Bobby Frankel, Hall of Fame racehorse trainer, dies at 68
byrdman
thoroughbred talent turned losers into winners and winners into bigger
winners, culminating in more than 3,500 career victories and $225
million in purse money, died Nov. 16 at his home in Pacific Palisades,
Calif. He had cancer, said his close associate Garrett O'Rourke.
Throughout a 43-year career, Mr. Frankel was respected as one of horse
racings' living legends. He won practically every major race, including
the 2003 Triple Crown jewel Belmont Stakes with Empire Maker, and the
2004 $4 million Breeder's Cup Classic with Ghostzapper.
In 2008 -- his last full year of training because of declining health --
Mr. Frankel finished with 93 wins, $11.7 million in earnings, and 11
Grade 1 victories. It was the most of any trainer in North America.
His most remarkable achievement came in 2003, when he won 25 Grade 1
races, the sport's toughest competition for the largest purses. He set
records for the most victories and highest earnings in a single season
-- $19,147,129.
Mr. Frankel earned a reputation as a quality horseman who could spot a
champion amid the chumps. He started his training career during the
middle 1960s in New York in lower quality "claiming races," where owners
put their mounts up for sale before the start of the race.
Mr. Frankel would pick off the better among the bunch, enter them in
races for higher stakes, and win. Mr. Frankel was best known for his
skill as a handicapper. He would strategically enter his horses only in
certain races where he could largely predict a successful outcome.
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He won his first race in 1966 with horse named Double Dash at Aqueduct,
and finished the year with $18,659 in earnings. By 1976 he had earned
$8,069,603. In his lifetime, he won 21 percent of the races he entered
and had accrued $227,947,775 in purse money.
Mr. Frankel's initial interest in horse racing began at the betting
windows. One day during the early 1960s in New York, Mr. Frankel went to
the track with $40 in his pocket. He got on a hot streak and collected
$3,000. He made another bet on a 3-1 shot and it came in. He went home
with $20,000 in cash.
"I put the money on my mother's bed," Mr. Frankel said, according to the
Daily Racing Form. "She thought I had robbed a bank."
Robert Jules Frankel was born July 9, 1941, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He started
in the racing industry in the muddy shed rows of the Aqueduct and
Belmont Park race courses walking hot horses coming off the track from
their workouts. He once said the early-morning labor was worth the free
ticket to the afternoon racing.
He moved to California in 1972 and saw his career take off. He was the
top trainer for multiple years in a row at the tracks of Hollywood Park,
Santa Anita and Del Mar.
Mr. Frankel was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 1995 with much
of his greater success still to come. He won five Eclipse Awards, the
thoroughbred equivalent of the Heisman Trophy, as the country's trainer
of the year. Ten of his horses were the Eclipse champions of their
fields, including Ghostzapper, a bay colt who was horse of the year in
2004. One of the fastest horse's of all time according to a speed rating
system, Ghostzapper won the $4 million Breeder's Cup Classic 1 1/4 -mile
race wire-to-wire in a blazing 1:59.02.
Mr. Frankel, by many accounts a gruff and abrasive man, had many famous
clients, including Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos, music
industry executive Jerry Moss and baseball player and manager Joe Torre,
but he largely kept himself out of the public eye and shied away from
entering his horses in the glitzy and glamorous Triple Crown series.
His only Triple Crown-event win came at the 2003 Belmont Stakes with
Empire Maker, a dark bay owned by Saudi Arabian Prince Khalid Abdullah,
upsetting the favorite, Funny Cide, at becoming the first Triple Crown
winner since Affirmed in 1978.
Mr. Frankel was also successful with horses that ran on the grass,
including Intercontinental, the top turf female of 2005, and
Leroidesanimaux, the top turf male in 2005.
At 68, Mr. Frankel was still considered to be in the prime of his racing
years. His last major victory was on Oct. 17 for the $2 million Canadian
International 1 1/2- mile turf race with Champs Elysees.
"Life's funny," Mr. Frankel said in 2000. "Sometimes things just happen,
and they change your life completely. I wasn't born into this. I just
followed my instincts and ended up where I am."
Mr. Frankel had married and divorced multiple times. He kept a close
relationship with his last wife, Bonita Boniface. Survivors include a
daughter from a previous marriage, Bethenny Frankel, who appears on the
cable television show "The Real Housewives of New York." A brother, who
is a rabbi, lives in Israel.
RIP
wolfagain
21 grade 1 winners in 2003 says it all!