Whiteley passed, but deserves HOF spot
Let’s get this corrected. Trainer David Whiteley, who died recently at age 73, is not in the Hall of Fame.
The son of Hall of Fame horseman Frank Whiteley should long ago have joined his father with the greats.
His accomplishments in the 1970s and 1980s are marked by high quality on the most demanding circuits in the sport of his time, namely New York, Florida, New Jersey, and California.
David never had a big stable with which he could dominate the entry box, yet his career statistics are nearly impossible to believe.
Before I get to some of his thoroughbred stars and major stakes victories, I’ll ask you to consider his phenomenal record.
David won 678 races from 2,068 starts, a strike rate of 33 per-cent in the win cate-gory. He finished first, sec-ond or third 66 percent of the time. Those numbers are stratospheric when you take into consideration that they happened at Saratoga, Santa Anita, Hialeah, Gulfstream, Monmouth Park, Bel-mont, and Aqueduct. They happened against Hall of Fame trainers named Mack Miller, Shug Mc-Gaughey, Charlie Whit-tingham, D. Wayne Lu-kas, Laz Barrera, Ron McAnally and Woody Stepens. Golfing legend Jack Nicklaus comes to mind with that kind of suc-cess at the most de-manding level of com-petition. David's champion 3-year-old filly Revi-dere won the first eight starts of her career, in-cluding the Coaching Club American Oaks at 1 1/2 miles and the Monmouth Oaks at 1 1/8 miles, both Grade 1 events. She also won the Co-tillion, Gazelle and Ruf-fian in 1976. He trained champion older filly Waya in 1979 to a remarkable collec-tion of major victories. On dirt, Waya cap-tured the Top Flight at Aqueduct and the Bel-dame at Belmont Park, both Grade 1 affairs. On turf that year she won the Grade 1 Santa Barbara at Santa Anita. David trained cham-pion grass filly Just A Game II to six straight graded stakes wins in 1980, including the Di-ana at Saratoga and Flower Bowl at Belmont Park. In 1974 he sent out Astray to win a pair of the most prestigious turf events of that era, the San Luis Rey at 1 1/2 miles and San Juan Capistrano at 1 34 miles. He won the San Juan Capistrano again in 1979 with Tiller, defeat-ing Hall of Fame mem-ber Exceller. Both turf events are at Santa Anita. He also won the Bel-mont Stakes in 1979 with Coastal, ending the Triple Crown hopes of the mighty Spectacu-lar Bid. David sent out Til-ler to win the Sword Dancer at Belmont Park in 1980, defeating the great John Henry at equal weights going a mile and a half on turf. In 1983 he won the Grade 1 Brooklyn Handicap with High-land Blade at 1 1/2 miles, and the Grade 1 Dela-ware Handicap at Sara-toga with May Day Eighty. Highland Blade later that year won the Marl-boro Cup at Belmont Park, defeating two champions in Slew o' Gold and Bates Motel. Other major races won by David include the Withers, Gotham, Dwyer, Remsen, Test, Wood Memorial, New York, and Shuvee. He has been forgot-ten for too long. He was a quiet, intro-spective horseman dur-ing an interview, one who much preferred to let his horses be the center of attention. They were, to a sta-tistical degree that re-flected the incredibly rare talent that was Da-vid Whiteley.