Rich Fisher

Trenton, NJ — Keith “Dudley” Carey has no use for email.

“He’s a writer, he likes to write letters,” his son, Tom Carey said. “He wrote his life story down and all the memories he has, and his memory is sharp.”

It better be, because at age 99, that’s a heck of a lot of memories to write down.

And he’s still making them.

Keith “Dudley” Carey (center) with his grandson, Curtis; great-grandson, Kolton; son, Tom; and pacing mare Nat A Cam. Photo courtesy of Tom Carey.

Just 50 days shy of his 100th birthday, Dudley is still working around Tom’s Columbus Junction, Iowa farm. In addition, he owns a 5-year-old pacing mare, Nat A Cam, that has had ample success at Iowa fair tracks. She is the last horse Carey and wife Katherine, who passed away in 2017 at age 93, owned together. Dudley also has Nat A Cam’s mom, Nat-A-Tat-Tat, and her colt CR Dudley, a 2-year-old namesake.

It’s the latest chapter in a lifetime with Standardbreds.

“He’s a retired farmer, he trained horses all the time,” said Tom, 64. “He and mom had a small stable that raced at Quad City Downs. They retired and I took over the training, so he’s helped out. He cleans stalls, does chores, helps me hook and stuff like that.”

He does it all with zeal, in hopes of cashing that next first-place check.

“I like the winner’s circle,” he said through a text from Tom. “I love racing.”

It’s a love that keeps his fire burning heading into a second century of life.

“His mind is fantastic,” Tom said. “He has a little trouble hearing but he walks the treadmill every day. It’s not like he’s a sprinter. But he’ll clean a stall, sit down for a while. Then he gets up and paces himself. He likes to help out and he’ll pick up a stall or something when I’m out jogging. If one’s not too dirty he’ll go out and pick it up and put some bedding in.”

Dudley is hardly confined to the farm, as he makes appearances at the track much to the delight of many.

“It’s kind of like a novelty,” Tom said with a laugh. “It’s like ‘Holy cow, somebody that age. . .’ It’s really weird because all his friends are gone. But he’s sociable, he likes to go to the races, and he goes with us and hangs out and talks to everybody. Everybody knows him.

“It’s pretty amazing. I took him to Florida last year, my son trains down there in the winter so we went down there. He gets around good, he walks good. He can still drive.”

It’s safe to say cars are a little different than when he first started driving, somewhere toward the end of the Great Depression. Carey only received an eighth-grade education but is smart in other ways and was never afraid of labor. He worked on his dad’s farm as a boy and in the 1940s, his brother Red caught the racing bug.

And yes, Red is a nickname, as all the members of Carey’s family got one as kids. That’s how Keith became Dudley.

Red, who would go on to be inducted into the Iowa Hall of Fame, got his first horse from his father in 1950.

“And then my dad and his dad helped my uncle because it was just a family deal,” Tom said. “We’ve had a track of some sort here on the farm since the 1950s. They started out with a half-mile little track and I’ve got a five-eighths-mile track now so that’s a long time to have a track on the farm.”

Dudley dabbled in driving but was never into it as much as Red. His last drive came in the 1980s. It was around that same time that Tom and his wife lost their farm due to bankruptcy.

With Keith and Katherine racing in Des Moines each week, Tom headed there to pick up a few bucks.

“I wasn’t into racing until my 20s,” he said. “Mom and dad had horses and I kind of got dragged into it. I started out shoeing for them because they couldn’t do it, and I had to help them train.

“I went up to Des Moines and started driving and we got connected with a guy who had a construction company. He went and bought some nice horses and he was fed up with who had them. He called me and said, ‘Can you train these horses and I’ll pay you.’ It was like we went to heaven. Me and my wife trained for him, raced stake horses in Illinois for five or six years until the kids got too big, and we quit.”

The Careys returned to Columbus Junction and Tom got a job working with the city for 25 years while still training. His son, Curtis, has around 20 horses in Florida that he drives and trains; guaranteeing the family business should be going strong for another generation.

As for Tom, he continues to train with the help of knowledge gained from Dudley.

“It’s an advantage growing up when you have somebody who’s been around it,” he said. “They’ve been around horses all their life and it’s just somebody else to see things.

“How do you judge knowledge? You learn from your parents. You pick up stuff all the time. They showed me the right way to do things and not-the-right-way to do things. My mom was the horse person, she grew up on a ranch in Montana. She was riding horses before she could even walk.”

But Dudley became a horse person, and his passion is what helps keep him going.

“He’s got something to live for, which means a lot,” Tom said. “He’s out at the barn every morning at eight o’clock. He’s got a lady friend down the road; he goes and visits with her.”

And he writes it all down. If he ever decided to publish those writings, it could make for one heck of a book.