By Bloodhorse.com
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (Nov. 18, 2018) — Grade 1-winning owner/breeder and Broadway producer Jerry Frankel died Nov. 17, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
A nine-time Tony Award winner, Frankel bred and raced California-bred grade 1 winner Joey Franco, and in a partnership with brother Ronald Frankel, Steve Laymon, and Bradley Thoroughbreds campaigned multiple grade 1 winner and 2014 champion turf female Dayatthespa.
Joey Franco won the Triple Bend Breeders’ Cup Invitational Handicap (G1) at Hollywood Park and Del Mar Breeders’ Cup Handicap (G2) in 2003 and earned $635,091 from his 17 starts for Frankel and trainers David Hofmans and Darrell Vienna.
He also bred seven other stakes winners, including Capichi, an Agitate mare who won three graded stakes and was runner-up against males in the 1986 Santa Ana Handicap (G1).
New York-bred Dayatthespa, trained by Chad Brown, won five graded stakes, including three grade 1 events, and closed her career on the track with a three-race win streak in 2014, when she took the Yaddo Stakes at Saratoga Race Course, the First Lady Stakes (G1T) at Keeneland, and the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1T) at Santa Anita Park.
In his theater career, Frankel produced more than 50 Broadway shows, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“To put it simply, Jerry was a class act, and all of you who encountered him during his years in our business had to appreciate his forthrightness, great sense of humor, and passion for the theater,” Frankel’s producing partner, Jeffrey Richards, told the Hollywood Reporter. “He will be greatly missed.”