"Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead. After that my own rule is to let everything alone." —Meyer Wolfsheim, from The Great Gatsby
Wolfsheim was a connected guy and a serious gambler. Rumor was, he fixed a World Series. Thank goodness a certain group of individuals didn't take his advice, though, otherwise neither Christophe Clement nor John Shirreffs would have been included among those who have been honored in the Thoroughbred racing Hall of Fame class of 2026.
The bitter cynics among us are decrying the sad fact that both men died before they could spend at least a little time basking in their exalted status. Clement was lost 11 months ago after a protracted illness, while Shirreffs went suddenly this February, and both were on the Hall of Fame ballot cast early in 2025. Those voters who changed their minds this time around should be applauded for getting on board, even if their motives were morbid. At least, the families and friends of Shirreffs and Clement are grateful, and the Hall of Fame shines brighter for their inclusion.
There are no less than 14 trainers alive and well out there to remind us what a Hall of Fame horseman looks like in the flesh, from Ron McAnally, who was elected in 1990, to the more recently minted Todd Pletcher and Mark Casse. Those two will have horses entered in the 152nd Kentucky Derby (G1), along with fellow Famers Bill Mott, Steve Asmussen, and Bob Baffert, which is as it should be. They didn't make it to the walls of the National Museum of Racing by sitting out the big ones.
Neither did David Whiteley, whose name emerged this week from the misty past with his selection by a branch of the Historical Review Committee to join Clement and Shirreffs in the Class of '26. Whiteley had been on the main ballot before, but he was roundly ignored by a cohort of contemporary voters who prefer their candidates to boast musclebound résumés and a more extensive Wikipedia page.
Besides, Whiteley hadn't saddled a starter since 1995. He won just shy of 700 races. The highest highlights of his training career were crammed into about a dozen years during the 1970s and '80s. And yet, here he is now in the Hall of Fame alongside Jerry Hollendorfer and his 7,777 winners, and D. Wayne Lukas, with his $300 million in stable earnings. It takes all kinds.
As the son of Frank Whiteley Jr., the trainer of Damascus, Ruffian, and Forego, David Whiteley was expected to do just fine. That can be a problem, when dad is a Hall of Famer and you have been pretty much handed the keys to the kingdom—and especially when your paternal role model is one tough, gruff S.O.B. who chewed antacid tablets like candy and loved to taunt turf writers and butt heads with well-heeled owners.
Frank Whiteley also had a tightly wrapped soft center that was exposed often enough through his affection and respect for the horses in his care. And if a racing writer hung in there and brought something to the party, Frank would give you a lot more than the time of day, delivered with a grudging dose of his Maryland hardboot charm.
The son could never be the father, but he tried.
"We had a lot of fun, but David was nervous, just like his dad," said John "Short Man" Flakes, who groomed the stakes filly Sarsar and others for the younger, chain-smoking Whiteley. "We'd heat up a 50-gallon barrel of water in the tack room and turn it into a sauna. David would put on a heavy coat and sit there, sweating himself out."
Those were the early and mid-1970s in California and New York, when every time you turned around there was a David Whiteley horse winning something such as the San Juan Capistrano Handicap (G1T), the San Antonio Handicap (G1), or the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1). And if his 1979 season could be extrapolated over a number of years, his name would have been etched into stone long ago.
Whiteley already was coming off a career-best year in 1978, at age 34, with a barn topped by the grade 1 filly Northernette, the turf ace Tiller, and the promising 2-year-old Instrument Landing. Like his father, his clients included the cream of racing's patronage, including Peter Brant, Claiborne Farm, and the Bancroft family of New York.
In 1979, while such monsters as Affirmed and Spectacular Bid roamed the land, Whiteley was content with his boutique stable at Belmont Park, from which emanated just 17 individual horses to make 91 starts, win 34 races, and earn nearly $1.7 million. Those 34 winning races included 13 graded stakes, eight of them grade 1s taken by Waya, Instrument Landing, Tiller, and Coastal, who beat Spectacular Bid in the Belmont Stakes (G1).
So why did Whiteley's star burn out so soon?
"He was his own worst enemy," said Charlsie Cantey, who worked for both Whiteleys during her time as an exercise rider, before becoming a respected racing broadcaster. "The tough guy act was learned behavior. You had to really respect his ability as a trainer, but he would just push people away all the time.
"He had a lot of good horses, and he made the most of what was given to him," Cantey said. "As good as they were supposed to be on paper, there were some very difficult horses, too.
"He had a filly named Cyamome who could really run, but she didn't want to go to the track, as contrary as hell," Cantey continued. "Every day when we left the barn, David would rattle a rake behind us, all the way to the track. He had to put up with so much crap from everybody—'It's okay, Whiteley. The maintenance crew will clean up the manure!'—but he could see what she could do, and he treated her with so much patience and a soft touch."
Cyamome, a daughter of Cyane, was not as accomplished as Whiteley's champions—Waya, Revidere, and Just a Game. Reluctant as she was, the filly did respond to Whiteley's approach, though, and managed to win the 1971 Post-Deb and Miss Woodford stakes at Monmouth Park and finished second in Belmont Park's 1972 Vagrancy Handicap.
"He never had a simple yardstick by which he trained," Cantey added. "He saw each and every horse as a distinct individual, and there's a lot of trainers in the Hall of Fame who did not do that."
Whiteley died in 2017 at age 72. His induction marks the sixth father-son Hall of Fame combination, following Ben and Jimmy Jones, Max and Buddy Hirsch, Marion and Jack Van Berg, Carey and Bill Winfrey, and Syl and John Veitch. The three generations of Burches—William, Preston, and Elliott—are in a class of their own.
Whiteley spent the early years of his retirement caring for his aging father in Camden, S.C. Following Frank Whiteley's death in 2008, David turned his back on the sport and was rarely heard from. In March 2017, five months before his death, this reporter gave him a call after his name appeared for the third straight year on the Hall of Fame ballot. It was like talking with a shy, courtly ghost from racing's glorious past.
"I had maybe 20 horses, four or five horses for each owner, and I trained those four or five like they were the only ones," Whiteley said. "That helped me and hurt me because sometimes I'd get my hands on a good one and pay more attention to that one than a lesser one."
He claimed to have nothing much in the way of career mementos, although a few of his father's were still around.
"I read books, and I watch TV," Whiteley said. "I don't travel, don't even own a car. I feel good, almost too good. But my barber's died, everybody's died but me, and I'm fine."
Whiteley did not know he'd been nominated again.
"And I doubt that my name is one many of the voters would recognize," he said.
They didn't then. We remember him now.
