Arthur B. Hancock III, musician and 3-time Kentucky Derby winner, dies
· Yahoo Sports
The Mercedes still sits parked next to the main house at Stone Farm.
It's the one Arthur Boyd Hancock III drove to the 1989 Kentucky Derby when he told a police officer, "I have a horse in the Derby," and the officer responded, "Right, and I'm the governor." After the race, security wouldn't let him in the winner's circle. Hancock not only had a horse in the race, he ended up with the winner when Sunday Silence beat the favored Easy Goer to save the farm.
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For nearly four decades, that Mercedes has represented the man who lost a lot of hands but never stopped betting on himself.
Hancock, a musician and songwriter who instead chose the family business and became a thoroughbred breeder and owner, thrice winning the Kentucky Derby, died Friday, Sept. 18, from pancreatic cancer, surrounded by his family on his horse farm in Paris. He was 83.
Born to one of America’s preeminent horse racing families, Hancock was known internationally for breeding and raising stakes-winning thoroughbreds, including by that 1989 winner, Sunday Silence, who became arguably the most influential stallion in Japan’s thoroughbred history and changed the international breeding industry.
Hancock grew up among the hills of bluegrass in Bourbon County. He received a first-class education in horsemanship from his father and grandfather, at times showing first-class interest in music and, as he tells in his book, drinking.
His was a life of prominence, of top quality and also of juxtapositions, perhaps none more striking than that he both won the Kentucky Derby and was inducted into a music hall of fame. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame as a Pillar of the Turf in 2025, and Kentucky's Music Hall of Fame in 2026.
In 2025, he published a memoir entitled “Dark Horses,” in which he wrote, "I'm 100% sure I'd have gone into music if I had been born with nothing."
The day after he published, he was diagnosed with the same disease that quickly took his father. The three-time Kentucky Derby winning breeder and owner spent the past two years quietly battling pancreatic cancer.
He and his wife, Staci, have six children (five daughters and one son) and five grandchildren.
The weight of the Hancock family name
One of the first things in life horseman Hancock had to overcome was his name.
His grandfather, Arthur B. Hancock Sr., founded Claiborne Farm in the early 1900s. The farm is and was the legendary home of many horse racing legends, known for breeding champions and standing the world's leading stallions, including Secretariat.
Arthur’s grandfather passed the farm to his son, Arthur “Bull” Hancock Jr., who at one time ran the largest thoroughbred operation in the world, nearly tripling Claiborne Farm's size to about 6,000 acres. Arthur learned how to be a horseman from his father, Bull, who also earned acclaim by breeding to European horses, including Princequillo and the Aga Khan’s Nasrullah, two of the world’s then-champion sires.
While his father could be in a barn 25 hours a day, Arthur also discovered a passion for music. An accomplished musician, he found a home in bluegrass, writing songs recorded by Willie Nelson and Ray Price, and becoming good friends with Peter Rowan, one of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys.
Music would be a constant in Hancock’s life, but his father would often tell him, “You can’t do two things and do either one well.”
Maybe not at the same time, but Arthur is the only man to be named a Hall of Fame horseman — next to the likes of thoroughbred trainer D. Wayne Lukas and Derby-winning jockey Pat Day — as well as a Hall of Fame musician, next to the likes of Loretta Lynn, Patty Loveless, Dwight Yoakam and Chris Stapleton.
After graduating from Vanderbilt with a bachelor’s in history, Hancock left Nashville and its music scene and became an assistant to trainer Eddie Neloy at Belmont Park, working with champion Buckpasser.