Come Anticipate the 131st Kentucky Derby with me - May 7th, 2005

otherwise, who's getting excited? it's that time of year again....

torn. on the one hand, hate steinbrenner. on the other, this is a good lookin' horsey:

April 17, 2005
Out at the Horse Farm, a Homespun Steinbrenner
By JOE DRAPE

OCALA, Fla., April 13 - George Steinbrenner no longer climbs on a tractor and rolls beneath the live oaks here to cut his grass. Now, he rides a golf cart and bumps along the pastures of his Kinsman Stud Farm, delivering sugar cubes to one cluster of horses after another.

Steinbrenner is a different kind of boss here. He has owned this 850-acre farm longer than he has the Yankees, and it has served as a reminder of his pastoral childhood, as the site of family gatherings and, during a few fortunate springs, a place where dreams of the Kentucky Derby take flight. This is one of those springs.

Last Saturday, the blue-and-brown silks of Kinsman commanded racing's spotlight when a colt named Bellamy Road romped to a 17½-length victory and tied the track record at a mile and an eighth in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. It was a monster performance that had not been seen in many years on the Triple Crown trail, and has made Bellamy Road the likely favorite in the 131st running of the Kentucky Derby on May 7.

Steinbrenner follows his thoroughbreds, but he chases World Series championships. His horses are mostly homegrown, not expensive free agents. His operation is modest compared with that of rival breeders, and downright cheap when compared with the Yankees' payroll. Steinbrenner not only listens to his farm manager, Edward Sexton, and his pedigree guru, his son Hank Steinbrenner, but also lets them run the place their way. Most surprising of all perhaps is that Kinsman's philosophy is most un-Steinbrennerian.

"I don't know if winning is the absolute purpose," said his daughter, Jessica Steinbrenner, who is also immersed in the business.

"Winning is nice, of course. But for my dad, I think the horses and the farm are about family and something inside him that just loves animals and farm work and where he came from."

Growing up in Bay Village, Ohio, Steinbrenner haunted the county fairs, riding in pony races. His father, Henry, bought 200 baby chickens, ducks and geese for 9-year-old George, who tended them well enough to operate a successful egg-selling business.

For much of his 35 years in racing, Steinbrenner has run Kinsman in the same homespun fashion. He and each of his four children have homes on the farm.

In an exercise far more challenging than sizing up baseball's free-agent market, Hank Steinbrenner, 47, studies generations of bloodlines for hundreds of horses, then matches stallions with the family's more than 40 mares in search of soundness, swiftness and stamina.

Kinsman has bred and raced some stakes winners - most notably the fillies Dream Supreme and Spinning Round - five of whom lined up in the Kentucky Derby. But Bellamy Road may be Steinbrenner's best horse and represents the link between his gentleman-farmer past and a recent effort to upgrade his operation.

Bellamy Road is a son of Concerto, one of three stallions Steinbrenner owns. Concerto, who won nine stakes races in his career but finished ninth in the 1997 Kentucky Derby, stands at nearby Ocala Stud Farm for a bargain-basement fee of $5,000 per coupling.

But someone else bred Bellamy Road, and Steinbrenner broke tradition to buy him at a 2-year-old sale here last April. He did so at the behest of Sexton, 36, who, despite a charming brogue from Kildare, Ireland, can sound as brash as Billy Martin, the former Yankees manager.

Sexton, Kinsman's farm manager since January 2004, once turned down the job because he found the salary unacceptable. "When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys," he said he had told Steinbrenner's representatives.

Several months later, however, Steinbrenner summoned Sexton for an interview. They wandered the farm for a couple of hours to talk horses. Steinbrenner assured Sexton that money was no longer an issue, and Sexton told Steinbrenner "he couldn't push horses on me and that I wouldn't kiss up to him."

Steinbrenner gave him the job and wrapped him in a bearhug. "Welcome to the family," Sexton said Steinbrenner had told him.

Sexton fired all but one member of the staff and went to work on the grounds with the same meticulous care Steinbrenner once had, planting hedges and installing elegant gates. Sexton asked for, and received, a five-year contract.

Before the 2-year-old sale last spring, Sexton nearly hyperventilated while telling Steinbrenner that Bellamy Road, whom he had worked as an exercise rider, was a surefire Derby prospect: a long strider with push-button speed, by far the best horse in the sale.

When Sexton asked how high he was authorized to bid, Steinbrenner said, "You really believe in him, so just bring him home."

They bought Bellamy Road for $87,000 - the minimum salary in major league baseball is $316,000 - and he paid immediate dividends by winning two of his three starts last year, including the Grade III Cradle Stakes at River Downs in Cincinnati. But in January, in a move familiar to baseball aficionados, Steinbrenner fired the trainer Michael Dickinson and moved Bellamy Road to the barn of Nick Zito.

Sexton said he talked at least once a day to Steinbrenner, 74, who knows when and where each of his 40 or so horses at racetracks are running. But Sexton said he had recommended that Bellamy Road be given to Zito.

"We've been thinking Derby, Derby, Derby, and I wasn't sure Michael had the same plan as us," said Sexton of Dickinson, who has had only one Derby starter.

Like most owners, Steinbrenner has spread his horses among many trainers, and he has fired a few over the years. Unlike in baseball, he is considered a reasonable and beloved figure in horse racing circles.

The trainer Bob Baffert, who has won three Kentucky Derbys, told of how Steinbrenner rolled out the red carpet for him each time he had a horse poised to sweep a Triple Crown: Silver Charm in 1997, Real Quiet in 1998 and War Emblem in 2002. Until recently, Baffert had never trained a horse for Steinbrenner, but during those three trips to New York for the Belmont Stakes, Baffert and his family were guests in his suite for a Yankees game.

And each time his horse came up short, Baffert received a letter from Steinbrenner on Yankees letterhead, telling him to keep his head up, that one day he would complete the sweep.

"If he fired me tomorrow, I wouldn't be offended for all he has done for my family," Baffert said by telephone. "He's been at this a long time, and it's a numbers game. I hope this is his turn."

Steinbrenner is not saying whether he believes he has the Kentucky Derby winner in his stable. Through his spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, he refused several requests for an interview. But Sexton, Jessica Steinbrenner and Yankees Manager Joe Torre said Steinbrenner was trying to temper his high hopes with the hard realities of the sport.

"He's cautious because he's had a few horses in the Derby," said Torre, who has ownership interests in several horses and spoke with Steinbrenner after the Wood. "I called him after the race, which was after our game, and congratulated him. He felt pretty good about it. He still doesn't allow you to know that, but I think he's pretty proud."

After the Wood, Steinbrenner received multimillion-dollar offers for Bellamy Road, as well as for Concerto, Sexton said. Neither is for sale.

Jessica Steinbrenner, 41, said her father understood the difference between owning a baseball team in pursuit of championships and owning a Kentucky Derby winner: one is a goal, the other a gift.

One of her most cherished memories is the trip she and her father took for the family's first Derby bid, in 1977 with Steve's Friend, a colt who finished fifth behind Seattle Slew.

"He woke me up at 4 a.m. and took me to the barn, where I got to brush and groom Steve's Friend," Jessica Steinbrenner said by telephone. "We both were happy with that."

But even if Kinsman is not all about winning, father and daughter spoke last week about how nice it would be to win the Kentucky Derby.

Better than a 27th World Series title for the Yankees?

"Absolutely, in his eyes," Jessica Steinbrenner said. "This would bring everything in his life to a perfect conclusion."