Longtime horse trainer gave Shoemaker his first ride

Warren Stute ~ 1921-2007

Warren Stute, a longtime Southern California trainer who gave Bill Shoemaker a ride in the Hall of Fame jockey's first $100,000 stakes win, died Thursday. He was 85.

He survived three strokes in recent years and died at his home in Arcadia, Calif., near Santa Anita, track spokesman Mike Willman said.

Stute's career spanned nearly 70 years. Until 2002, he regularly galloped his horses on the backstretch in the mornings.

His 80-year-old brother, Mel, remains an active trainer on the Southern California circuit. The brothers were inseparable fixtures at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar and they passed their professions down to their sons, Glen and Gary.

"I never would have been where I was or anywhere without him," Mel Stute told The Associated Press. "No other man could have had a brother like him."

Warren Stute and Shoemaker teamed to win their first $100,000 race in the 1951 Santa Anita Maturity with Great Circle. Now worth $300,000 and known as the Strub Stakes, it was the track's richest race at the time.

Stute owns the distinction of longest time between Kentucky Derby runners. In 1967, he saddled Field Master to a 13th-place finish. Two years ago, Illinois Derby winner Greeley's Galaxy finished 11th. In 2005, the irascible Stute said he never thought his time had passed to be a Derby trainer again.

"Don't worry about me, I'm going to live to 100," he said. "Then I had these strokes, and I said, 'Well, I might have to cut back to 95.'æ"

Stute went 51 years between victories in the Del Mar Debutante. He saddled the race's first winner, Tonga, in 1951. He won again in 2002 with Miss Houdini.

That year, at 80, he trained Grey Memo to victory in the $1 million Godolphin Mile in Dubai -- the richest race Stute won. He won four stakes at Del Mar that year and finished with more than $1.2 million in purse earnings.

Born in 1921 in Fort Wayne, Ind., Stute's family moved to Southern California in 1934, the same year Santa Anita opened. He began walking horses that had just finished morning workouts. He moved up to exercise rider during the time Seabiscuit became a national sports hero. Stute's small stable was based at Santa Anita in Barn 38, Seabiscuit's old home.

In 1940, he took out his trainer's license at Caliente in Mexico and opened his own stable in 1948.

Depending on the day, Stute could be cranky.

In 2003, Stute and son Glen, who worked as his dad's assistant, were confronted by a man who recognized the elder Stute in a coffee shop near Del Mar. The man started ragging on Stute. The trainer told him to take it easy because he'd just had a stroke.

"Too bad you didn't die," the man said.

That did it. Stute took a swing and a fight ensued.

"It gets your blood going," he said.

Father and son even went back the next day, but they couldn't find the antagonist.

"He had a reputation as being rather gruff," Mel Stute said Thursday. "He really wasn't. He was an easy touch. He would do anything for anybody to help."

Warren Stute took pills for high-blood pressure and enjoyed drinking vodka and orange juice. Asked in 2005 for other secrets to his longevity, he said, "I'd like to say clean living, but it's not true."

Besides his brother and son, Stute is survived by his wife of 51 years, Trudy; another son, Steve; daughter Laura; a sister; and five grandchildren.

A memorial service is planned for Friday at Santa Anita.