Frankel Is Ready for a Derby Run

Trainer Bobby Frankel sent Gulfstream Park an apology for missing Wednesday’s post-position draw for today’s Florida Derby. Frankel was busy shooting his second TV commercial for the Daily Racing Form.

On the first one, Frankel was a Lou Costello to jockey Jerry Bailey’s Bud Abbott. The Form’s circulation hasn’t burgeoned under Frankel and Bailey, but Frankel, who did Wednesday’s spot solo, still enjoys the escape. For him, it has been about 30 years between gigs of this sort. Long ago, he had a cameo, playing himself, in one of the “Baretta” TV shows.

“I stood there with a stopwatch,” Frankel said. “A horse went by in workout, and I looked at the watch and said, ‘Thirty-five seconds and change! Wow!’ And that was it.”

Between now and the Kentucky Derby on May 3, what Frankel says on national television might not be any more scintillating, but it’s bound to be less scripted. A Hall-of-Fame trainer who was enshrined at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 1995, Frankel had to wait until 2001 before he won his first Breeders’ Cup race, and now, with two colts of promise, he’s set his sights on winning his first Kentucky Derby, his first race in the Triple Crown series.

Frankel still considers Empire Maker, the 9-5 morning-line favorite in the $1-million Florida Derby, his best Kentucky Derby horse, even though Peace Rules, winner of the $750,000 Louisiana Derby Sunday, beat his stablemate to a graded stakes win. Empire Maker has run only three times, breaking his maiden in his first start last October at Belmont Park, and after finishing third and second in two subsequent races will run his first Grade I race at Gulfstream.

“Empire Maker’s got a better chance to win the Kentucky Derby because he looks like a horse who’s better suited to get the [1 1/4-mile distance],” Frankel said. “With Peace Rules, we’ll just have to wait and see. He’s come on so fast. He ran hard and fast to win the Louisiana Derby, and I really didn’t think he’d do any better than second or third at the Fair Grounds.”

Frankel was so sure Peace Rules wouldn’t win in New Orleans that he told the horse’s owner, Ed Gann of Rancho Santa Fe, to stay home. After the race, Gann kiddingly told Frankel, his long-time trainer, that he’d never again believe anything Frankel said. Gann will be at Gulfstream today, to watch another of his Frankel-trained colts, Midas Eyes, run in the $150,000 Swale.

Empire Maker, who’ll wear blinkers for the first time, races for the Juddmonte Farms of Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who finished second with Aptitude, a horse Frankel saddled in the 2000 Kentucky Derby. Frankel figures this year gives him a better Derby shot, because he might start two horses at Churchill Downs.

Empire Maker, who’ll be ridden by Jerry Bailey, winner of the last three Eclipse Awards for best jockey, is one of the best-bred 3-year-olds on the map. His sire, Unbridled, won the 1990 Florida and Kentucky Derbies, and also sired Unbridled’s Song, winner of the 1996 Florida Derby. Empire Maker’s dam is Toussaud, a high-strung filly who gave Frankel fits while winning four stakes that included the Grade I Gamely Handicap at Hollywood Park in 1993. Four of Toussaud’s first five foals -- Decarchy, Honest Lady, Chester House and Chiselling -- have been graded stakes winners.

Frankel has started only one horse in the Florida Derby, finishing eighth with Ruhlmann as Brian’s Time beat Forty Niner by a neck in 1988.

“Ruhlmann had won the El Camino Real Derby [at Bay Meadows], but after that I did too much with him,” Frankel said. “He was a good horse, but I trained him too hard, and later he got a chipped knee. I learned something from that, about not bringing a horse back too soon.”

Long before Ruhlmann, in the early 1970s, Frankel was a young trainer, in his native New York, who wanted to bring eight horses to Hialeah Park, near here, for the winter. But the racing secretary at Hialeah, Kenny Noe Jr., had never heard of Frankel and turned him down for stall space.

“I called Santa Anita and they told me to come on out,” Frankel said. “I’ve been in California ever since.”

*

After riding Empire Maker in the Florida Derby, Bailey will fly to California to ride Domestic Dispute in Sunday’s $200,000 San Rafael Stakes at Santa Anita. Ten horses have been entered. In post-position order, they are Man Among Men, Flirt With Fortune, Buckland Manor, Siberland, Buddy Gil, Domestic Dispute, Atswhatimtalknbout, Brancusi, Ten Cents A Shine and Logician.... Medaglia d’Oro, trained by Frankel, and Harlan’s Holiday are scheduled to be flown to the United Arab Emirates today and will run in the $6-million Dubai World Cup on March 29.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

FACTS

* What: 52nd running of $1 million Florida Derby.

* Where: Gulfstream Park, at Hallandale Beach, outside Miami.

* TV: 1 p.m., ESPN2.

* Distance: 1 1/8 miles.

* Favorite: Empire Maker, 9-5. Ridden by Jerry Bailey, riding in his record-tying 18th Florida Derby.

* Last year winner: Harlan’s Holiday.

* Fast fact: With 19 Kentucky Derby winners among its alumni, the Florida Derby ranks behind only the Blue Grass Stakes’ 22 Derby winners all-time.

* Florida Derby record time: 1:46 4/5 by Gen. Duke in 1957.