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Stronach should have sent Bullet to Belmont
By Ed McNamara
Special to ESPN.com
|  | | Frank Stronach was a happy man at Pimlico, but won't send Red Bullet to Belmont. |
The self-made billionaire stood with his chestnut colt beneath the roof of the rickety stakes barn at Pimlico, and Frank Stronach planted a kiss on the long white blaze that ends just above Red Bullet's nose. Friends and fans applauded and a few cameras clicked. It was a staged photo opportunity, but it still qualified as a Triple Crown moment.
It was an hour after Red Bullet blew away the supposedly unbeatable Fusaichi Pegasus in the Preakness Stakes, and it was party time on the backstretch. Eddie Mac was feeling full of himself and in the mood. In two days I'd won about $250, and my Preakness column was finished. Now I was living off the fat of the land in the hospitality tent, where the crab balls were tasty and the liquor flowed. Ah, networking like it oughta be.
A few minutes later, a reliable source informed me that Red Bullet wouldn't be going to the Belmont Stakes, which Stronach and trainer Joe Orseno had hinted at in the postrace news conference. My man's admission had the ring of truth, but it was off the record, since I was holding a glass of Jack Daniel's and club soda, not a notebook and pen.
I have to admit that at the time, the idea of bailing out on a rematch of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winners didn't bother me much. A happy
buzz tends to make you philosophical. But a week later, when Orseno made the
official announcement that Red Bullet was out of the Triple Crown finale, I
had second thoughts.
Stronach decided that the 1½-mile Belmont might knock out a colt
that has raced only five times, even though he's healthy and in great form.
The 67-year-old native of Austria wanted to give his star a break before the
1 1/8-mile Haskell Invitational on Aug. 6 at Monmouth Park and the 1¼-mile Travers on Aug. 26 at Saratoga. The ultimate goal is the 1¼-mile
Breeders' Cup Classic on Nov. 4 at Churchill Downs, where a win by Red
Bullet could nail down the 3-year-old championship and perhaps Horse of the
Year.
"He's not tired and he's very sound," Orseno told David Grening of the Daily Racing Form. "He came out of the race good. Our goal is to have the strongest possible horse we can have in the Breeders' Cup, and that means spacing his races right now. We don't feel this is the right timing.
"We think we can have a nice 4-year-old if we manage him properly. We're doing what we think is best for the horse."
Sounds good, except blowing off the Belmont doesn't guarantee that Red Bullet will remain healthy and at the top of his game for the rest of the summer, never mind next year. Thoroughbreds are so fragile that a bad step or an illness can ruin a career, so missing one race ensures only that the horse won't get hurt there.
Stronach's decision will hurt the sport, though. He's letting horse racing down in one of the few races that intrigues the general public. Belmont Park's reserved seats were sold out after the Derby, when Fusiachi Pegasus was being touted as a Triple Crown winner. Without Red Bullet and the injured Fusiachi Pegasus, many of them will be empty, as they are almost every day. Television ratings will plummet, too, after the Preakness' numbers rose 20 percent from last year.
What's saddest is that someone who is such a huge part of the game is willing to turn his back on it when racing would have become a major story,
if only for a week. Stronach is one of the thoroughbred world's ultimate
honchos, on a par with Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum of Dubai.
Stronach owns Santa Anita and Gulfstream Park and has breeding farms in Kentucky, Florida and Ontario. His stable led North America in earnings in 1998, when he won the Classic with Awesome Again and took home the Eclipse Award for owners. He's campaigned more than 100 stakes-winners, including 1997 Belmont champ Touch Gold.
Money, success and glory are old hat for Stronach. Even if his long-range plan works and Red Bullet becomes Horse of the Year, what difference would another Eclipse make to him? So why not go for the Belmont,
although the circumstances and the distance may not be ideal for a relatively inexperienced colt.
Stronach didn't always have it all and more. He grew up on a farm in Austria. He was an immigrant dish washer in Canada before he started a tool-and-die shop in 1957 that 12 years later morphed into Magna International, Inc., now the world's most diversified producer of automobile parts. You don't create an operation whose annual sales surpass $3 billion
without taking a lot of calculated risks.
The Belmont is called the Test of the Champion, and the Preakness winner should be there. When you're the king of the world, you have certain obligations. Mr. Stronach, you should have let Red Bullet take his best shot
in New York on June 10. You owe the game that much.
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