Jersey Derby : Brennan Steals Triple Crown’s Thunder

Bob Brennan’s targets haven’t changed, and neither has his approach. For the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has made life uncomfortable for Brennan for more than 10 years, he serves up unabashed sarcasm.

For the race tracks that run the Triple Crown, Brennan offers what he thinks is a better idea. It is Brennan who makes Churchill Downs, Pimlico and Belmont Park feel uncomfortable.

If Brennan’s empire is crumbling--heavy losses at his two race tracks, a red-ink breeding and racing operation, indictments against employees of his Manhattan brokerage firm and renewed charges by the SEC over stock-dealing practices--the 42-year-old chairman of Garden State Park doesn’t reflect the gloom.

Brennan wisecracks about the SEC, trying to turn the hunter into the hunted, and going beyond mere rhetoric he continues to make the racing establishment nervous, using the Jersey Derby to lure away the best horses in the middle of the Triple Crown series.

When different horses--Ferdinand in the Kentucky Derby and Snow Chief at the Preakness--won this year’s first two Triple Crown races, the logical rubber match would have been the Belmont Stakes, the last jewel in the prestigious series for 3-year-olds. But because of Brennan’s persistence, Belmont Park will have to run its race on June 7 without Snow Chief, whose owners have brought the California-bred colt here for today’s $1 million Jersey Derby.

Brennan delegates were in Los Angeles almost two months ago, even before Snow Chief won the Santa Anita Derby, reciting the merits of the Jersey Derby to Carl Grinstead and Ben Rochelle, the owners of the horse.

Brennan was just as persuasive a year ago, convincing Dennis Diaz, the owner of Kentucky Derby winner Spend a Buck, that he should run in the Jersey Derby. Spend a Buck bypassed the Preakness to compete at Garden State, winning the race and a record $2.6 million in purse and bonus money, and going on to be voted Horse of the Year.

The Triple Crown tracks have organized to fight Brennan, but they have moved slowly and have yet to capitalize on more than 100 years of tradition. Brennan, who rebuilt burned-down Garden State Park for about $140 million two years ago, always seems to be a step ahead, a horse in front and a thinker whose ideas put Churchill Downs and company on the defensive.

As though the Spend a Buck and Snow Chief coups weren’t enough, Brennan is actually suggesting that the Triple Crown tracks join him. Macy’s falling into bed with Gimbels is a more likely prospect, but Brennan talks on, just the same.

“We would call it the Grand Slam,” Brennan said. “The four Triple Crown races and the Jersey Derby, only you’d change the dates. Start with the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday of May, when it’s traditionally held. Then run the next three races three weeks apart--the Preakness, the Jersey Derby and finally the Belmont. Throw in a bonus--$10 million sounds about right.

“It would be better than what we have now. The spacing would be easier on the horses and you’d have better, bigger fields than seven horses at the Preakness and just a few running in the Belmont. There’d be enough time left for the 3-year-olds to get ready for the Travers at Saratoga in August.

“There are some other stakes on the calendar that would be in conflict, but they are not generally considered major races for 3-year-olds, anyway.”

Because of the personalities involved, Brennan’s self-styled Grand Slam has as much chance as a maiden in the Kentucky Derby. But strictly on merit, Dennis Diaz likes the idea.

“There are some things that Bob Brennan does that I don’t like,” Spend a Buck’s owner said. “For instance, his battles with the SEC are being financed by all the taxpayers, and I’m one of them and I paid more than $1 million in taxes last year. But this Grand Slam thing would work. I’ll bet we see it happen in the next five years.”

If the next five years are like Brennan’s first six in the racing game, even a man with his deep pockets could be hard-pressed to survive. Garden State Park, one of the toniest racing plants in the country, and Philadelphia Park, another rebuilt track, have incurred operating losses conservatively estimated at $25 million. Both tracks went first class from the outset, but the large crowds, other than 30,000 for last year’s Jersey Derby, have not approached projections and it is being said that Brennan misjudged the market.

Stock in Brennan’s publicly held racing and breeding subsidiary has depreciated by almost 80%. And although Brennan characterizes his problems with the SEC as a “witch-hunt” and a “vendetta,” the charges are more serious than they were in the past.

For a man who courts the media, Brennan has still felt the sting of the press. There was a derogatory article in Forbes magazine about two years ago; the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a series that infuriated Brennan; and recently in the New York Post, columnist Ray Kerrison wrote: “People never seem to tire of giving him their money, even though Bob’s (operation) never produces any worthwhile operating profits. . . . What I can’t figure out is this: When does the public tire of giving Bob its money?”

Brennan takes adversity and tries to turn it into a laugh. His private racing stable is called Due Process because, he says, “that’s something I’ve never been able to get from the SEC.” The name of Fobby Forbes, the colt Brennan is running in today’s Jersey Derby, came from the Forbes article, which accused Brennan’s brokerage firm of fobbing, or deceiving, customers. Fobby Forbes also is a son of Bold Forbes, the 1976 Kentucky Derby winner.

The other day, at a luncheon connected with the Jersey Derby, Brennan said: “The SEC tried to buy Fobby Forbes and enter him in this race. But Bob Quigley (Garden State’s president) banned them from doing it.”

Brennan acts as though he has nothing to hide. For the series in the Inquirer, he permitted reporters from the newspaper to virtually live with him for four days. Brennan took a full-page advertisement in the Inquirer after the stories were published, attempting to rebut the charges.

He will admit mistakes. Before Fobby Forbes ran seventh in the Kentucky Derby, Brennan sent more than a $15,000 bet on the horse from his Wall Street office to an Off Track Betting shop in Manhattan.

“I got carried away, because I’m not even close to being that kind of bettor,” Brennan said. “After I made the bet, I felt like it was something I should tell the next time I went to confession.”

Brennan also takes the blame for today’s Jersey Derby being televised on the Financial News Network rather than a larger network. Last year, the race was carried by ESPN. FNN reaches 21 million homes, ESPN 36.9 million.

“We were shooting for the major networks, somebody like ABC (which reaches 85.9 million homes),” Brennan said. “Then time got away from us. ESPN wound up taking the New York race, and we didn’t get ABC, either.”

The New York race on ESPN today is the Metropolitan Mile at Belmont Park. Chalk up one for the Triple Crown track. But it doesn’t compensate for not having Snow Chief run against Ferdinand in the Belmont Stakes.