Print size 17″ X 22″, Image Size 11″ X 14″

This print has been in storage since 1967 and has slight discolorations around the print border which does not distract from the beauty of the print and would be easily covered up when matted and framed.

TOMY LEE was an afterthought purchase, obtained mainly as a traveling companion for a more expensive acquisition, *Tomy Lee has proved quite a bargain for Mr. and Mrs. Fred Turner Jr. The English-bred son of *Tudor Minstrel – *Auld Alliance, by Brantome, became the second-ranked two year old of 1958; and won the 1959 Kentucky Derby in one of the most exciting and courageous finishes ever seen in the Churchill Downs classic.
In the fall of 1956, Mr. Turner, a Midland, Texas oilman and cattle rancher, authorized his Irish bloodstock agent, Bert Kerr, to pay “any reasonable price” for a *Tulyar weanling colt, half brother to the Irish 2,000 Guineas winner D.C.M. The colt was acquired privately for a reported $25,000. Since this purchase needed a traveling companion on the flight across the Atlantic Ocean, Mr. Kerr was instructed to bid up to $12,000 for a *Tudor Minstrel – Auld Alliance Weanling colt, consigned to the Newmarket December Sales by Major H.D.H. Willis. This colt was knocked down for 2,300 guineas ($6,762), just over half the authorized limit.
Injuries kept the more costly of the Turner purchases, named *tuleg, from realizing his potential. Mr. Turner wanted to call the cheaper colt “Tommy Lee” just because the owner liked the name, but dropped an “m” to obtain The Jockey Club’s approval of it.
*Tomy Lee won his first six starts, including the Haggin, Charles H. Howard and Starlet Stakes, and Del Mar Futurity, in such sensational style that he became the undisputed two-year-old champion of the West. He was then shipped to the East, where he ran second to First Landing in both the Champagne and the Garden State Stakes (although the import was disqualified from second and placed third in the Champagne). With juvenile earning of $213,460, he was ranked second to First Landing on the Experimental Free Handicap.
So impressive was *Tomy Lee’s two-year-old campaign that in December, 1958, an American breeder, Mrs. E.H. Augustus, paid 11,000 guineas at the Newmarket Sales for his dam, *Auld Alliance; and an American breeding syndicate bought the colt’s sire, *Tudor Minstrel, privately to stand him, beginning in 1960, at Leslie Combs II’s Spendthrift Farm, Lexington, KY.
The Turner colt ran second in his first two 1959 starts, the San Vicente Stakes and San Felipe Handicap. He stepped on a stone in the latter race and injured a foot. After a layoff of nearly two months, he set a new seven-furlong Keeneland record of 1:21 3/5; won the Blue Grass Stakes; then took the Kentucky Derby. He made or chased the pace all the way in the Churchill Downs classic, was apparently beaten with 50 yards to go, but came on again with an amazing display of grit to prevail by a nose. The decision stood up under a foul claim filed by the rider of the second horse, Sword Dancer.
That brought *Tomy Lee’s seasonal earnings to $158,157.50.