Go easy.
That's where I need to start.
Bill Reightler, a giant in the Maryland and Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred industry with roots that went far beyond the region, died July 21 of pancreatic cancer. People who knew him are going to miss him, and think of him often. Remember that when you cross paths with one.
Reightler, 72, was a native Marylander who spent 45 years in the Thoroughbred industry. He trained in the Mid-Atlantic for a bit, spent five years at Kentucky's Spendthrift Farm, came back to Maryland for jobs with Ross Valley and Chanceland. He ran a sales consignment, bought, sold, owned, trained, bred and insured Thoroughbreds, served on boards, advised people on horses to buy, sell, keep and breed, mentored newcomers, and gave a damn about a whole lot of things.
On occasion, he wore me out to make sure he told a horse story or got his point across just right. If you knew him at all, you understand.
That was Bill, he'd lean on all that experience and offer an opinion, an anecdote, an example that fit whatever the situation needed. What you did with that information was up to you -- sometimes listening was all that was required; other times, you needed to get to work or send Bill's thoughts down the line to someone who needed to hear them or could do something about them.
Personally, I heard the tales of Houston, the $2.9 million Maryland-bred yearling he prepped and sold to D. Wayne Lukas; of Ross Valley's star broodmares Heavenly Cause and Smart Angle; of a big score with Rockcide, a half-sister to Funny Cide who was racing over hurdles until Bill and a client bought her, bred her to Roman Ruler and sold her for $400,000. That first foal, Rule, won three graded stakes and earned $1.1 million.
Professionally, I interviewed him about the state of the game, about Timonium's racing product and how it fit in with the rest, about the regional sales market. A little less than a year go, we discussed the state of the Mid-Atlantic yearling market.
"A sale is not good or bad," he told me. "It's what's in the sale. All of us in Maryland, we have to keep promoting our sale and bringing good stock to the sale. It works, it really works. Naturally, due to the expenses in the business it's prohibitive . . . but if you don't support the market, the sales company is going to have to take a hard look at it and ask if they should continue. It's a great place to sell a horse and to buy a horse."
That was vintage Bill, offering perspective and issuing a challenge at the same time.
Yes, participation in the regional market requires effort, expense and maybe a different mindset or big-picture view. But, participation in a regional market also requires actual participation. Breeders can't expect a regional sale to just hum along on auto pilot. You have to work at it, believe in it.
Like pretty much everything in the Thoroughbred business.
Bill, whose consignment will be active at Timonium one more time next month, would explain all that to me every time I talked to him about sales, stallions or any other issue facing the game. I'm not the only one.
"What a positive influence Billy was on my farm and my family," said Josh Pons of Country Life Farm. "He was a true 'influencer' before that word became a modern occupation. I think of his influential role in buying successful horses. He insisted we buy a filly in an early crop by Malibu Moon, and drove the trailer, and delivered her to us in a spectacular thunderstorm. 'There's your name,' he said. 'Spectacular Malibu.' She won two Maryland Millions."
As Pons put it, Bill's death leaves a hole in the lineup and not just at Country Life. The hole goes beyond Reightler clients, it's there for everybody to figure out how to fill.
Nobody more than Bill's wife Barrie, who put these words on this page as the director of publications for the Maryland Horse Breeders Association and this magazine. Everybody on the staff knew Bill was sick; we hoped for a recovery whether it was via a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins, the healing power of horses or plain, old horseman stubbornness. We'd have taken any of those. We didn't get them.
The morning he died, Barrie sent a message about Bill's passing to several of us and -- while it wasn't my first thought -- I knew I'd have to write this and the accompanying obituary/
feature later in this edition. Despite my best intentions, both pieces were late getting to Barrie and nowhere near as poignant as they should have been.
Go easy.
