To get to the town of Leoti, Kan., for those who are so inclined, it's best to fly into Denver, rent a car, and then head east on Interstate 70. Before too long you'll be crossing into Kansas at the town of Kanorado (get it?). After that, start looking for Goodland (pop. 4,465) and State Highway 27, southbound. About 20 miles later, the highway takes a little right-left jog through Sharon Springs, a town famous for its sinkholes. They may be worth a look. I wouldn't know.
Continuing south, the traveler will come to Tribune, the seat of Greeley County. Clearly, the folks who settled the town took very seriously the famous advice of Horace Greeley, abolitionist, presidential candidate, and editor of the New York Tribune. "Go West young man, go West, and grow up with the country," Greeley proclaimed, and there is the Horace Greeley Museum in Tribune, for anyone who needs a refresher.
Almost there. A left at State Highway 96 just outside downtown Tribune will put you less than 20 miles from Leoti (pronounced "lee-OH-tuh") and the doorstep of the Whitham family farm—the beating heart of the Thoroughbred game in a region better known for its pancake flat crop land and silvery silos of grain.
Janis Whitham, the matriarch of the clan, lives at the farm, plans the breedings, and keeps track of the family runners with printouts of past performances and handy access to the racing broadcasts of Fox Sports. Give her a call. She loves to talk horses, especially this week, with their 4-year-old gelding Burnham Square gunning for the Arlington Million Stakes (G1T) Aug. 1 at Colonial Downs.
"We're excited," Whitham said. "It took him a long time to finally head for the grass. But look what's happened."
What's happened is one of those inspiring conversions that gives you hope for the breed. Burnham Square went into a phone booth around this time last summer, a mild-mannered, middle-distance dirt horse with a respectable record, and emerged some sort of super turf talent who would run as far as you could write a race. The son of Liam's Map enters the Million on a roll of three straight stakes wins on grass, a string that began with a 9 3/4-length runaway in the mile-and-a-half Elkhorn Stakes (G2T) in April at Keeneland.
"He looked like he was having a good time out there," Whitham said. "He just went off and left them, like this was what he wanted to be doing all along—mile and a half, mile and a quarter on grass."
As a 3-year-old, Burnham Square won the Blue Grass Stakes (G1) and the Holy Bull Stakes (G3) on dirt, but he was nowhere to be found at the end of such major main track events as the Kentucky Derby (G1) and the Haskell Stakes (G1).
The light went on, though, the day trainer Ian Wilkes tried Burnham Square on the quirky turf course at Kentucky Downs in the Nashville Derby Invitational Stakes (G3T). Off at 13-1, the Whitham runner came within a head of beating favored Wimbledon Hawkeye. He's been on grass ever since.
"Ian is a good trainer and figured him out," Whitham said. "You've got to have faith in anyone who came up under Carl Nafzger like he did.
Frank and Janis Whitham, both born in nearby Scott City, shared a business world of farming, feedlots, banking, and Thoroughbreds that put Leoti on the racing map. Then Frank Whitham was killed in the crash of a private plane in December 1993. He was 62.
Any thoughts that the Whitham racing stable would collapse because of Frank's death were erased over the ensuing years, as the runners nurtured from a relatively small band of broodmares continued to run riot in major stakes competition.
Jan Whitham and her glorious gray braid has been missed on the racing scene for a while, although the Whitham colt McCraken was on the 2017 Triple Crown trail, and no one can forget her presence at the side of Fort Larned, their winner of such events as the 2012 Whitney Invitational Handicap (G1), the 2013 Stephen Foster Handicap (G1), and the 2012 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1). Ask her how she's doing, and the response is always pure Kansan.
"The farm hasn't had a good rain for a while, so the harvest is not very good," she said. "But the feedlot is doing good, and we're doing fine."
OK, but how about Jan?
"I'm feeling like 94," Whitham said. "I don't go out much, because I had a fall. I stay in the house and read, and watch television—mostly the races on Fox Sports. Laffit Pincay's son is on there."
Broadcaster Laffit Pincay III was a young teen when his Hall of Fame father teamed with Bayakoa, the buck-toothed daughter of Consultant's Bid who won 13 stakes under Pincay in 1989 and 1990, including back-to-back runnings of the Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1). In 1998, Bayakoa was elected to the Thoroughbred racing Hall of Fame.
Pincay also was the regular rider of Tight Spot through his banner season of 1991 for the Whithams and their partners, Vern Winchell and Frank Anderson. The highlight of Tight Spot's 1991 campaign was a nail-biting victory in the Arlington Million, in which the first four came to the wire at margins of a head, neck, and neck. Algenib, winner of Argentina's prestigious Carlos Pellegrini (G1), finished second, while Kartajana, a group 1 winner in France, was third and Chenin Blanc, a longshot trained by Bill Mott, ran fourth after setting all the pace.
It's also a longshot that there continues to even be an Arlington Million, which always holds a place in history as the first seven-figure Thoroughbred event. First run in 1981, the Million had its final traditional version at a mile and a quarter on the lush Arlington grass in 2019 with the victory of Bricks and Mortar, who went on to be Horse of the Year.
In 2020, an internecine squabble over racing dates forced a cancellation of the Million. Then, with the track poised for closure, a $600,000 imitation of the Million was run in 2021 in honor of the longtime Arlington Park president, Richard Duchossois.
Churchill Downs Inc., which sold Arlington to the Chicago Bears, offered a 1 1/8-mile version of the Arlington Million in 2022 over a troubled Churchill Downs turf course. Then, upon CDI's acquisition of Colonial Downs in Virginia, the orphaned Million found a new home in 2023 over a layout now maintained by Leif Dickinson, the nation's premier turf course superintendent.
Besides Burnham Square, who is making his grade 1 turf debut, the field lining up in the Virginia countryside Aug. 1 is led by defending champ Fort Washington and his graded stakes-winning stablemate Integration, who finished second in the 2024 Million to Nations Pride. Test Score will get plenty of support, thanks to his win earlier this year in the Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes (G1T), as will Mercante and Dresden Row, second and third last time out in the Wise Dan Stakes (G2T). Mercante is cross-entered in the Green River Island Stakes the following day at Ellis Park.
Post time for the Million is 5:52 p.m. ET, and an hour earlier in a particular farmhouse in Leoti.
"It's not an easy spot," Jan Whitham conceded. "But I think he's up to it."
