Virginia Kraft Payson
Story by Marilyn Lane Photo Provided
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irginia Kraft Payson grew up loving sports and horses. By age 8 she had her own horse and rode with unbridled enthusiasm. It was natural, then, that when the fourth generation New Yorker hunted down a journalism job, she passed over the “ladies’” magazines in favor of an opportunity at Field and Stream. At the time it was the magazine for outdoor sports. She left Field and Stream to get in on the ground floor of an innovative new sporting magazine. She went through the ranks of Sports Illustrated like Zenyatta through her conditions. For most of her 26-year career she was associate writing editor of the prestigious magazine. During this time she authored five books; piloted hot air balloons; became the first woman to compete in Alaska’s World Championship Sled Dog Race; and was inducted into the Underwater Hall of Fame at Grand Bahama Island. Forever traveling and armed for adventure, she hunted for more than just the right words. Her big-game hunting partners included King Hussein of Jordon; Generalissimo Franco of Spain; Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia; the Shah of Iran; and two kings of Nepal. Many biggame trophies prove she knew when to pull the trigger. The adventurous outdoorswoman adapted to new sporting challenges like cigar to dirt. But off to the races, she was not. Spectator sports simply did not fit her style. In 1977, Virginia Kraft married Charles Shipman Payson. They met first when she covered a story about his hunting lodge in Florida. “I continued to work at the magazine for a year after I married Charlie,” said Payson. “…he was older than I, and he worried about what would keep me busy after he was gone. He wanted me to find something that would involve me as the magazine had.” Mr. Payson’s first wife, Joan Whitney Payson, and her brother, Jock Whitney,
44 | Equicurean 2011
ran the famed Greentree Stable. But amazingly, like Virginia, Mr. Payson had been too busy with other things to turn his interest to racing. Then October 16th, Charlie’s birthday, came around, and “…We decided to celebrate it by going to see Secretariat.” Big Red whetted their interest: they bought a yearling a few days later at the Fasig-Tipton October sales. A Big Brown or Mine That Bird he was not: he was ruled off in his third start. Mrs. Payson isn’t a woman who despairs: when a challenge is in range, she reaches for it. The process with the racehorse that refused to race yielded the perfect mentor for her brewing interest in racing. The young trainer Blaine Holloway couldn’t get the colt on track, but he could teach a willing student about conformation and the importance of conditioning a horse’s mind. In 1979, Holloway and the Paysons took a $300,000 budget to the Keeneland September Yearling Sales. With one eye looking for quirky behavior, and the other focused on conformation, Mrs. Payson bought six horses. She disclosed proudly, “They all won and one was a stakes winner.” The next year she learned another lesson: handsomely turned-out yearlings do not necessarily become good racehorses. Mrs. Payson had invested a million dollars, and not a single winner came from the five “pretty” horses. She called on the courage and dexterity that led her to be the best in her field at Sports Illustrated, and aimed to become a success in the horse business. She reports that, “I felt a natural proclivity toward the industry. I really loved it and I wanted to become very involved. I decided that in order to get good horses I