Thoroughbred trainer Huffman has local roots

Kenny Huffman was born and raised in Grovetown, Ga., and the idea of being a Thoroughbred trainer didn't seem to cross his mind while growing up in Columbia County. The horseman who has been conditioning Thoroughbred racehorses for more than two decades is based this winter in Aiken at the Palmetto Thoroughbred Training Center.

The future Thoroughbred trainer started grooming horses during his youth. However, it was the woman who would become his wife, who had been involved with showing horses from a very young age, that would play a key role in what inevitably would become his profession.

It was after Huffman got married, and while he was serving in the U.S. Air Force in Arizona, that he and his wife would purchase an Appaloosa they began showing. However, it was also at this time the couple would purchase a Thoroughbred.

"That was actually the first racehorse we had," said Huffman. "It was a filly."

After leaving the Air Force, Huffman and his wife broke and started the filly, and sent the horse to Thoroughbred trainer Wes Carter. Huffman was working for Coca-Cola at the time and his wife was employed at CNS Bank. Huffman had also owned, conditioned and raced Quarter Horses.

Huffman and his wife would make the transition from the show world to racing, and they would break and train horses after they got home from work.

"When we started training it was in the afternoons, and we called what we were doing sundown training," said Huffman. "We called our place Pumpkin Center (between Harlem and Appling, Ga.). We broke and trained horses under the street lights."

The training facility had originally been a small show horse barn, but several retired carpenters who Huffman had befriended, would help him build 17 stalls onto the barn. Eventually, Pumpkin Center would feature a half-mile training track, a 22 stall barn, turnout paddocks, and a house for the help to stay in on the 22 acre operation, said Huffman.

"My wife, she was a helluva rider," said Huffman.

Huffman's wife would eventually go back to school to become a physical therapist, and when they divorced, Huffman lost the training center, and has been on the road for the past 12 years.

He has enjoyed success with several horses, but two of them seem to stand out, one of them was the first stakes winner conditioned by Huffman, Sibling Song, a bay daughter of Grade 1 winner Sultry Song. Sibling Song broke her maiden by 8 1/2-lengths at first asking, in a 1 1/16-mile race at Canterbury Downs on June 18, 1998. The filly would follow that victory with a stakes win, the second start of her career, with a 4-length score in the 1 1/16-mile Canterbury Oaks, nine days later on June 27, giving Huffman his first stakes victory.

Sibling Song was purchased by Taylor at the Fasig-Tipton New York Horses of Racing Age Sale for $5,300 at Belmont Park, from Live Oak Plantation.

"I brought her home and turned her out," said Huffman. "I brought her back like they do the older horses. She turned into a nice horse."

As a 4-year-old, John T. Taylor's Sibling Song would place second in the 1 1/16-mile Minneapolis Handicap on the turf on July 31, 1999, and would capture her second stakes victory in winning the 1 1/16-mile Central Iowa Stakes at Prairie Meadows on Sept. 25, 1999. Sibling Song went onto win eight races during her career, and flashed her versatility by winning on both the dirt and turf.

"He's (Taylor) the reason that I went into Thoroughbreds," said Huffman. "When he decided to go into Thoroughbreds, I bought him a horse from Randy Nunley at Birmingham. It was the first Thoroughbred we bought, a filly named Philipino Baby (by the 1986 Eclipse Award winning Turf Horse Manila)."

Halo Kris is another stakes performer that was conditioned by Huffman. The dark bay son of Grade 1 winner Kissin Kris, made nearly $229,000 during his career, and placed in four stakes. Halo Kris is a full-brother to eight time winner Curry Wray, and raced in the colors of John Thomas Taylor and also in the silks of J. Kenneth Huffman.

The future stakes performer was purchased for $17,000 at the Keeneland January 2001 Horses of All Ages Sale.

"I bought Halo Kris off of John Oxley and John Ward," said Huffman. "We brought him back home, and after three days I cut him. We don't keep any studs. He (Taylor) wound up with a nice horse."

Halo Kris was sent off at odds of 40-1, and would place second in the 1 1/8-mile $150,000 Claiming Crown Jewel Stakes on Aug. 4, 2001 at Canterbury Downs, finishing 3 1/2-lengths behind the eventual winner, Richard Englander's Sing Because, who was conditioned by Scott Lake.

"We beat the rest of the field by 3 3/4-lengths," said Huffman. "If I would have won that race, it would have been like my Kentucky Derby."

As a 5-year-old, Halo Kris would go onto finish third in the Prairie Meadows Handicap, Maxxam Gold Cup Handicap and Precisionist Handicap.

Huffman has been based at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races for the past several years.

"I like it there because it's racing year round and the purses are great," said Huffman.

The horseman saw an advertisement in the Thoroughbred Times about the Palmetto Thoroughbred Training Center, and decided to shift his tack there this winter.

"It's a public training center, but it's more private than public," said Huffman. "It's just like having your own place. The surface of the racetrack is excellent. You can get a horse legged up here. Doris (Tummillo) has been very accommodating. It's just like when I was home. They have trails. I guarantee you can go anywhere and run off this racetrack."