TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1066556
"You know, for me, the real happiness of all this was just living on the farm, raising horses," he says with a shrug. "Seeing the early morning. Seeing foals born. Just like somebody up in old England. Remember that book, Far from the Madding Crowd? Who was that guy, managed the farm? Ga- briel Oak? That's what made him happy, just living on the farm, with nature. And that's kind of what made me happy, too; still does. We were just invited to go over to the Melbourne Cup. That's very nice, but it's hard to get me off the farm. "And that's what I figured from the start. I thought if I make it to 75, maybe I'll have a Derby horse. And maybe I won't—but at least I'll enjoy being out here. I say you got to soothe your soul, whatever you do in life. That's what I was doing on the little farm when I left Claiborne. I just knew I had to go. Least I'd be my own man. And it's all worked out. Nobody thought it would. Ev- erybody thought I was crazy." But his was always a craziness that made sense. People talk, after all, of "getting a tune" out of a horse. Drawing talent from a pedigree, or from a mating, is a bit like working out a chord. Gato Del Sol, Sunday Silence, Fusaichi Pegasus: three times, with the gradual expansion of Stone Farm, has Hancock found the key to the Kentucky Derby. (Two runners-up, as well.) "Good land, good water," he says. "And great big trees. My grandfather always said land with big trees will raise good cat- tle, good tobacco, and good horses. Some of the fields are 90, 100 acres. Because say you're going to raise a trout to be the