Minority owner of NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder named to replace Will Farish as Keeneland trustee

Longtime Keeneland trustee Will Farish has been succeeded by Everett Dobson, the Lexington racetrack and sales company announced Thursday.

Farish recently turned 80, and the organization’s bylaws mandate that trustees retire at 80, according to spokeswoman Amy Gregory. Farish will remain on the larger Keeneland board of directors.

The other trustees on the board are Claiborne Farm chairman Seth W. Hancock and William M. Lear Jr., chair emeritus of Stoll Keenon Ogden.

Dobson is a native of Cheyenne, Okla., and races as Cheyenne Stables. He also owns Candy Meadows Farm near Lexington, where he has about 30 broodmares. Dobson also is on the Jockey Club board of stewards, is a Breeders’ Cup director, is vice chairman of the board of trustees for the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and is vice chairman of the executive committee and chairman of the American Graded Stakes Committee.

Among the horses Dobson has raced, alone or in partnerships are Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Caleb’s Posse and graded stakes winners Mastery and Opry.

In addition to being CEO of Dobson Technologies, which operates a 3,000-mile fiber-optic network in Oklahoma and North Texas, Dobson is a minority owner of the Oklahoma City Thunder, an NBA team.

Farish, whose family operates Lane’s End in Versailles, has been a Keeneland trustee since 2006 and was appointed by President George W. Bush as U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, where he served for three years.