A Breeding Ground for Resentment

The sport of thoroughbred racing clings to a romantic notion about the kind of horse that wins the Triple Crown--and the kind of man who owns that horse. The archetypal owner patiently breeds his stock, preferably on a Kentucky farm, waiting for a magical foal. Or he spots a gifted yearling at auction and nurtures it to glory.

This vision does not apply to Prince Ahmed bin Salman and his prized possession, War Emblem, who now stand on the brink of racing’s rarest feat.

The Saudi prince is one of several Middle Eastern royals who have risen to the top of the American scene by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the best horses. His farm is in Southern California, not bluegrass country. He purchased War Emblem less than two months ago.

So the grumbling began shortly after the jet-black colt won the Kentucky Derby last month and grew louder with a subsequent victory at the Preakness. Critics bridle at the idea that, in their minds, Bin Salman will have bought his way to the first Triple Crown in nearly a quarter century, and only the 12th ever, with a victory today in the Belmont Stakes.

But there is another aspect to the controversy.

For all the millions spent, the prince is the first Arab to field a Derby winner and tempt history. While he is said to be ecstatic these days--”like a little kid,” according to a friend--Bin Salman must also contend with the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

People within the sport wonder if fans are rooting against him. Jimmy Breslin, the famed columnist, has urged him to stay away from the Belmont in Elmont, N.Y., and other newspaper stories have made references to high gas prices and the fact that most of the hijackers held Saudi passports.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” said B. Wayne Hughes, a friend and fellow owner. “Look, we’re in difficult times right now. The Middle East is on everyone’s mind and he’s from the Middle East.”

The 43-year-old prince, elegant with a clipped mustache and pocket handkerchief, has calmly insisted that he is a businessman, not a politician. But he did not respond to interview requests for this story, and the situation clearly rankles those close to him.

They describe someone of unexpected exuberance who wraps friends in big embraces, lifting them off the ground after a victory. They speak of his penchant for laughter and passion for horses.

“I feel bad for him that this even has to be a topic,” said Gary Stevens, one of his favorite jockeys. His trainer, Bob Baffert, no stranger to controversy, reacted abruptly when asked to describe the prince.

“He’s very pro-American,” Baffert said. “That’s all I can say.”

Arabs have been a small but influential presence in United States racing since 1980 when sheiks from the royal family of Dubai began attending the Keeneland horse sales in Lexington, Ky. In the last three years, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid has spent $126 million at Keeneland, and his brother, Sheik Hamdan bin Zayed, $70 million. The most active North American owners spent $30 million to $48 million.

“There are mixed feelings about this,” said Jason Levin, a journalist who chronicled the brothers in his book “From the Desert to the Derby.” The industry “is happy to have these guys spend all this money at the sales, but the old-line Kentuckians and the breeders would rather not see them come back and win the big races.”

Though Bin Salman is a heavy hitter, he ranks below the Dubai sheiks with $30 million in Keeneland purchases since 1999. And his arrival to racing was less splashy.

As a young man studying comparative culture at UC Irvine in the early 1980s--and not telling anyone he was royalty--he called on a local trainer named Richard Mulhall and began to build a modest stable, or what passes for modest in this sport.

“We never paid more than $30,000 for a horse,” Mulhall recalled. “A lot of cheap claimers. Just for the fun of it.”

Over the next decade, the prince dabbled in racing, drifted away, then called Mulhall to say he was “really bored and wanted back.” This time he was serious, hiring the trainer to manage a well-appointed farm near the Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia and forming the Thoroughbred Corp. with an eye toward spending.

At a 1996 auction, Bin Salman noticed an unraced filly named Sharp Cat and asked the advice of prominent trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who liked the horse but warned, “She’s not going to be cheap.” Bin Salman bought her for $900,000, a record sum for a 2-year-old filly. By 1998, Sharp Cat had won $2 million in purses. “That was his first [love],” Stevens said. “He really got attached to her.”

As Thoroughbred Corp. acquired one pricey horse after another, Hughes recalled telling the prince: “You push all us Americans around with your money and ruin the sale for the rest of us.” It wasn’t criticism, just a friendly jab. Bin Salman later announced that his wife wanted to meet Hughes.

“Why?” the American asked.

“Because no one has ever spoken to me like that,” the prince replied.

A circle of friends came to know him for more than his wealth and entourage of assistants. They saw his post-time nerves, his catalog of superstitions.

He once gave a pre-race interview at Churchill Downs, after which his horse ran badly. No more pre-race interviews. He avoided having his picture taken in the paddock, his security men politely shooing photographers away. “The closer we get to the races, the more superstitious I will become,” he told The Times in 1997.

These quirks were matched by substance, a growing knowledge of pedigree and confirmation.

“He’s not interested in making money per se,” trainer Wally Dollase said. “He loves the challenge of coming up with a good racehorse.”

Dollase admires this competitiveness, but has also felt its sting. He was Thoroughbred Corp.’s private trainer until 1999 when he was dumped over “a difference in philosophy.”

Others have suffered a similar fate. Of Bin Salman and Mulhall, Dollase said: “You’d better watch out with these guys because they can turn on you fast.” He mentions last year when his former boss had a colt, Point Given, that won the final two legs of the Triple Crown but lost in the Kentucky Derby. The disappointment made Bin Salman all the more determined to run at Churchill Downs this spring.

“You have to understand this is a very successful man,” Dollase said. “He is used to getting his way.”

In Saudi royalty, a labyrinth of thousands of princes and princesses, Bin Salman holds a relatively privileged position. His father is among the “Sudeiri seven” brothers who include the ailing King Fahd, and his half-uncle is Crown Prince Abdullah.

“This is a very classy branch of the family,” said Richard H. Dekmejian, a political science professor at USC. “Very highly educated, very influential.”

Never politically inclined, the prince spent the early 1990s establishing himself as chairman of Saudi Research & Marketing Ltd., which controls 18 publications worldwide including a London-based daily that ranks among the world’s most prominent Arabic newspapers.

Asharq Al-Awsat has published numerous pro-American articles since Sept. 11 and is considered more balanced than its competitors, said Yigal Carmon, president of the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington. At the same time, one of its columnists suggested that President Bush orchestrated the hijackings, and the paper has run threats against the U.S. that allegedly came from Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

“There is not as much of the hate you see in papers that are published in Saudi Arabia,” Carmon said. “Not that you don’t find craziness in there sometimes.”

As for Bin Salman’s father, Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz is governor of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and a powerful figure in Saudi politics. He is also a man whose name has appeared in news reports on terrorism, though in contradictory ways.

In 1998, Osama bin Laden told ABC that Bin Abdul Aziz had put a bounty on his head. Yet last fall, international peacekeeping troops came to suspect that a Sarajevo charity founded by Bin Abdul Aziz had terrorist connections. Cash, documents and computers were seized during a September raid of the Saudi High Commission for Relief. The charity denied wrongdoing.

Dekmejian, who met Bin Abdul Aziz during a 1998 research trip, does not believe the governor is associated with terrorism. “It would be surprising to me, having observed Saudi politics for a long time,” the USC professor said.

At the Kentucky Derby, reporters asked Bin Salman in vague terms about U.S. concerns that Saudi Arabia is funding terrorists. He replied: “I leave it up to our politicians and your politicians.” The complaining began soon after.

Not that anyone within the sport was blatant. No owner or breeder wants to jeopardize a future million-dollar sale to the prince. Trainers might not like his tactics, but they agree with Dollase, who said, “I just wish I had access to his horses.”

Another veteran trainer, John Ward Jr., offered a typical comment. “I’m going to be very diplomatic about this,” he said. “But I will have to say that on Derby day, there didn’t seem to be the emotional outburst post-race that there is sometimes.”

The prince did not help his cause by employing the outspoken Baffert--who has made enemies with confidence bordering on arrogance. Nor did Bin Salman mollify critics with his glib response to questions about buying a Derby victory.

“If you tell me next year who is going to win it,” the prince said, “I’ll buy it again.”

A subsequent column in USA Today referred to his “fast money” and stated: “The little guys lose, the big guys win.” It also mentioned George Steinbrenner, the New York Yankee owner known for stocking his team with pricey free agents. An Associated Press column wondered how Bin Salman will be received in New York, “the city affected most deeply by the terrorist attacks.”

Breslin, of Newsday, went even farther: “It is understood that these Saudis won’t have the class of a goat. If this Bin Salman had any, he would stay away and not run his horse out of respect.”

The owners of Proud Citizen--another horse running today--have said they will donate any earnings from the race to the Twin Towers Fund, which some see as an attempt to position the horse as a fan favorite over War Emblem.

It is ironic that circumstances have cast the prince as an interloper. Arabs have bred swift, strong horses since the time of Muhammad, long before Spaniards reintroduced the animal to North America, where it had been extinct for thousands of years. Of the three breeds combined to make what we now call thoroughbreds, two were Arabians.

Critics have ignored that Bin Salman has bred horses in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and purchased yearlings all along. By paying $900,000 for 90% interest in War Emblem, he took a chance on a colt that had knee and ankle problems. At least one rival wondered if he is so different from other owners.

“Don’t we all spend money?” owner Bob Lewis asked. “Whether we have a homebred or we buy a yearling ... any way you slice it, we’re going to pay.”

Yet Levin and others suggest that the controversy has attained critical mass. They say Bin Salman receives undue criticism for his spending because he is Arab and, at the same time, his nationality is more of an issue because of his wealth.

Last winter, Baffert reportedly took it as a slight when the prince was passed over for the prestigious Eclipse Award as owner of the year, though Point Given, with two of three Triple Crown victories, was voted best three-year-old. Bin Salman was poised: Accepting on behalf of the horse, he acknowledged his wife, then slyly informed the audience that he had only one.

Such jokes suggest he is mindful of his predicament. Unlike the Dubai sheiks, who attend races infrequently, he is a regular at the track, dealing with jockeys on a casual basis. Mulhall calls him “very Americanized ... he does things a lot like Americans do.”

Months before Bin Salman’s rivals pledged their donation, he donated $125,000--equal to one of Point Given’s breeding seasons--to the New York Heroes Fund. When War Emblem won the Preakness, he said: “I enjoy racing in America. I lived here for 10 years.”

Then he quipped: “To be honest, sometimes I get embarrassed. So many people asking for autographs and pictures. I think I am getting a little more popular than President Bush.”

Short of further comments--the prince plans to arrive late at Belmont to avoid reporters--his defense has been left to people such as Stevens, who said: “I’ve seen jealousy in a lot of different instances in my 23 years as a jockey. If they’re not talking about you, you’re not doing any good.”