Whitney Tower


Whitney Tower was an American journalist reporting on Thoroughbred horse racing and a president of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

Early life

His father was oil broker Roderick Tower and his mother was Flora Payne Whitney, a child of the prominent Vanderbilt-Whitney marriage. His maternal grandmother, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, wife of Harry Payne Whitney, started the Whitney Museum in New York. Whitney Tower's parents divorced and when he was four, his mother remarried to MacCulloch Miller. Tower graduated from St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island, and Harvard University.

Career

From 1948 to 1954, Tower worked as a sports reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer. He then joined the fledgling Sports Illustrated magazine where he served as horse racing editor for twenty-two years during which time he received the National Thoroughbred Racing Association's magazine writing award.
In 1976 Whitney Tower, along with E. Barry Ryan, founded Classic magazine, a publication dedicated to Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing as well as show jumping events. The magazine reported on horse racing matters not only from North America but from around the world as well and won Media Eclipse Awards in 1976-77. Following the magazine's closure, Tower joined the National Museum of Racing in Saratoga Springs, New York, serving as its president from 1982 to 1989 and for ten years was chairman of the Museum's Hall of Fame committee.

Personal life

Whitney Tower and his first wife, Frances Cheston Train, had four children:
With his third wife, Lucy Niblack Lyle
Tower had two more children:
In 1968, Tower married Joan Baker Spear, the former wife of Life photographer Eliot Elisofon. Tower spent time writing articles in Aiken, South Carolina, home to the Aiken Steeplechase Association and famous for the flat racing and steeplechase Thoroughbred horses that trained at . He and his wife decided to make Aiken their home and moved into a mansion called Joye Cottage built at the beginning of the 20th century by great-grandfather William Collins Whitney. While living there, the couple became instrumental in the creation of the Aiken Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame and Museum.
Whitney Tower was a resident of Saratoga Springs, where he died in 1999 of complications from a stroke. He was survived by his third wife, Lucy Niblack Lyle.
Tower has six grandchildren, all through his first wife, Frances Cheston Train: