Obituaries in the news

Obituaries in the news

Ira “Babe” Hanford

Ira “Babe” Hanford, who as an 18-year-old apprentice rode 20-1 shot Bold Venture to victory in the 1936 Kentucky Derby, died Saturday. He was 91.

He died in Ocala, Fla., following a long illness, said Virginia Hanford, his wife of 67 years. He was the oldest-living jockey to have won the Derby and the only apprentice to have done so.

Hanford did not get a chance to ride Bold Venture in the Preakness because racing officials suspended him for 15 days following the Derby. He retired in 1953 without running in another Derby. He is one of 22 jockeys to win the Run for the Roses in their only appearance.

Hanford said officials never told him why he was suspended, along with two other jockeys.

Bold Venture’s trainer Max Hirsch replaced Hanford with George Woolfe for the Preakness, which the horse won. Bold Venture did not run in the Belmont.

Tom Janik

POTH, Texas (AP) — Tom Janik, a former AFL-NFL player who in 1968 intercepted a pass by Joe Namath and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown, died Saturday. He was 69.

Vinyard Funeral Homes said Janik died in Poth, about 35 miles from San Antonio.

Janik, a defensive back and punter, made 25 interceptions in eight AFL seasons with Denver, Buffalo and Boston. The touchdown return against Namath and the New York Jets was one of six in Janik’s career.

Janik played one year with the New England Patriots after the AFL-NFL merger.

In college, he played one season at Texas A&M and three at Texas A&I, now Texas A&M-Kingsville.

H.C. Robbins Landon

LONDON (AP) — H.C. Robbins Landon, a musicologist noted for his pioneering research on Franz Joseph Haydn and for writing popular works on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, died Friday. He was 83.

The death was confirmed by records at the town hall in Rabastens in southern France, where Robbins Landon lived with his companion Marie-Noelle Raynal-Bechetoille. Officials would not provide details about the cause of death, citing the family’s wish for privacy.

Robbins Landon moved from America to Europe in the late 1940s to pursue research on Haydn.

He did much to popularize the composer, inspiring the foundation of the Haydn Society, editing music scores and publishing a book on Haydn’s 108 symphonies in 1955.

His reputation took a knock in 1993 when he vouched for the authenticity of what were claimed to be six newly discovered piano sonatas by Haydn, but which proved to a hoax perpetrated by a living German composer.

Harold Chandler Robbins Landon was born in Boston in 1926. He went to Vienna and, anticipating he would soon be drafted, he persuaded the U.S. Army to take him on as a researcher on an official history of the Fifth Army and the liberation of Italy.

In 1949, he returned to Boston and joined with friends to found the Haydn Society, which quickly produced the first recording of Haydn’s “Harmoniemesse.” He returned to Vienna where one of his early triumphs was discovering the original parts of Mozart’s opera “Idomeneo.”

Robbins Landon also solved the Vienna Philharmonic’s difficulty with the high pitch of the horn parts in Haydn’s 56th symphony. He realized that Haydn wrote for horns pitched an octave higher, and he had some copies made.

Alejandro “Bong” Reblando

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Alejandro “Bong” Reblando, a veteran Filipino journalist and former Associated Press stringer, was among at least 18 reporters killed in an attack Monday on an election caravan. He was 53.

The attack left 57 dead in the Philippines’ worst election massacre.

Reblando and the other journalists were accompanying relatives and supporters of a gubernatorial candidate in Maguindanao province when they were ambushed and shot dead.

Media groups said it was the highest number of reporters killed in a single attack anywhere in the world.

Based in General Santos City, Reblando covered the southern Philippines for The AP from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. He was recently named a regular staffer for Manila Bulletin daily.