Perfect Drift owner works at KU Med

Perfect Drift, third-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby and listed as an 8-1 shot in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, is owned by one of Kansas University Medical Center’s most respected doctors.

Dr. William Reed is a cardiothorasic surgeon at KU Med whose background suggests little of the perception of thoroughbreds owned by old money and generations of prosperity.

Perfect drift looks out from his stall at Belmont Park. Perfect Drift is entered in Saturday's Belmont Stakes in Elmont, N.Y.

Growing up in the depression, Reed was raised in a displaced farm family near Kokomo, Ind. He readily admits it took several breaks and much hard work for him to finish high school and college, let alone medical school.

At first, while working at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka in the late 1940s, Reed planned to go into psychiatry.

Then the Korean War erupted and fate intervened.

“Everyone knew that surgeons were what was needed in Korea,” Reed said, “and knowing my chances of being drafted were pretty good, I decided to concentrate on working on my surgical skills.”

Reed, 74, never was drafted but the decision had been made and Reed went to KU Med as a resident in 1954 after graduating from the Indiana University School of Medicine. He was a member of the first open-heart procedure at KU Med more than 40 years ago.

“We were pioneers,” Reed said, “in the trial and error stage.”

Since that time, advances in open-heart surgery have been astounding and Reed has seen them all. He left KU Med in 1971 to help establish a heart program at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.

However, Reed returned to KU Med last year and has played a large role in helping reinvigorate a heart program that had suffered some setbacks over the last several years.

“I see us establishing this as a premier program for patient care and surgical training,” Reed said. “We took the time for careful planning before we began open-heart surgery. We made sure the details were there to make it work, as it has worked.”

While his background as a poor youth may have helped shape his expectations for high quality, Reed never looks back.

“I don’t want to live in the past,” he said. “People don’t like to hear whining or bragging about what’s happened in the past. I want to look forward. That’s where the fun is.”

Horse racing is where the fun is, too, for the heart surgeon who lives in south Kansas City, Mo., and owns Stonecrest Farm, a 110-acre facility he has built over the last decade. Reed has bred and raced stakes winners Proven Cure, Wudantunoit and, of course, Perfect Drift, a horse that has already chalked up $467,160 in career earnings.

Perfect Drift will go from the No. 6 post position Saturday in the 12-horse Belmont Stakes field.

Listed with 8-1 odds for Wednesday’s draw, Reed’s horse is fourth on the chart behind Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner War Emblem (even), Proud Citizen (5-1) and Sunday Break (6-1).