NEWS
Leading breeder, owner Betty Mabee dies
Posted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 3:40 PM
BETTY MABEE
by Ed DeRosa
Betty Mabee, who with her late husband, John, was a leading owner and breeder based in California, died on Monday at her home in Rancho Santa Fe, California. She was 88.
Betty Mabee was born in Unionville, Missouri, and grew up in Iowa, where John Mabee was her high school sweetheart. They moved to San Diego during World War II and founded a grocery store that later became the Big Bear supermarket chain. The success of the supermarket business allowed the couple to begin building their Thoroughbred empire in 1957, when they bought two horses at the Del Mar yearling sale.
Their initial bloodstock purchase led them to purchase 197 acres in Ramona, California. Named Golden Eagle Farm, the property grew to 568 acres by the early 21st century. Their first stakes winner came in 1970 when Cool Hand won a division of the San Felipe Stakes, and homebred Beau’s Eagle became their first Grade 1 winner when he won the 1980 San Antonio Handicap (G1).
Many other top horses followed, including multiple Grade 1 winners and 1999 Kentucky Derby (G1) starters Excellent Meeting and General Challenge from the couple’s ‘96 crop of homebreds. But no horse was more favored by Betty Mabee than Best Pal, a homebred *Habitony gelding who won a stakes race each year from 1990 through ’95, including six Grade 1 races at three different tracks. He won 18 of 47 races and earned $5,668,245.
The couple won the Eclipse Award as outstanding breeder in 1991, ‘97, and ’98.
The Mabees started Golden Eagle Insurance Co. in 1984, and the company is California’s third-largest workers’ compensation carrier with more than 1,300 employees.
John Mabee was a founding member of the Breeders’ Cup Ltd. board of directors and a member of the Jockey Club. Betty Mabee became a director of Del Mar Thoroughbred Club after her husband resigned as chairman at the end of 2001. The Mabees were married for more than 60 years until John’s death on April 24, 2002.
Ed DeRosa is news editor for Thoroughbred Times
