Braly Family Trust

The late Tom Braly gave Sir Winston Churchill’s famous quote – “There is something about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man” – documentation. Given days or weeks to live after doctors discovered leukemia had spread to his head and neck, Braly continued living through 2009 and got to see the debut of a filly he owned with his wife Marilyn, Evening Jewel, a horse he thought just might be his best ever. 

Braly died shortly after Evening Jewel finished a slow-starting sixth in her debut at Del Mar in 2009, at the age of 72.

Braly grew up in Long Beach, Calif., graduating from the University of Southern California. He worked as a reporter at the Los Angeles Mirror before opening his own mortgage insurance company, Mills Insurance. Marilyn was the company’s controller.

Braly’s family owned a box at Hollywood Park and he became an owner in partnerships in the mid-’70s. In 2005, two years after he was diagnosed with cancer, he decided to go on his own using Jim Cassidy as advisor and trainer. Cassidy trained Evening Jewel and continues to train Tom’s Tribute.

Grateful that Tom survived his initial diagnosis of cancer in 2003, the Bralys donated $100,000 to Children’s Hospital of Orange County and $65,000 to its Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) programs in honor of Dr. Leonard Sender, who treated Tom.