HORSE RACING : International ‘Star’ Back to Turf

Ever since the Washington, D.C., International was first run in 1952, European horses have been crossing the Atlantic to win this country’s major turf races. But U.S. horses are not so venturesome; they don’t often attempt to run in European stakes, and they almost never succeed.

This is the reason that a humbly bred, New York-based colt named Fourstars Allstar must be regarded as one of the most-notable thoroughbred performers of 1991. His trainer and owner sent him to Ireland in the spring to run in one of that country’s 3-year-old classics, the Two Thousand Guineas, and they earned plaudits for their sportsmanship in undertaking such a quixotic mission.

But when Fourstars Allstar scored an electrifying victory, he demonstrated that U.S. horses can indeed beat the Europeans at their own game. On Saturday he will try to beat formidable foreign competition again when he takes on some of the world’s best older horses in the $750,000 Budweiser International at Laurel.

This venturesome campaign is something one might expect from an owner with international credentials, a Paul Mellon or a Daniel Wildenstein. But Rich Bomze isn’t part of that crowd. When he was honored recently by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association as the breeder of the year, amid an assemblage of people who own great Kentucky horse farms, somebody asked Bomze how big his farm was. “A quarter of an acre,” he replied, accurately.

Bomze got into the breeding business on a modest scale when he attended a sale at Saratoga and saw a horse named Compliance being auctioned for the seemingly cheap price of $150,000. The animal had never won a race, but he was a superbly bred son of Northern Dancer, and Bomze said to a friend, “How can we pass this up?”

Unexpectedly, he owned a stallion. He was at another sale when he and two friends bought a raggedy-looking filly named Broadway Joan for $2,500. She never made it to the races, and so Bomze bred her to Compliance. This hardly had the makings of a championship pedigree, but Broadway Joan produced a colt named Fourstardave, a turf specialist who has earned $1.2 million and is still going strong. Bred again to Compliance she produced Fourstars Allstar, who showed last season as a 2 year old that he might be as good as his brother.

It was at Laurel last year that Bomze’s trainer, Leo O’Brien, got the notion that Fourstars Allstar might be a colt with international credentials; he finished a close second in the Laurel Futurity to a highly rated 2 year old from France. And the prospect of running in the Two Thousand Guineas had special sentimental appeal for him. O’Brien was born 20 miles from the Curragh -- the famed racecourse that is the site of the Guineas -- and when he became a jockey he had ridden his first winner there. He had trained horses in Ireland, too, and he knew that the conditions there aren’t as intimidatingly foreign as many U.S. trainers might think.

When he proposed his idea to the owner, Bomze’s first response was, “What’s the Two Thousand Guineas?” But when O’Brien explained and asked, “Are you game?” Bomze couldn’t resist. Bomze’s principal business is a sports-advisory service -- he offers selections and information to customers who bet football and other sports -- and as a bettor he could hardly say no to such a long-shot gamble.

Bomze and O’Brien were the cynosure at the Curragh, and shortly before the Guineas the owner was interviewed on in-house television and asked to say something to the crowd. “I want to tell everybody we’re going to win this race,” Bomze announced. “Go out and bet this horse.”

And he believed it. “Our horse had been much the best-looking horse in the paddock,” Bomze said. “He’d been in Florida during the winter, and the Europeans had been training in that dank, dark dreary atmosphere at that time of year.”

Fourstars Allstar took the lead, but he was collared in midstretch and Bomze found himself thinking that at least second place would constitute a moral victory. But Fourstars Allstar fought back, and with American jockey Mike Smith outfinishing his European rival, the colt scored a photo-finish victory. “I’ve never heard the Curragh erupt the way it did after that race,” O’Brien said. “It was the experience of a lifetime.”

The Irish applauded the owner as well as his horse. An admiring newspaper wrote: “The Americans not only came over with their horse, they came with their cash.” When Bomze went to cash his bets, fans were clustered around him yelling, “Well done, Yank!” When the bookies ran out of money, they had to write him a check -- forcing him to extend his stay in Ireland until the banks opened on the Monday after the race. Under the circumstances, he didn’t mind changing his schedule.