Horses bred by E.P. Taylor posted new highs in wins (329) and earnings ($1,926,037) in a year, making the Windfields Farm owner the leading breeder in North America in 1974. He surpassed his previous high of $1,720,535 set in 1970, when largely represented by Nijinsky II. The nation's leading breeder in races won every year during the 1960s, Taylor missed that achievement in 1974, but the wins posted by horses of his breeding easily surpassed his best previous high of 308 in 1972.
Sixteen Taylor-breds won stakes in 1974 (13 for the first time), pushing his career total to 164 stakes winners.
Taylor's Northern Dancer got his ninth champion when 2-year-old Broadway Dancer, from the stallion's seventh crop, was honored in France. Northern Dancer stood his most recent season at the Chesapeake City, Md., farm for $25,000, with no return.
Bernard Daney, a Wilmington (Del.) certified public accountant relatively new to the Thoroughbred business but a lifelong fan, maintained he deserved little credit for the success of his stakes-winning 3-year-old filly Ramhyde, a Maryland-bred first cousin to the nation's champion 2-year-old filly Ruffian. "[Mr. and Mrs. Stuart S. Janney] bred her, Marshall Glass raised her and Jamie McCormick trains her. All I did was open a letter in which Mr. Janney informed me that he had a nice yearling filly for sale at a reasonable price." The daughter of Rambunctious out of Castle Hyde, by *Tulyar, won Bowie's Virginia Belle Stakes in January.
Graded stakes-placed later in the year, Ramhyde retired as a broodmare for Daney and wife Arlene after winning or placing 22 times in 35 starts. Her first named foal was a 1979 filly by Halo sold for $85,000 at Saratoga as a yearling. Purchased by Loblolly Stable and named Rowdy Angel, she produced Preakness winner Pine Bluff, Grade 1 winner Demons Begone, and the dam of Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus.
George Strawbridge Sr., a Philadelphia stockbroker with a lifelong devotion to steeplechasing, was elected president of the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association. A member of the association for more than 25 years, Strawbridge was active in the group's business affairs while also enjoying the reputation of a highly respected racing official. He succeeded Randolph Rouse, the president since 1971.
Another newcomer among the officers' ranks was John von Stade, of Peapack, N.J., elected as secretary. Members re-elected for one-year terms were Raymond Guest, chairman; J.H. Tyler McConnell, vice-president; and Donald Ross Jr., treasurer.
