Frankel Firmly In Driver's Seat With Impressive Florida Derby Win

(March 17, 2003) - As recently as three years ago Hall of Fame trainer Robert Frankel was wondering if he would ever win a Visa Triple Crown race or a Breeders’ Cup championship race.

In fact, it was Frankel, himself, who had become a master conditioner of older horses, who wondered about making the coveted hall in 1995 without having won those kinds of races.

Well, he won his first Breeders’ Cup championship race in 2001 and repeated with another in 2002. And he has had a second-place finisher in three recent Visa Triple Crown races – in the 2000 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes with Aptitude and the 2002 Belmont with Medaglia d’Oro. Is it now his time to break the Visa Triple Crown drought?

Given what’s happened over a seven-day span beginning March 9 and ending on Saturday, Frankel appears solidly in control of what could be a runaway truck rolling along the road to the Visa Triple Crown and $5-million Triple Crown Challenge.

A super-impressive 9 3/4-length victory by the highly acclaimed EMPIRE MAKER in Saturday’s $1-million, Grade I Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park on Saturday puts Frankel at the head of the pack at this point with the most promising of all Visa Triple Crown prospects. The son of 1990 Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled out of the multiple graded stakes winner Tussaud, one of Frankel’s finest race mares, destroyed the field of six foes with a devastating stretch run that required only a couple of swats from jockey Jerry Bailey to send him to the spectacular victory.

EMPIRE MAKER, bred and owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, will head next to the Grade I, $750,000 Wood Memorial scheduled for April 12 at New York’s Aqueduct Racetrack as the trail continues to lead toward Churchill Downs for the May 3 Run for the Roses. By taking the Wood route, Frankel is hopeful that EMPIRE MAKER will be able to repeat the success accomplished by Fusaichi Pegasus (won) and Monarchos (second) in using the Wood as a springboard for victory in the 2000 and 2001 Derbys.

Among the vanquished in the Florida Derby were the previously highly regarded TRUST N LUCK, who finished a distant second as the favorite after winning the Grade I Fountain of Youth in February at Gulfstream. Despite TURST N LUCK’s drubbing, trainer Ralph Ziadie says his colt will continue on the road to the Kentucky Derby.

As if EMPIRE MAKER’s massive victory wasn’t enough, another Frankel trainee, MIDAS EYES, made a shambles of the Grade III Swale Stakes later on the Florida Derby card, to possibly make a place for him on the Visa Triple Crown trail. MIDAS EYES, owned by longtime Frankel client Edmund Gann, blasted his field of sprinters by 9 1/4 lengths over the 7-furlong route. Frankel has said this colt might not be a Triple Crown prospect, but things are known to change. Even before Saturday’s Frankel doubleheader, the trainer chalked up an impressive victory in the March 9 Louisiana Derby with another Gann runner, PEACE RULES. Frankel has said he’ll skip the Derby with that colt and point him toward running in the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore May 17.

While the winning margin for EMPIRE MAKER made the news on Saturday, the winning horse made the news at Santa Anita on Sunday as non-nominee Buddy Gil burst out of a clutch of 3-year-olds near the wire to win by a nose over highly rated ATSWHATIMTALKNBOUT in the Grade II San Felipe Stakes at 1 1/16 miles, the final prep for the Santa Anita Derby on April 5 at 1 1/8 miles.

A couple of other highly ranked colts – DOMESTIC DISPUTE, trained by three-time Derby winner Bob Baffert, and MAN AMONG MEN, trained by Gary Mandella – fared poorly as the two favorites in the race. The Baffert trainee finished fifth, beaten a little over three lengths as the 2-1 favorite, and the 5-2 second choice struggled home seventh in the field of 10, nearly 13 lengths out of it.

Buddy Gil, trained by up-and-coming Jeff Mullins and ridden by Hall of Famer Gary Stevens, is expected to become a late nominee to the Visa Triple Crown, according to one of his owners, Desperado Stable’s Scott Guenther, as he heads along toward his next date, the April 5 Santa Anita Derby.

Finishing third was BRANCUSI, a length and a quarter to the good of LOGICIAN.

Across the country in New York, ALYSWEEP scored a solid 4 1/4-length victory over GREY COMET in the Grade II Gotham Stakes at a mile and 70 yards at Aqueduct on Sunday. The two top finishers are expected to move on to challenge EMPIRE MAKER in the Wood Memorial.

To the south, REGION OF MERIT and ARISTOCAT hooked up in a duel in the Grade III Tampa Bay Derby at Tampa Bay Downs with the former holding on for a three-quarter-length victory. They could be heading toward Arkansas, Kentucky or New York as the trail to the Visa Triple Crown continues to wend its way toward the first jewel in the crown, the Kentucky Derby.

Champali, Great Notion To Be Tested -- In what figures to be the final weekend of preps before a couple of Super Saturdays in early April, a pair of once-beaten colts will be tested strongly Saturday in the Grade II Lane’s End Stakes at Turfway Park and Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park.

CHAMPALI, named for Muhammad Ali, carries a three-victory string into the Lane’s End fracas as he attempts to win his seventh race in eight starts. His most recent win came in Turfway’s John Battaglia Memorial Stakes on March 1. Expected to provide major opposition to “the champ” are once-beaten LION TAMER, whose most recent victory came in the Grade II Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream Park Feb. 15, SAINTLY LOOK, who was a disappointing fifth in the Grade III Risen Star at the Fair Grounds Feb. 16, and EUGENE’S THIRD SON, who comes to the race from an allowance victory at Gulfstream Feb. 22.

In Arkansas, the top three finishers from Oaklawn’s Southwest Stakes are expected to take another step toward the Arkansas Derby in Saturday’s Rebel. Heading the list is runaway winner GREAT NOTION, who pummeled the field by nine lengths, runner-up ALKE and third-place COMIC TRUTH.

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