Carrying George around two turns no small feat
He's had five Derby horses dating back to 1977, and even though none has finished better than fifth, Steinbrenner has been a relative sweetheart as an owner.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- As if carrying the jockey wasn't burden enough, there is the owner.
George Steinbrenner won't be riding Bellamy Road -- not literally, and nowhere near the way he rides the humans on his baseball team if the dark bay colt, the 5-2 favorite heading into Saturday's race, fails to win the Kentucky Derby.
Even the imperious Yankee chieftain has conceded that horse racing is a different game. It's the only one, for instance, where his athletes routinely stick their tongues out at the Boss when they come face to face.
"The rest of them,'' Steinbrenner said on a previous visit to Churchill Downs, "wait until I leave the room.''
Steinbrenner didn't make it to the backstretch Friday morning, though his presence was felt. There were six Jefferson County sheriff's police cars parked in tight formation outside trainer Nick Zito's barn, perhaps just in case.
Jockey Javier Castellano, wearing a Yankees cap he bought himself, had never met the man -- "I hope to meet him in the winner's circle,'' he said -- but hadn't prepared anything to say.
"I listen,'' Castellano said. "Just listen.''
Zito, already a two-time Derby winner, will saddle a record-tying five entries for the race. No one asks much about the four other owners, only about King George.
"We have a great relationship,'' Zito said. "I've heard I'm one of the few people who can say that.''
In the baseball business, maybe. With the Yankees scraping the bottom of the American League East barrel, Steinbrenner is his old, corrosive self. Reached Thursday at his Tampa office, a day before departing for Louisville, he told USA Today, "Time is getting shorter,'' suggesting the job tenure of either manager Joe Torre, general manager Brian Cashman or pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre -- maybe even all three -- might be doing the same.
But something happens when Steinbrenner changes out of his baseball uniform -- blue blazer, white turtleneck and tan slacks -- and into his more casual horseman get-up -- blue blazer, blue turtleneck and tan slacks.
He's had five Derby horses dating back to 1977, and even though none has finished better than fifth, Steinbrenner has been a relative sweetheart as an owner.
"I always got along great with him,'' said trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a four-time Derby winner himself. "He's a great friend. He's impulsive, he reacts, but I never had a problem with him.''
Lukas did say that Steinbrenner is like a lot of his other owners, passionate but pliant at first, then more involved the more his horses win.
"The thing you've got to remember as an owner is that in our game you lose a lot more than you win,'' said trainer Bob Baffert, who has won the Derby three times. "It's more important that your personalities mesh. That's why Mike Pegram and I get along so well. He always says, 'I want to be with somebody fun when we lose.'''
That might still be something of a stretch for Steinbrenner. But not enough of one to scare off Baffert. A moment later, he spotted Ed Sexton, the Joe Torre of Steinbrenner's Kinsman Farms operation, lingering at the edge of a crowd. It was Sexton who found Bellamy Road and picked him up for a mere $87,000.
"I don't know why he didn't send that horse to me,'' Baffert said.
Then, turning to Sexton with a broad smile, he added, "I've got a plan in case things don't work out, a horse named Brave Charmer, running the race after the Derby. Watch him. Call me and we'll go to the Belmont together.''
Sexton cracked a smile of his own, but left the offer hanging. He knows racing is a tough business, but rarely tougher than when you are in Steinbrenner's employ.
In 1997, the Boss climbed out of a town car the day before the race and strode purposefully toward the barn where his entry, Concerto, lounged in a nearby stable. John Tammaro III, his trainer, and Carlos Marquez Jr., his jockey, were both Derby rookies. Steinbrenner watched both scurry about making preparations for the race and proudly announced he'd avoided the temptation to change either.
"I could get name people for this,'' he said, "but how can you say to a kid that's practically lived with the horse -- and I have to tell you, I'm surprised he's not sleeping here -- that you're off him?''
Proving that some habits are hard to break, Steinbrenner fired the kid a month later.
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press
