catering business. One day while in his early 20s, Frankel took a mere $40 to the track and came back at the end of the day with $20,000. When he showed his mother the money, she thought he’d robbed a bank. Obviously, Frankel was sold on the sport. Later, in 1966, he started training and never looked back, eventually migrating to California and establishing his barn there.
Frankel is survived by a daughter, Bethenny, 38, who is a reality television celebrity on the show “Real Housewives of New York.”
Funeral services are pending.
Tags: Bobby Frankel, cancer, horse racing, horse trainer, lymphoma