First, Arazi Must Prove He Is the Best : Kentucky Derby: His owners are said to disagree on the colt’s future races if he wins as the heavy favorite today.

A victory by heavily favored Arazi in today’s Kentucky Derby would be popular among the crowd of 125,000 or more.

But if Arazi does end the 12-year string of beaten favorites in the Derby, his two owners won’t be able to enjoy the victory for long. Even before they leave the winner’s circle, an international tug of war over the colt’s next race will have started.

Half of Arazi is owned by Allen Paulson, the self-made millionaire who at 70 is on the verge of running a top horse in a race that eluded him a year ago. Then, Dinard, after winning the Santa Anita Derby, was injured during training at Churchill Downs.

A farm boy from Iowa, Paulson worked as a 30-cents-an-hour airline mechanic 50 years ago. Now he heads Gulfstream Aerospace, which manufactures executive aircraft, and as a jet pilot he holds 35 international records. Arazi is named after an Arizona checkpoint that pilots use.

The other 50% of Arazi belongs to Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum, the British-educated minister of defense for the United Arab Emirates on the Persian Gulf. The sheik, 42, surprised Paulson shortly before last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile when he snapped up the chance to buy half of Arazi for $9 million. Then, at the same track where he will take on 18 rivals today, Arazi overwhelmed the best 2-year-olds in the United States and became the early favorite for the 118th Derby.

“The sheik’s people approached me, and when I came up with a price, I didn’t think that they’d take it,” Paulson said. “Now, of course, I wish that I hadn’t sold. But I have a lot of horses, and after a while, you have to sell some. I have about 650 in all, including 180 broodmares, and you just can’t keep them all. I got a fair price, and the sheik got a good bargain, too.”

Paulson had attempted to sell Arazi much earlier, before the horse even had a name. He had bought the colt for $350,000 at a dispersal auction of horses that belonged to Ralph Wilson, the owner of the Buffalo Bills. Then Paulson consigned Arazi to another auction, hoping to get $1 million for him.

“The bidding didn’t take off,” Paulson said. “Thank God it didn’t.”

Paulson wound up buying back his own horse for $300,000.

Trainer Wayne Lukas, who will saddle Dance Floor and Al Sabin in the Derby, was asked if he remembered seeing Arazi the day Paulson put him on the block.

“I was at the sale, but I can’t remember him specifically,” Lukas said. “If I went around buying horses that looked like him, I’d go broke.”

If the physically unimpressive Arazi wins the Derby, Paulson’s vote would be to run him in the Preakness at Pimlico two weeks from today and take a shot at becoming the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.

“This is all what-if, but the horse would earn $5 million by winning the Triple Crown,” Paulson said. “And I would hope that he’d be back (in the fall) for the ($3-million) Breeders’ Cup Classic (at Gulfstream Park). If he could do all that, he could become the all-time money winner, and that would be some accomplishment for a horse. Not only that, I think we owe it to American racing to keep this horse running here.”

Alysheba, who won the Derby in 1987 and the Breeders’ Cup Classic the next year, earned $6.6 million and is No. 1 on the money list. Arazi, with eight victories and a second in nine starts, has earned $1.1 million.

The trouble for Paulson is that Sheik Mohammed races most of his horses overseas and his breeding operations are primarily in England and Ireland. The Triple Crown is on Paulson’s turf, but the English Derby, scheduled for June 3, three days before the Belmont, figures to be the sheik’s favorite. A victory at Epsom Downs would be worth only about $615,000 for Arazi’s owners.

Paulson and Sheik Mohammed are said to be cordial, but Paulson usually communicates with Anthony Stroud, the sheik’s racing manager. Sheik Mohammed, who did not see Arazi’s five-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup, is expected to attend the Kentucky Derby.

“My agreement is that Anthony Stroud and I will meet and try to have some kind of a decision the day after the Derby,” Paulson said.

Eleven horses have won the Triple Crown, but no Kentucky Derby winner has tried to run in the English Derby.

Francois Boutin, who trains Arazi, won two Breeders’ Cup races with Miesque before Arazi and has won numerous European classics. But Boutin, who will cast the deciding vote on Arazi’s future, has never won the English Derby--and that might be his main consideration.

British reporters, out in force here, are unabashedly rooting for Arazi to run at Epsom.

“I think the press over there is using quotes that haven’t been said,” Paulson said. “The sheik has never said to me what his preference would be.”

Paulson has only a handshake agreement with Sheik Mohammed. Even a written contract caused Paulson and Bert Firestone considerable grief over Theatrical, a fine grass horse who won the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Hollywood Park in 1987.

Paulson and Firestone couldn’t agree about where Theatrical should run and who should train him, and their battle reached rock-bottom before the Breeders’ Cup when they argued about whose silks the jockey should wear. Asked to settle the dispute, both the Hollywood Park stewards and the California Horse Racing Board demurred. The Breeders’ Cup program went to press with no colors listed for Theatrical.

If Boutin has been distracted by the speculation over Arazi’s future, he doesn’t show it.

“He’s a master at bringing horses over here,” Paulson said. “Look what he did with Miesque, two years in a row. Francois tells me that Arazi is ready. And if he says he’s ready, he’s ready.”

Arazi will be ridden again by Pat Valenzuela, who won the Breeders’ Cup race with him before Steve Cauthen took over in France for the colt’s only race this year.

When Paulson arrived at Arazi’s barn for the first time on Wednesday, he walked up to Valenzuela, shook his hand and said, “Excited?”

“I wish the race was today,” Valenzuela said.