Ogden Phipps

Ogden Phipps. When Mrs. Henry Carnegie Phipps launched Wheatley Stable in the 1920's her teenage son, Ogden Phipps, became interested in the sport. In 1932, a year after graduation from Harvard, he registered his own colors of a black jacket and a cherry red cap. Phipps bred his first stakes winner, White Cocade, in 1933 during the time he was working for Smith Barney. Service in the World War II Navy put Commander Phipps' sporting career on hold. After the war, he was one of three breeders who acquired and divided the Idle Hour Farm stock of the late Col. E. R. Bradley. Phipps, for a half-century, nurtured and built upon stellar bloodlines to produce a remarkable collection of Thoroughbreds. Of the more than 100 stakes winners he bred through 1995, nine were voted champions. These include the great Buckpasser, the spectacular Easy Goer, and the unbeaten Personal Ensign. Winner of all of her thirteen races in three years, Personal Ensign climaxed her career with a dramatic victory in the 1988 Breeders' Cup distaff at Churchill Downs. Phipps has always boarded his mares in Kentucky, originally at Plum Lane Farm and later at Claiborne. A staunch leader in the industry, he served for ten years as chairman of The Jockey Club.