Burt Bacharach, breeder, owner, and composer, passes * The Racing Biz

Burt Bacharach, breeder, owner, and composer, passes

Soul of the Matter. Photo Keeneland Library, Thoroughbred Times Collection.

Frank Vespe
February 9, 2023

Burt Bacharach, the legendary composer who also bred and owned the two greatest West Virginia-bred horses, has died, CNN confirmed. He was 94.

Bacharach’s songwriting career spanned six decades. He had his first charting hit in 1957, with The Story of My Life, and followed that up with 1958’s Magic Moments, which went to number four for singer Perry Como.

A decade after that, Bacharach, working with Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham, purchased Battle Royal, who won first time out and helped whet Bacharach’s racing appetite.

By about 1980, Bacharach had connected with breeder and trainer Vincent and Suzanne Moscarelli, who owned and operated Country Roads Farm in Charles Town, WV. With the Moscarellis, Bacharach, breeding under the name Blue Seas Music, Inc., had some big successes.

They bred the Tell mare Icantell to Rock Talk in 1979, the resultant foal a Maryland-bred filly Bacharach named Heartlight No. One. That name was a mashup of the song Heartlight, which Bacharach penned for singer Neil Diamond, and the chart position he hoped the song would attain.

The song did not attain number one status, topping out at number five, but the filly did. Heartlight No. One raced just one year, her three-year-old season of 1983. She won five of her seven starts that year, including Grade 1 victories in the Hollywood Oaks and, at Belmont Park, the Ruffian Handicap. For those efforts, she won the Eclipse Award as champion three-year-old filly.

Several years later, Bacharach bred Heartlight No. One’s half-sister, Soul Light, to another Maryland sire, Private Terms. Her offspring was a colt Bacharach named Soul of the Matter, and he would go on to a sparkling career as arguably the best West Virginia-bred ever.

Trained in California by Richard Mandella, Soul of the Matter won seven of 16 starts while earning more than $2.3 million. He won the Grade 1 Super Derby in 1994, and he also secured three Grade 2 victories in ’94 and ’95.

Yet it was in defeat that he may have achieved his greatest fame. Soul of the Matter faced the great Cigar, riding a then-13-race win streak, in the inaugural Dubai World Cup in 1996. In the lane, Soul of the Matter drew even with the champ while they sped away from the rest of the field. But Cigar inched away to win by three parts of a length.

At the same time that Soul of the Matter was excelling, so, too, was his stablemate and fellow West Virginia-bred Afternoon Deelites. Bred by Bacharach, Afternoon Deelites was another son of Private Terms, this one out of the Medaille d’Or mare Intimate Girl, and the product of several generations of Bacharach’s breeding program.

Also trained by Mandella, Afternoon Deelites won his first five starts, including the Grade 1 Hollywood Futurity, before a second-place finish in the Santa Anita Derby. He later added a second Grade 1 to his resume, taking the Malibu in December of his three-year-old season, before suffering a career-ending tendon injury in June 1996, just before an injury ended Soul of the Matter’s career, as well.

[BackTracks: Burt Bacharach’s magic moments]

Suddenly, Bacharach’s two best horses were retired. “You know these things can happen, you hold your breath every time, but you don’t think you’ll get the double punch that quick,” the songwriter said after both of his contenders were retired to stud.

Bacharach remained active in the game, though none of his subsequent campaigners reached such high levels. In 2017 when a fire at San Luis Rey Downs in Bonsall, California claimed forty-seven horses and left several people injured, Bacharach teamed with Elvis Costello, Anjelica Huston, and Bo Derek for a fundraiser to benefit those affected.

Both Soul of the Matter and Afternoon Deelites were among the six horses to enter the West Virginia-bred Hall of Fame in its initial class in 2022.