Meet Empire Maker, Your Derby Favorite du Jour
By: William F. Reed

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. (Mar. 15, 2003) - The Juddmonte Farm of Prince Khalid Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has grown into a worldwide empire that's a major force at all the major race meetings and auctions. Yet it remains virtually anonymous to the casual American racing fan because it hasn't won the Kentucky Derby, the world's most popular race.

Of course, Mr. K. Abdullah, as the Prince prefers to be called, has never coveted the Derby quite like some of his rivals. This year, for example, Juddmonte has only two Derby nominees compared with 19 by Godolphin Racing of Dubai and 15 by Michael Tabor, the former English soccer-pools baron, and his partners.

However, Empire Maker, a Juddmonte nominee who could have been named for Mr. K. Abdullah, stormed out of the pack on Saturday to establish himself as the Derby favorite du jour. He won the $1 million Florida Derby by 9 3/4 lengths, easily the largest winning margin in the race's 52-year history.

"He ran off the chart today," said trainer Bobby Frankel. "He finally ran the way we thought he could. If he runs like this in the Kentucky Derby, he could win it."

If he does, that would give Frankel his first victory in a Triple Crown race. He has been knocking on the door in recent years, finishing second once in the Derby and twice in the Belmont Stakes. But even without a Triple Crown winner, Frankel has clearly joined Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas in the trainers' penthouse.

Last year, in fact, Frankel won a third consecutive Eclipse Award as the top trainer in North America largely because of the horses he got from Juddmonte, which won a second consecutive Eclipse as the No. 1 breeder.

Frankel won 43 graded stakes, including 14 at the Grade I level, and compiled earnings of $17,748,340, just short of D. Wayne Lukas' record. His best horse for Juddmonte was Beat Hollow, who won the Arlington Million the same weekend that the farms' Banks Hill was a Group I winner in France.

For the year, Juddmonte bred the winners of $5,526,006 and owned the winners of $5,172,287.

What kind of an empire maker is Mr. K. Abdullah?

A member of the Saudi Arabian royal family, he presides over the international conglomerate Mawared, which has interests in insurance, catering, cement, cleaning, food, and electronics.

He bought his first thoroughbred in 1977, won his first race in 1979, and became the first Arab owner to win a classic in 1980 when Known Fact captured the 2,000 Guineas in England.

From an initial crop of four yearlings, he now has a massive breeding operation that includes Juddmonte Stud and Stonechurch Stud in Kentucky, the Banstead Manor Stud and the Eagle Lane Farm in Britain, and the Ferrans Stud and New Abbey Stud in Ireland. Instead of buying a lot at auction, Juddmonte now depends mainly on homebreds. The farm keeps some and sells others.

The Prince owns approximately 180 broodmares, split evenly between the U.S. and Europe, and employs a huge staff on both sides of the Atlantic.

Teddy Becket serves as his racing manager and Phillip Mitchell as general manager of Juddmonte, the umbrella name for all his breeding operations. In the U.S., his key employees are Dr. John Chandler, who oversees all of his interests, and Garrett O'Rourke, who manages Juddmonte Farm near Lexing. ton, Ky.

In both Europe and America, Abdullah usually has a total of more than 150 horses in training. In England, he has horses with Henry Cecil, Roger Charlton, Amanda Perrett, Barry Hills, and John Gosden; in France, it's Andre Fabre, Criquette Head, Maurice Zilber, and Henri-Alex Pantall; and in the U.S., he uses John Kimmel, and, of course, Frankel.

"They collect and use the best advice and keep me in touch by phone and fax all the time," Prince Abdullah once said. "I like to be involved in the decisions, but if the professionals feel strong about something, I usually would not disagree."

Besides the 2000 Guineas and the Arlington Million, the major races won by Juddmonte include the Epsom Derby, Irish Derby, Irish Oaks, Cheveley Park Stakes, the Coronation Cup, the Grand Prix de Paris, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, the Jockey Club Gold Cup, the Pacific Classic, and the Breeders Cup Filly & Mare Turf.

Mr. K. Abdullah and Frankel might seem an odd couple. The only royal title ever bestowed on Frankel was "King of the Claimers," which was his reputation in his native New York before he moved his base to California in 1972.

Beginning in 1990, when Juddmonte gave him the opportunity to train some well-bred horses, Frankel's career has skyrocketed. He won his first Eclipse as top trainer in 1993, and two years later Juddmonte won its first as breeder of the year.

In 2000, Frankel trained Juddmonte's Aptitude to a second-place finish to Fusaichi Pegasus in the Kentucky Derby. The same colt also finished second in the Belmont Stakes. A year later, Frankel won the Kentucky Oaks for Juddmonte with Flute.

When Juddmonte turned over Empire Maker to Frankel, O'Rourke told the trainer, "You're going to win the Kentucky Derby in 2003." He's a son of 1990 Derby winner Unbridled, out of the mare Toussaud, a grand-daughter of Northern Dancer. He broke his maiden at first asking last Oct. 20 at Belmont Park, but then finished third as the favorite in the Remsen Stakes on Nov. 30.

In his only start this year, he once again lost as the favorite, finishing a length behind Man Among Men in the Sham Stakes on Feb. 3 at Santa Anita. Because he tended to take too long to get into a race, Frankel put blinkers on him for the Florida Derby, thinking it would help him focus on Trust N Luck, the favorite whose running style mimics that of 2002 Derby winner War Emblem -- go straight to the lead and dare anybody to catch you.

That's how Trust in Luck had won his last two starts and that's how he tried to do it Saturday. The conventional wisdom was that nobody in the field had enough class or seasoning to catch him. But Frankel and Jerry Bailey, who has ridden Empire Maker in all of his starts, had other ideas.

Determined not to let Trust N Luck steal the race on the lead, Bailey sent Empire Maker after him. Through the first half-mile, Empire Maker and Midway Cat never let Trust N Luck relax on the lead. "We were in a bad spot, down inside like that," said Cornelio Velasquez, who rode Trust N Luck. "We had pressure on us all the way."

But then Midway Cat began to fall back, the first indication of an injured leg that snapped in the stretch, throwing jockey Jorge Chavez to the ground. The injury was untreatable, forcing track veterinarians to humanely euthanize the colt on the track.

On the front end, Empire Maker moved alongside Trust N Luck and the pair turned for home. They battled to the eighth pole, when Empire Maker began to draw away with only minimal urging by Bailey. The winning time of 1:49.05 for the mile and the eighth could have been faster, had Bailey decided to push his colt.

"I was a little surprised Trust N Luck didn't show a little more speed," Bailey said. "He didn't quite seem as sharp as he had been, but I was kind of sitting on some high octane myself. In his early races without the blinkers, he was a little hesitant and Bobby had a feeling the blinkers would help. They did. It seems like he can go as far as he wants, as far as I can tell."

The other horse in the race who turned some heads was Indy Dancer, who dropped to last just after the start and was more than 20 lengths back after a half-mile. But when jockey John Velasquez got him in gear, the colt came roaring through the stretch to finish third, only a half-length behind the second-place Trust N Luck. "What we need is a hot pace," Pletcher said.

Frankel said his options with Empire Maker would be the Wood Memorial on Apr. 12 at Aqueduct or to train him up to the Derby.

"I don't usually say this," Frankel said, "but I envisioned this race the night before being run exactly the way it was, and I said, 'If he runs like that, do I want to run him back in the Wood or do I want to take him right to the Derby?' That's the way I was thinking about it and that is exactly the way it happened. I was thinking the Wood, but now I'm going to have to analyze it."

On Saturday, Empire Maker looked every bit the colt who could give Frankel and Juddmonte their first Derby victory, which would be a fitting reward for Juddmonte's investment in the international racing industry.

At the age of 65, Prince Abdullah, who claims to be in semi-retirement, lets his four sons, all in their 30s, run a lot of his businesses. Yet he still maintains a strong interest in his breeding and racing operations, perhaps because the good horses just keep coming. In Kentucky, his stallions include Aptitude, Chester House, and Distant View.

Although Mr. K. Abdullah is so shy that he has an aversion to interviews and crowds, his presence in racing is impossible to ignore. One of these days, probably sooner rather than later, the empire maker will be rewarded at Churchill Downs.

"I hope this colt didn't run his best race today," Frankel said.

Native Kentuckian William F. Reed has been a sports writer in various capacities for 43 years and has missed covering the Kentucky Derby a mere two times since 1966. He has been a high-profile sports writer in Kentucky for the Commonwealth's two largest daily newspapers, the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader and was a national columnist for Sports Illustrated, covering among other sports, Thoroughbred horse racing and college basketball. Reed currently pens a column for the Louisville Sports Report and covered Kentucky Derby 128 for kentuckyderby.com. He will be filing frequent installments for CDSN's (Churchill Downs Simulcasting Network) websites throughout 2003.

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