For Galbreath, It Ranks Up There With Maz’s Homer

Ozone Park?

Is that any kind of name for the host city of the Breeders’ Cup, the world’s most fabulous and glamorous day of horse racing?

Ozone Park? If too many people use aerosol spray cans, will this place disappear?

Ozone Park is off-Broadway. Way off. Ozone Park is in Jamaica, which is in Queens, which is fondly known as New York’s “forgotten borough.” It’s the Azusa of New York.

You can see the real New York from here, when the ozone level is down, but this place is so far outside New York City that the taxi cabs don’t even have bullet-proof safety shields between the front and back seats.

The race track, Aqueduct, is very off-Broadway, too. Some purists were offended when the Breeders’ Cup, the World Series of horse racing, chose Aqueduct instead of Belmont, which is steeped in history and tradition, and instead of Saratoga, which is steeped in old-time splendor.

No, they picked Aqueduct, which isn’t even steeped, but is winterized, with indoor facilities for the suckers--er, bettors. “Functional” is the word most often used to describe Aqueduct.

They did paint up the old place for the big day. One rumor is that famed L.A. auto painting tycoon and horse owner Earl (I Will Paint Any Race Track Any Color for $3,000,000.95”) Scheib did the job.

To this sow’s ear of a race track Saturday came the greatest horse racing show on earth.

And when it was all over, the happiest man in Ozone Park was a tiny, natty, 88-year old fellow wearing a World Series ring.

His name is John Galbreath, and his is a truly heartwarming story, if your heart can be warmed by a story about someone whose money would fill the Grand Canyon. This man ranks 331st on the Fortune 400 list with a worth of $150 million. By bizarre coincidence, his son Dan is ranked 332nd, also at $150 million. A tiebreaker will be held later this year.

John Galbreath is the owner of Proud Truth, who won the Breeders’ Cup Classic in a classic upset.

Normally, big-time horse owners are about as lovable as Standard Oil. I submit that John Galbreath, while obscenely wealthy, just might be an exception.

Along with the underdog angle, you have Galbreath’s recent problems. Within the last year, the old gent suffered two heart attacks, a broken leg and a broken heart when he sold the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team he owned for 39 years and for three World Series championships.

But let’s go back to the beginning.

“When I got out of college in 1920, I had $100,” Galbreath said. “I made a down payment on a Ford automobile and went to work selling houses.”

He did so well that he became rich and took up the sport of polo. Then, opportunity knocked in 1935. At the county fair horse races in Dayton, Ohio, there was a disputed finish, and the judge’s decision touched off a huge riot. The damage was big, the meeting was canceled.

The horse owners, desperate for money to move on to the next town, held an auction, and Galbreath, looking for polo ponies, bought six mares for $100 each.

A friend convinced Galbreath that he should let the mares race a little, too. The first horse he saddled up was Martha Long. She won her first race and paid 68 bucks.

“I thought, ‘Isn’t that simple?’ ” Galbreath recalled.

To make a long story short, Galbreath eventually bought about half of Kentucky as a horse farm and won the Kentucky Derby with Chateaugay in 1963 and Proud Clarion in 1967. He also won the World Series, in 1960, 1971 and 1979.

John bought the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1946 and kept them until this year, when the drug dealers and the users and the politicians forced him to sell.

The only jewelry he was wearing Saturday was his wedding ring on his left hand and his ’79 World Series ring on his right.

Galbreath sold the Bucs and kept the memories. On his farm he has a shrine to Roberto Clemente and a huge photograph of Yogi Berra watching Bill Mazeroski’s homer disappear into the Forbes Field grandstands to end the ’60 World Series.

“That was the seventh game,” Galbreath said Saturday, flashing back. “It was the last of the ninth, the score was tied, Mazeroski hit that home run, and we beat the damn Yankees.

“I’ll never forget that, and I’ll never forget this. I’ll never live that long.”

Don’t bet on it. Galbreath, who towers over Proud Truth jockey Jorge Velasquez by an inch or two, is the grandson of a horse-and-buggy-circuit preacher. John’s mom was the head of the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and John’s sisters won several medals for their anti-booze speeches back in the ‘30s.

John himself has never had a smoke or a drink in his 88 years. He still calls all the breeding shots at the Darby Dan Farms and works a full day at the real estate office. Latest business venture: an $800-million clump of apartment buildings in Tokyo, housing 82,000 people.

Galbreath is a close personal friend of the Queen of England, who bought a horse from John and visited his farm recently, and of Gerald Ford, the famed golfer.

But mostly, Galbreath is a sportsman and a genial fellow among the stuffed shirts of the horse-owner biz.

And Saturday, he coulda run for mayor of Ozone Park.