Mary Lynn Dudley, who co-owned the former Hot Springs horse-racing stable that produced winners at the Belmont and Preakness stakes, died Friday of lung cancer. She was 77.
Most known for the Loblolly stable she co-owned with Arkansas timber tycoon John Ed Anthony, Dudley took her curiosity and thirst for new experience across the world when she wasn't tending to her garden closer to home, her husband said.
"She really just lit up a room," said her husband, former Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Robert Dudley. "She had a great wit and charm and was just a wonderful woman."
Dudley and Anthony, her first husband, married in 1959 and 12 years later founded Loblolly. The stable over the next three decades garnered some of the highest achievements in the sport, success that persisted even after they divorced in 1987.
Loblolly's Temperence Hill won the Belmont Stakes in 1980. Dudley and Anthony were then repeat winners in the Preakness Stakes in 1992 and 1993, with their horses Pine Bluff and Prairie Bayou.
"Despite divorce, they have stable marriage," says the headline of an April 1993 Los Angeles Times story about Dudley, Anthony and their 50-50 partnership.
Dudley attended most of the high-stakes races out of state and named the stable's fillies, Anthony said. The Baltimore Sun in a 1993 article about Dudley said she designed the stable's yellow and brown attire after she liked the way they looked on her during a tennis warm-up.
Anthony and Dudley announced in 1994 that they would phase out Loblolly, putting an end to a stable that had also won three Arkansas Derby races.
Anthony said the pair remained friends throughout life.
"She was a fine mother and a wonderful wife for many, many years," Anthony said.
Mary Lynn and Robert Dudley, who married in 1991, traveled extensively to satiate Mary Lynn's want for new experience and her curiosity.
Dudley rode a camel named Minnie Mouse in Morocco and a hot-air balloon in France, her husband said. During a trip to Egypt, she piloted a boat down a stretch of the Nile River.
"The crew liked her so much, they asked her if she wanted to pilot for a while," Robert Dudley said. "She just was exciting."
On a trip to Russia in the early 2000s, Dudley engaged a Moscow professor in a discussion about whether a national democracy could flourish in the nation.
"She was one of those people who had an inquisitive mind," Robert Dudley said.
Dudley maintained a garden at her Country Club Lane home, was a member of the Little Rock Garden Club and a former trustee of the Arkansas Arts Center.
Dudley will be buried Monday at Mount Holly Cemetery in downtown Little Rock after a gathering of her friends at her home, in lieu of a public funeral.
Metro on 03/19/2017