BY CYNTHIA MCFARLAND

A hard-scrabble beginning couldn’t derail Kenneth Davis’ future. He didn’t have family background in the industry and knew nothing about horses, but Thoroughbreds became his life’s work and he has made the most of the journey.

Born in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, in 1945, Davis’ first introduction to livestock was Jersey milk cows.

“I came from a very poor family and grew up on a dairy farm where we lived until my daddy got put in jail,” recalled Davis, who was one of nine siblings his mother struggled to support.

Much to the truancy officer’s dismay, Davis quit school in the third grade. He left home at age 11 when the dairy farm owner let him move in to raise calves and help with the cows.

“I had to get up at four in the morning, but I had a place to sleep and was paid $2 a week, plus room and board,” Davis said.

That arrangement lasted until he was 13 when he got seriously sick with the flu and the farm owner took him home to his mother.

“I went back to the dairy after I got well, but the owner had hired somebody to take my place,” Davis said.

Horses entered the picture in the early 1960s when teenage Kenny went to live with his married sister and her husband who rented a house on a farm in Nicholasville, Kentucky.

“There were a couple broodmares there, including one named Speed Trust. She had a colt named Dandy K who won the 1964 Fountain of Youth Stakes, ran third in the Florida Derby and ran eighth in the Kentucky Derby when Northern Dancer won it,” Davis remembered. “The newspaper was writing an article and wanted a picture of the mare. I was the only one at the farm when they came, so I had to hold her, and I was scared to death of the horses.”

His brother-in-law drove a soda truck and Davis rode along one day when he went to Keeneland for a delivery. 

“I saw all these horses and thought, I’d like to do this,” said Davis, who was 19 at the time. “I got a job working as a groom for trainer Frank Carter at Keeneland in 1964.”

So that’s how the teen who was scared of horses ended up at the racetrack walking hots, grooming and cleaning stalls. He’s never done anything but work with horses since.

Davis married at age 17. He and his wife Linda had two boys by the time he was 21 and later had a third son.

“I raised three sons and all three graduated high school and never missed a day of school. I didn’t get to go to school, but they did,” Davis said. “After our oldest son graduated high school, I helped Linda get a job at Keeneland; she was a mutual clerk there for many years.”

Davis worked for multiple trainers, but it was Melvin Carter who encouraged him to get his trainer’s license, which he did in 1969.

“I couldn’t read, but they read me the questions, and I gave the answers and walked away with my trainer’s license,” Davis said.

His first winner was Sal Allen, a hard-knocking stakes-placed mare who was on the board 16 times in 48 starts.

Through his connections with Carter, Davis met Mary Anne Hockensmith of Woodlake Farm near Frankfort, Kentucky, who became a lifelong client, friend and “second mama” to him. 

In 1972, Davis had three horses in his barn at Keeneland when recent college graduate Sherry Rose Mansfield walked down the shedrow one morning looking for work.

“I was doing everything myself and couldn’t pay much, but I paid her $35 a week to walk hots,” Davis said.

Although she loved horses, Mansfield admitted she didn’t know much. She was eager to learn, however, and it was soon apparent she had the touch. Nervous fillies settled and relaxed under her care.

“If you had a picky eater or a crazy horse, you gave it to her and in 10 days, it was like a baby,” Davis said. “She had a way with them and didn’t believe in cutting any corners.”

For nearly three decades, Davis and Mansfield had horses for Hockensmith, whom Davis credits for his career in the Thoroughbred industry. During those years, Mansfield and Davis raced in Kentucky and wintered at Tampa Bay Downs.

“In 1995, I turned the training over to Sherry. One of the best horses we had then was Oh So Striking, a Florida-bred gelding owned and bred by Ray Tamargo Jr.,” Davis said. “That horse set a new track record [1:15.74] for six-and-a-half furlongs in an allowance race at Churchill.”

In 2000, Davis accepted an offer to manage Green River Farm in Summerfield and moved to Florida. Mansfield came along, of course.

Davis and Mansfield had done some pinhooking in Kentucky, so while working for Green River, they started breeding a few horses of their own.

“A couple years later, Mary Anne Hockensmith came down to visit and I showed her 25 acres of open field I wanted to buy,” recalled Davis. “I’ll never forget this. She said, ‘You need to buy it and I’ve got the money.’ So my “second mama” loaned me the money to buy this farm and I paid her back. She ended up being a partner with Sherry and me on a few horses.”

Davis gave Mansfield half interest in the farm, which they built from scratch. The two partners named it Remedy Farm, after a favorite broodmare.

“Sherry lived on Remedy Farm; Linda and I lived on Green River Farm for two years before Linda went back to Kentucky,” Davis said. “She filed for divorce in 2011.”

“We quit working for Green River Farm in 2003 and bred our first foals at Remedy Farm in 2004,” Davis said.

Mansfield and Davis never had more than a handful of broodmares at a time but were known for breeding and raising horses that exceeded their pedigrees.

They found Florida horsemen were more than willing to help as they established their business here.

“Elliot Fuentes was a local breeder who taught us a lot about breeding,” Davis said. “Ed Pendray taught me a whole lot, and it was Ed who told me, ‘You won’t do business with anyone better than Mike O’Farrell at Ocala Stud,’ so we bred all our mares there and they treated us like family.”

They bred Florida-breds and sold at Ocala Breeders’ Sales under the consignment name Hawk’s Nest.

Having been co-workers and partners in the horse business for decades, Mansfield and Davis felt it was time to officially become partners in life and married in 2012. Mansfield kept her maiden name, so the horses they bred still carried both their names.

One of the best runners bred and sold by Mansfield and Davis was Deland, sold for $12,000 at the 2013 OBS August Yearling sale. The Florida-bred colt by Gottcha Gold became a multiple graded stakes winner of $328,819 for owner Ricardo R. Vallejo.

Yes I Am Free was another multiple graded stakes winner bred and sold by Mansfield and Davis. Justin Casse, agent, bought Yes I Am Free for $135,000 out of the Hawk’s Nest consignment at the 2018 OBS June sale. The Uncaptured gelding earned $811,214 for Golden Kernel Racing Stable.

Other good Florida-breds Mansfield and Davis bred and sold include stakes winner Willow Case, a 2023 Neolithic filly who has earned $139,460 for owner Champion Equine LLC. Classic Car Wash, sold for $105,000 at the 2022 OBS March sale and is a multiple graded stakes-placed winner of $431,153 for owner Flatland Racing Stable. Stakes-placed winner Capture the Lion sold for $55,000 at the 2022 OBS March sale and has earned $194,765.

Sadly, Sherry Rose Mansfield died at age 74 on June,17, 2024.

“Everybody who met Sherry loved her,” Davis said. “She treated everybody right.”

Now 81, Davis still lives on Remedy Farm where an employee helps him with his eight horses there. He also has two horses at the track that he and Mansfield bred.

One of those is 2-year-old Florida-bred It’s Smoking, a stakes-placed winner of $50,880 in two starts thus far. Davis owns the Ramon Minguet-trained Roadster colt in partnership with Ortega Stables.

“I’m never going to be without a horse,” Davis said simply.

He may not have had a predictable start in the Thoroughbred business, but Kenny Davis found his way and made it memorable with a partner who loved horses as much as he did.