Owner feels great about 'Albert' going home
He comes from simple beginnings, but Albert the Great is perfectly comfortable in the Big Apple.
Even if you've never been to Mt. Sterling, Ky., you have. It is that off-the-interstate-stop-for-gas-and-a-soda kind of place. Friday nights in the fall provide high school football entertainment. Tobacco farms provide work. The entire population of the town could fit into the Belmont Park grandstand with room left over for a normal weekend racing crowd.
This is where one of the country's top racehorses was born. Albert the Great was bred and raised on Albert Clay's farm, leaving it as yearling for his son Robert's Three Chimneys Farm and eventually a trip to the Keeneland sales ring where he was purchased for $85,000 by Tracy Farmer in July 1998.
"He is the most famous horse in all of Mt. Sterling," Farmer laughs from his rental home in Saratoga, "He's made the front page of the local newspaper there a few times."
Albert the Great -- named for his breeder by Farmer's wife Carol ("she names all my horses") -- is the archetype Broadway play. The country boy comes to the big city and wows it. When he struggles elsewhere he comes back and does it again, realizing he is now a big city boy at heart.
At Belmont Park, Albert has lived up to the rest of his name, winning six of seven including running the fastest mile and a quarter by a 3-year-old in New York racing history when he captured the Jockey Club Gold Cup last year. He will finish out his 4-year-old campaign there with the Woodward, the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the Breeders' Cup Classic.
"What a year to have a horse that loves Belmont Park," Farmer says with enthusiasm, "He doesn't like Gulfstream, he doesn't like Churchill. Other horses I have like those tracks, but Albert loves Belmont. He's a big horse and doesn't like the tight turns like here (at Saratoga), but Belmont is made for him."
Albert the Great was destined to become a New Yorker. His trainer, Nick Zito, who also trained Albert's sire, 1994 Kentucky Derby winner Go For Gin, was by Farmer's side when he bought him. New Yorker Zito is the perfect match for Albert. "Nick's done a wonderful job. Albert's taken to his training. He's a real good horse, not mean at all, a smart horse. But like all the good ones he'll let us know if he's being taken for granted," Farmer said.
Albert is coming off a second place finish in the Whitney at Saratoga. That was enough for him to win the NTRA Champions Series. But in Grade I races, it left his mark at 1 for 6, a statistic that doesn't worry Farmer. "Horses don't know what you paid for them and don't know what grade their race was. You have to be optimistic to hang on in this business. We've been prepping all year for the Breeders' Cup Classic. There'll be other great horses in all three races the rest of the way, but we'll be on our home course and there'll be no excuses."
To eliminate the excuses of the horse business, Farmer, who has succeeded as a banker and restaurateur, hires "a lot of good people who advise me." One of them is Michele W. Graves, racing manager for Farmer.
"He knows every horse he has. He goes to the backside all the time," Graves says of Farmer, "He was watching a two year old this morning, Strike Commander, he has with Dallas Stewart. Tracy and Carol are kind people who care about their horses and the people who work for them."
Graves has been working for Farmer since last November. Before that she was with Marshall Naify's 505 Farms for ten years. That is when she first met Albert the Great.
"It's funny how it all comes around in this business. I broke Albert when I was still at 505. He'd come to us because Tracy was a client through Nick."
It was Farmer's partnership in 1997 Older Female Champion Hidden Lake that brought him to Albert the Great. He co-owned Hidden Lake, who is now at Farmer's Shadowlawn Farm in Midway, Kentucky, with Robert Clay, who told Farmer at the 1998 sale to take a close look at the yearling colt that had been bred by his father.
Farmer took more than a few close looks at this summer's yearling sales, buying ten in July at Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton Kentucky and three more at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga in August, spending just over $2 million for the group.
"We try to cover all bases. This isn't the type of operation to spend 4 or 5 million on one yearling. Tracy likes to have some numbers," explains Graves, "There's always pressure to try and make the best decision based on experience. But Tracy puts no more pressure on me than he would himself and that makes you want to do the best for them."
There are two dozen Farmer-owned runners on the track or in training, including a Storm Cat colt out of Hidden Lake, Thunder Storm who is with Elliott Walden. Zito has a couple of promising 2-year olds for Farmer, Mighty Gulch and Crimson Hero, both third in their first time out at Saratoga.
The number Farmer most wants is 1 -- where he feels Albert can finish this season if he continues to be great at Belmont Park. After Point Given's convincing Travers victory, it is likely Albert must run the Belmont table. Regardless, he's brought Farmer more than a financial return on his bargain investment, "I have a good reason to spend the fall in New York and like Albert, I love it there."
And Albert the Great has given New York racing its most coverage ever in Mt. Sterling, where the front page is reserved for after the Breeders' Cup.
