Tyler's Tribe is a 2-year-old gelding owned by Tom Lepic and Tim Martin who has rocketed unbeaten and untouched through five races in his native Iowa with enough brilliance to merit a start in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G1T) on Friday, Nov. 4 at Keeneland.
Tyler's Tribe is also the name for the support system embracing Lepic's 8-year-old grandson, Tyler Juhl of Iowa City, Iowa, who was diagnosed two years ago with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of cancer found in children. Lepic hoped naming the horse for the boy would accentuate the positive in a landscape of negative news. It did.
There is another Tyler's Tribe, however, a non-profit organization inspired by Tyler Decker, 28, of Carlsbad, Calif., who found out two years ago that the muscle weakness he'd been experiencing while surfing was a symptom of amyotropic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease.
Living in their own, specialized worlds, the two Tribes did not realize the other existed.
"Are you serious?" Lepic exclaimed when informed this week. "A Tyler's Tribe in California? Wow!"
Meghan Decker, Tyler's younger sister, had pretty much the same reaction when odd messages began popping up on the social media sites of the Tyler's Tribe Foundation, of which she is CEO and president.
"I'd see things like, 'So happy to be here at the races supporting the Tyler's Tribe Foundation,' and I had no idea what it was about," Decker said. "There'd be a link to a video of a race, or a screen shot, and I'm like, 'Whoa. He's fast!' There were more messages after his last race, and then you called. Something was going on."
"You" is your reporter, guilty as charged. A story like this is pure catnip for a writer, especially since one Tribe is based in North San Diego County, just up the road from Del Mar (where Meghan, Tyler, and their older brother Michael used to park cars during the summer meet at the track), and the other Tribe is rapidly becoming a national racing meme.
Tyler's Tribe, the Thoroughbred, was foaled at Clifton Farm in Iowa on Feb. 17, 2020. A few months later, the two Tylers were confronted with their illnesses. And while the horse has thrived with ridiculous ease under Tim Martin's training, the Tylers have faced the most serious kinds of medical challenges.
Leukemia can respond to constant rounds of blood transfusions and chemotherapy. Along the way, Tyler Juhl lost his hair but not his spirit.
"There have been some real dark times over the last year," Lepic said. "Through it all, he's been such an inspiration."
Juhl is among the 4,000 or so patients diagnosed each year with the disease specifically targeting children. ALS, on the other hand, can befall anyone of adult age, although Tyler Decker is believed to be among the youngest individuals ever to be stricken with the wasting disease that attacks the nerves controlling all manner of muscle movement, including eating and breathing. It is estimated that about 20,000 Americans are dealing with ALS at any given time.
"It's rare, it's difficult to diagnose, and it's the last thing they want to find," Meghan Decker said. "They won't say you have it until they've eliminated everything else."
For those so afflicted there is no cure, only agonizing physical therapy and access to a handful of medications that at best mitigate symptoms. Once a week Decker puts himself through physical therapy designed to preserve what strength can be retained as the disease progresses.
"He'll come home exhausted and say, 'You won't believe what they did to me this week,'" his sister said. "He has tremendous spirit for someone with this horrible diagnosis."
The Tyler's Tribe of California began as an impromptu fund-raising effort with a luau, a golf tournament, and merchandise to help defray Decker's mounting medical costs.
Similarly, the Iowa version of Tyler's Tribe represents an ever-expanding congregation of friends and racing fans who have latched onto an exciting horse and his brave young namesake in the fight against childhood leukemia. Kari Juhl, Tyler's mother, has been the engine that has driven the connection of her son and the horse, to the point where Tom Lepic has predicted a hundred or more Iowans will make the pilgrimage to Keeneland to watch Tyler's Pride in action. Tyler Juhl will be there.
"It's a blessing you could never see happening," said Lepic, who serves as the head of the Iowa Quarter Horse Racing Association. "My wife and I woke up this morning to a call from the English writer John Lees. He said all of England is cheering for Tyler's Tribe, but the British are coming to try and beat him. That's the greatest phone call I've ever had. Playing at this level, to have that kind of recognition."
On Nov. 4, while Tyler Juhl and his entourage will be at Keeneland to watch Tyler's Tribe take on the world, Tyler Decker and his local tribe will be glued to the Breeders' Cup telecast to find out if the hotshot from Iowa can answer the international challenge.
"When Tyler found out about the horse, the first thing he asked was if he could get a picture with him," Meghan Decker said.
Fingers crossed, that could happen next year, when the Breeders' Cup returns to California and Santa Anita Park. Who knows what racing adventures lie ahead for Tyler's Tribe?
"Maybe he'll still be kicking butt by then," she said. "I sure hope so."
And if Tyler Decker has his way, he'll be back on a surfboard, if only to paddle in the shallows. The FDA recently approved Relyvrio, the first drug to treat the symptoms of ALS in decades, and youth is on his side. The fact remains, however, that only 20% of those with ALS live more than five years after diagnosis. Lou Gehrig, the Hall of Fame ballplayer whose name became synonymous with the disease, died two years after his diagnosis. Robert P. Strub, son of Santa Anita founder Charles H. Strub, lived just seven months. Then there was Stephen Hawking, the celebrity physicist, who was diagnosed at 22 and lived with ALS for 55 years.
In contrast, the survival rate for childhood leukemia is considerably more promising. According to the American Cancer Society, "With acute leukemias, children who are free of the disease after five years are very likely to have been cured, because it's very rare for these cancers to return after this long."
And yet...
"Tyler has had so many friends who have not survived," Tom Lepic said. "He's always known that even though he's doing better now, it doesn't always have to be that way. Every time one of his friends passes away, we have that conversation, and tell him he's going to be okay. But he's a smart boy. He knows. That's why our family will be in the fight for a long time."
No matter what happens in the Breeders' Cup, October will end up being a memorable month in the life of the two Tribes.
Last week, the complicated ordeal of becoming an IRS-approved non-profit was officially marked when Meghan Decker chaired her first meeting of the Tyler's Tribe Foundation board of directors, as they begin to shape the future of their charitable fund-raising and research endowments.
"Four years ago, the average cost of living with ALS, without doing clinical trials, was $300,000 a year," Meghan Decker said. "I'm sure that figure is higher now. Our community helped us tremendously in the beginning, so the main thing we want to do now is help with funds for other families who are battling ALS."
Likewise, the Tyler's Tribe of Iowa has stepped up big time. Tyler Juhl's family donated $30,000 toward childhood leukemia treatment and research, representing a healthy 10% of the horse's earnings, while the Iowa Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association has launched a fund drive.
On Monday, Oct. 24, at University of Iowa's Stead Children's Hospital in Iowa City, Tyler Juhl will ring the brass bell in a ceremony that has come to acknowledge the final treatment and the beginning of remission from the cancer that has temporarily hijacked a person's life.
"Nothing will be as important as that day, when Tyler rings that bell," Lepic said. "Not even Nov. 4 at the Breeders' Cup. Although, I'd have to say it will be a pretty good way to celebrate Tyler with Tyler's Tribe."
