Controversial Calumet Farm president JT Lundy dies at 82

John Thomas ‘JT’ Lundy, the embattled former president of Calumet Farm and a central figure in one of the thoroughbred industry's lingering conspiracies, died on Wednesday according to his family. He was 82.

Lundy's son Robert posted on Facebook that his father fell in November and sustained a head injury from which he never recovered. 

A native of Georgetown, Kentucky, Lundy grew up on a farm working primarily around show cattle. He told BloodHorse in 1990 that he eventually steered into the horse business because it appeared to be more lucrative than cattle and "it was more fun".

He bought his first thoroughbreds – two weanlings – for about $500 each. One died, but he resold the other and the modest profit he made encouraged him further. He would eventually establish his own approximately 450-acre horse farm near Midway, Kentucky.

Lundy became a part of Calumet Farm when he married Lucille ‘Cindy’ Wright, the daughter of Warren Wright Jnr and Bertha Wright. Warren Wright was the son of Calumet founder Warren Snr and Lucille Wright. Lundy took over operating the farm in 1982 following the death of Wright Snr's widow Lucille Markey (she married Rear Admiral Gene Markey after Wright Snr died in 1950).

"I just happened to be the only one in the family involved directly in the horse business at the time, so I wound up here," Lundy told BloodHorse about his rise to become president of the historic farm. 

Under Lundy, Calumet took a more commercial approach to the business. He engaged in more foal-sharing partnerships and sold lifetime breeding rights to the farm's star stallion Alydar. 

A return to Calumet's glory days seemed in the works by 1990 when the farm was represented by three-time Grade 1 winner and homebred Horse of the Year Criminal Type; Grade 1 Shuvee Handicap winner and homebred Tis Juliet; and, as breeder, by Grade 1 Acorn Stakes winner Stella Madrid. 

Alydar finished the year as North America's leading sire by progeny earnings and by number of stakes winners, out-performing Fappiano and Mr. Prospector. 

The famous Calumet Farm colours on display at NavanCredit: Patrick McCann

The high-flying days at Calumet would be short-lived. Alydar's success as a sire had been heavily leveraged through multiple bank loans and what would prove to be a precarious financial house of cards began falling on November 13, 1990, when Alydar kicked his stall door and fractured his leg. He would be euthanised two days later. 

While theories persist that the stallion was killed for insurance money, insurance adjuster Tom Dixon, who was among the first on the scene of the tragedy, has steadily maintained the horse's injury was the result of an accident, not insurance fraud.

By April 1991, Lundy resigned as the farm's president and John Ward Jnr took over as chief operating officer. The farm sold off property and bloodstock to reduce its debt burden but ultimately faced foreclosure upon the order of a bankruptcy judge in January 1992 and was sold at auction.

Lundy's troubles would continue. He was sentenced in 2000 to four and a half years in prison and ordered to pay $20.4 million in restitution following convictions on federal charges of bank fraud, bribery and conspiracy related to $65m in loans from First City National Bank of Houston. 

Federal prosecutors argued Lundy deserved a stiffer penalty because he was responsible for the death of Alydar – the main asset securing the loans. On that latter allegation, United States District Court Judge Sim Lake would conclude: "There is some physical evidence, and circumstances surrounding the event are suspicious, but I cannot conclude he is responsible."

Lundy served his sentence and was released in January 2005.