Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Resilience offers opportunity to burnish Wygod’s legacy
Resilience will try to add to the accomplishments of prominent owner and breeder Marty Wygod posthumously when he goes postward in the Kentucky Derby. The Wood Memorial winner is from one of the best families cultivated by Wygod, who died April 11 at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., near his home in Rancho Santa Fe. He was 84.
Wygod had never bred or owned a Kentucky Derby starter. Resilience, who stepped forward with the addition of blinkers in the Wood on April 6, was bred by Marty and Pam Wygod and was gifted by the breeders to daughter Emily Bushnell and longtime adviser Ric Waldman.
“I feel so lucky to be part of this incredible horse,” Bushnell told Daily Racing Form.
“He has brought my family’s breeding program full circle. My father’s dedication and love for the Thoroughbred industry has spanned multiple years, and Resilience is the product of a broodmare line he has nurtured and it is so exciting to see him succeed at this level.”
Wygod, a native New Yorker, went to high school with eventual Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel and was first introduced to racing as a hotwalker at Belmont Park.
“My dad grew up close to Belmont and just loved horses,” Bushnell told New York Racing Association publicity. “He started hotwalking as a teenager and snuck out of school to go to the track.”
Wygod’s nearly 60 years of Thoroughbred ownership began when he was gifted two horses by friend and associate Fletcher Jones on his 25th birthday.
“He warned me that he wasn’t doing me any favors,” Wygod told DRF. “But I would have gotten into the game anyway.”
Meantime, though, Wygod would build the means to get into the sport at a high level via his success in the business world. The graduate of New York University started out as a Wall Street stockbroker, eventually becoming the youngest managing partner of a New York Stock Exchange brokerage in the 1960s. He then entered the home medical services industry and grew Medco Containment Services into the nation’s largest mail-order prescription drug company, selling it for $6.5 billion in the 1990s. Wygod later served as chairman of the board of directors of WebMD. Wygod’s wife Pam, 76 – they have two children, Emily and Max – focused on health, education, and child welfare, and was co-chair of the WebMD Health Foundation.
The Wygods purchased River Edge Farm in Buellton, Calif., and later shifted their major breeding operations to Kentucky, with their mares and young stock boarded at Lane’s End Farm. For many years, they were leading breeders in California and also stood prominent stallions at River Edge – which went on the market in 2010 – such as Benchmark, Bertrando, Dixie Chatter, Pirate’s Bounty, and Tribal Rule.
The Wygods, alone or in partnership, bred more than 100 stakes winners. Their top runners included 2004 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and divisional Eclipse Award champion Sweet Catomine; and 2009 Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic winner Life Is Sweet; and Grade 1 winners After Market, Courageous Cat, Exotic Wood, Harmonious, Idiot Proof, Pirate’s Revenge, Private Persuasion, and Silent Sighs. The operation employed prominent trainers, including Julio Canani, Ron Ellis, Richard Mandella, Bill Mott, Lefty Nickerson, John Sadler, John Shirreffs, and Cliff Sise Jr.
“I’m interested in what’s going on and I ask a lot of questions,” Wygod told DRF. “I’ll challenge a trainer. I’ve been around for enough years to have a few ideas. So I’d say I’m probably difficult, yeah. I think it’s good for an owner to be as active as they want to be. It’s a learning process, and things that they’ve learned from other walks of life can be applied here and help the game.”
Wygod’s biggest successes came thanks to two prominent mares – Sweet Life and Tranquility Lake. Grade 1-placed stakes winner Sweet Life, a homebred, produced millionaire full sisters Sweet Catomine and Life Is Sweet. She was honored as Kentucky’s Broodmare of the Year in 2009.
Tranquility Lake, a yearling purchase, was a millionaire and multiple Grade 1 winner. She then produced Grade 1 winners After Market and Courageous Cat.
Tranquility Lake’s winning daughter Meadowsweet is the dam of Resilience.
“It’s obviously a really good nick of a Smart Strike mare with Into Mischief, and the family has deep history on the turf as well,” Bushnell said. “We could potentially have a great dirt horse, or a great turf horse, and that’s what we were looking for. We had all the faith in the world in this mare and wanted to give her the best shot, and there’s no better shot than Into Mischief.”
Resilience, who is trained by Mott, made an early impression.
“I remember back when he was a foal, he would come out and look you in the eye like, ‘What’s up?’ ” Bushnell said. “He’s just a confident dude and has just done everything right every step of the way. He’s very sure of himself, and I wish I had his confidence.”