| LEONARD POWELL |
PROFILE
“After that, I worked in Australia for two years, then in Singapore for six months. I later came back to the U.S. because I really liked my earlier experience w wiith i Mandella, and as they say, this is the land of opportunity.” Mandella recalled his working relationship wi with i Powell as relatively brief, “but he was there long enough. He was a good kid, and I’m very proud of how he developed, provi vided i for his family and made a name for himself. “He’s taken good care of his horses, especially Soi Phet, at age 11 and still racing at a high level. The game should be proud of him for that.” Though his familial background is Jewi wish, i Powell is not a practitioner of the faith, and although he was born in France, he never had to go through a bureaucratic morass to become a United States citizen. The process came about legally, however, not by crawling through a tunnel or over a wall. “I was lucky enough to be born a citizen,” he said, unraveling a strange tw twi wiist of fate, “because my father (Davi vid) i is A Am merican, m even though he was born in Ar Arrgentina. “My grandmother escaped Nazi Germany just before World War II and married an American in Argentina who was working for the U.S. Embassy there. “So, my dad was born a U.S. citizen because his dad-— my granddad-—was an American citizen also working for the American Embassy.”
“AS LONG AS YOU’RE IN THE RACE, YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHANCE. AS LONG AS YOU HAVE HORSES, YOU HAVE A CHANCE.”
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TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 52
Despite ill-conceived attempts by the uninformed, ytize t the hoi polloi, and uneducated and ignorant to proselyt despite the risks being greater than the rewards, Powell and racing soldier on. “I think it’s a combination of two things,” he said of his focus on the challenging trek for gold and glory. “It’s the love of the animal, for sure—the passion for the horses— and the spirit of the competition. Everyone wants to wi win, i and even if you’re 15 or 20-1, you always hope you’re going to w wiin. i “As long as you’re in the race, you always have a chance. As long as you have horses, you have a chance. That’s what makes you get up in the morning, thinking you have a chance. “Of course, you lose more than you w wiin, i but the vviictories i provi vide i an emotional high. It’s very much like golf. You hit one good shot and forget about the 10 bad ones you hit before, and that’s what keeps you going.” Powell used to be a regular on the links until his children came along. “I like golf, but now that I have kids, I don’t have time for it, and you need time to play golf. My focus is on my family and my horses. “I have no room for hobbies.” A stagnant horse population has created a major racing void, not only in California but in heart of the American breeding industry, Kentucky, “and that’s very worrisome,” Powell said.