Ogden Phipps

Ogden Phipps
Ogden Phipps (right) at the Withers Stakes in Belmont Park.
Born	(1908-11-26)November 26, 1908 New York City, New York United States
Died	April 21, 2002(2002-04-21) (aged 93) West Palm Beach, Florida United States
Occupation(s)	Financier, tennis player, racehorse owner/breeder, philanthropist
Spouses	Ruth Pruyn ​ ​ (m. 1930; div. 1935)​ Lillian Stokes Bostwick McKim ​ ​ (m. 1937; died 1987)​
Children	Henry Ogden Phipps Robert Lansing Phipps Ogden Phipps Handicap at Belmont Park

Ogden Phipps (November 26, 1908 – April 21, 2002) was an American

Hall of Fame.

Background

Ogden Phipps was born in

player, capturing the U.S. championship seven times and the British championship once.

During

members by their grandfather.

Career

Thoroughbred racing

His mother and uncle loved Thoroughbred horses and formed Wheatley Stable in 1926 as a partnership that successfully raced and bred Thoroughbreds. Influenced by his mother, Ogden Phipps first registered his own black with cherry cap racing silks in 1932.

After World War II, Ogden Phipps bought a group of horses from the estate of

for twenty years and at the time of his death was the club's longest-reigning member.

Ogden Phipps owned and bred Reviewer, who sired

Winner.

Ogden Phipps bred nine champions of his own, winning

in 1995.

Four Hall of Fame trainers conditioned Phipps' horses, beginning with the renowned

Shug McGaughey

in 1985.

In 2003, Ogden Phipps was voted the Eclipse Award of Merit and in 2019 the American Thoroughbred horse racing industry's highest honor as a Hall of Fame Pillar of the Turf.

Business career

In 1969,

for $488 million.

Personal life

On June 14, 1930, Phipps married Ruth Pruyn (1907–1994) of Glen Cove, New York. Before divorcing in 1935, they had two children:

• Henry Ogden Phipps (1931–1962), who died by suicide.^[2]
• Robert Lansing Phipps (b. c. 1933)

After the divorce, Ruth Phipps remarried in 1936 to

eight times. She was also the mother of three daughters from her first marriage to Robert McKim, and together, Ogden and Lillian had two more children:

• Ogden Mills Phipps (1940–2016)
• Cynthia Phipps (1945–2007), who died as a result of injuries sustained in a fire in her Manhattan apartment.

Ogden Phipps was 93 when he died on April 21, 2002, at Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Friend and fellow Thoroughbred owner Marylou Whitney called Phipps's death "the end of an era in racing".^[3]

Collections and philanthropy

Ogden and Lillian Phipps acquired 18th century French and English furniture and were early clients of Denning & Fourcade,^[4] who decorated fifteen homes for them,^[5] and they made many acquisitions through them. Ogden Phipps had an art collection that included works by Claude Monet and John Singer Sargent. He also maintained a greenhouse collection of orchid varieties from around the world.^[6][7][8]

An honorary governor of the

is named in his honor.

In popular culture

In the film Secretariat, released in 2010, Ogden Phipps was portrayed by actor James Cromwell.^[9]

References

External links

• Ogden Phipps obituary at The Jockey Club
• Phipps family article at Chicago Barn to Wire
• Ogden Phipps, 2002, The (London) Independent
• The Ogden Phipps Residence, Old Westbury NY
• ISBN 978-1-58150-102-5