Empire Maker’s Owner Won’t Miss This Derby

When Empire Maker was winning the Wood Memorial in New York earlier this month, his breeder and owner, Khalid Abdullah, was in London, listening to a description of the race on the phone.

On the other end of the line, at Aqueduct, was John Chandler, a South African veterinarian who runs Abdullah’s vast U.S. breeding and racing interests out of his Juddmonte Farm, about 70 miles from here.

“I was lucky to hold on to the phone,” Chandler said. “My hand was shaking badly.”

Abdullah, a 66-year-old Saudi Arabian prince who is a member of the royal family there, seldom goes racing in the U.S., except for the Breeders’ Cup races at the end of the year, and he has never attended the Kentucky Derby, even though he finished sixth with Eltish in 1995 and second with Aptitude in 2000. This Saturday, however, Chandler can keep his cell phone in his pocket. Abdullah will be by his side at Churchill Downs, rooting for Empire Maker, the Wood Memorial winner, to give him his biggest win in the U.S.

“It goes without saying,” Chandler said. “[Abdullah] is pretty excited about this race.”

Empire Maker -- who won the Florida Derby in March by a rousing 9 3/4 lengths, before his half-length win over Funny Cide in the Wood -- is a heavy favorite in the 129th Derby, a race in which the favorite has won only one of the last 23 runnings. Bobby Frankel, who trains Empire Maker, is confident, but almost daily at his Churchill Downs barn he reminds visitors: “Telling you [that Empire Maker will win] isn’t going to do any good. It’s the horse that has to do the talking on Saturday.”

Abdullah’s European racing stable, which opened for business with the modest purchase of four yearlings in 1977, was already at full throttle by 1990, the year Juddmonte hired the California-based Frankel as its principal U.S. trainer. Since then, Juddmonte’s overseas success has been rivaled by its many runners here. Juddmonte won an Eclipse Award as best North American owner in 1992 and more recently has twice been runner-up for that distinction. Three times, including the last two years, the Eclipse has gone to Juddmonte for best breeder.

But while Juddmonte has won classics such as the Epsom Derby in England and the Arc de Triomphe in France more than once, its record in some of the most prestigious races in the U.S. -- the Triple Crown and the Breeders’ Cup -- is dismal. Abdullah ran 30 horses in the Breeders’ Cup before Banks Hill gave him his first win, at Belmont Park in 2001, and besides his two unsuccessful forays to the Derby, he has not won the Preakness nor the Belmont Stakes.

“We’ve got the best chance we’ve ever had to win the Derby,” Frankel said. “It might even be the best chance we’ll ever have.”

While the extremely private Abdullah -- frequently seen at English racetracks, but seldom quoted -- is a hands-on horseman, making many of the final decisions on the matings for his 250-horse broodmare band, and even naming a lot of his horses, he can take little credit for the hiring of Frankel 13 years ago. Because of all the grass racing in California, Juddmonte wanted to expand its U.S. operation by adding a West Coast trainer. A computer considered a half-dozen well-known conditioners before spitting out the name of Frankel, who was five years from being voted into the Racing Hall of Fame.

“During the process,” Chandler said, “[Abdullah] wouldn’t have even recognized the names on the list. He just wasn’t that familiar with American trainers at that time.”

When the call came from Juddmonte, Frankel stalled Abdullah’s people for a day. Frankel’s pal, the late Eddie Gregson, was training a few Juddmonte horses, and Frankel valued Gregson’s friendship too much to submarine him.

When Frankel asked him about the job, Gregson said: “Go ahead and take it. They’re going to fire me, anyway. This is the best job in the world. Take it.”

With Juddmonte and Ed Gann, the owner of Peace Rules, another Derby hopeful, heading the stable, Frankel has rung up a few Eclipse Awards of his own. Last year’s was his third straight and fourth overall. Chandler talks to Abdullah at least once or twice a week, but Frankel seldom speaks to the Juddmonte leader and hasn’t met with him other than at the Breeders’ Cup, a few other times and at a party that Abdullah threw in England.

“Our philosophy,” said Chandler, who has known Abdullah for 25 years and worked for him for the last 23, “is to hire somebody to do the job and then let them do it. If Bobby wants to stop on [temporarily quit training] a horse, that’s fine. And we never tell him where to run a horse. He’s all business. He’s not bothered by the social part of the sport.”

In California, Juddmonte has won the Hollywood Gold Cups twice, 10 years apart with Marquetry and Aptitude, and Del Mar’s Pacific Classic four times, with Tinners Way and Skimming twice each. Abdullah saw none of those races, but three years ago -- brought to California by some of his many business interests -- he showed up unannounced at Santa Anita to see Flute, a filly he bred, win a maiden race. The next year, Flute won the Kentucky Oaks, Churchill Downs’ premier race for 3-year-old fillies.

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Empire Maker worked six furlongs in 1:12 3/5 Sunday at Churchill Downs. Frankel was pleased with that, but not so happy about Peace Rules’ 1:14 1/5. “The kid [exercise rider Mitsu Nakauchida] was too nervous with it,” Frankel said. ...Another Derby hopeful, Atswhatimtalknbout, worked five furlongs in 59 2/5 with blinkers. ... Trainer Wayne Lukas named Cornelio Velasquez to ride Scrimshaw in the Derby and said Ten Cents A Shine, after a five-furlong workout in 59 1/5, would also run. Calvin Borel will ride Ten Cents A Shine.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

129th Kentucky Derby

* When: Saturday

* Where: Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.

* TV: Channel 4

* Post: 3 p.m. PDT

(TV coverage starts at 2 p.m.)