If you missed it amidst the smoke emanating from your Memorial Day barbecue, a great horse won its 2005 racing debut at Belmont Park. And know that dedicated thoroughbred racing fans never use the "G" word lightly.
The world’s greatest racehorse, Ghostzapper by name, is a virtual unknown among mainstream sports fans even if the 5-year-old is a defending Horse of the Year titlist. Indeed, it is very likely that more people have heard of his controversial owner, Frank Stronach, than his home-bred son of Awesome Again, the only Breeders‘ Cup Classic winner ever to sire a Breeders’ Cup Classic champion.
Stronach’s fame (some might say notoriety) comes from the fact that in a game as diverse as thoroughbred racing, he is the one man who would dare to be king. Then it is only natural that Stronach would dream such dreams. He has done so all his life. He is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, adept in the art of the parlay. To wit:
In 1954, at age 22, Stronach packed a suitcase, and with a bankroll of a couple of hundred bucks emigrated from his native Austria to Canada. He landed in Montreal, later moved to Kitchener, Ontario, where he washed dishes in a local hospital before saving enough money to move to Toronto.
A skilled tool and die maker, Stronach rented a gate-house and with a small amount of savings and a $1,000 overdraft started a tool and die business, Multimatic Investments Ltd. Before long, Stronach and his 10 employees merged with Magna Electronics Corporation, which later became Magna International. Today, Magna International has over 24,000 employees, 100 manufacturing plants and boasts annual sales of $6 billion.
Stronach’s business philosophy, his many critics would agree, is far askance from what has made him one of the world’s most successful horse entrepreneurs. Virtually all successful businessmen adhere to a principle of providing a better product for a better price. What separates Stronach is a model he calls “Fair Enterprise,” whereby the successful company invests in people.
Magna has a corporate constitution that shares profits with its employees (10 percent), its management (6 percent), and with shareholders (20 percent). Taking advantage of the corporate philosophy of the 1980s, that greed is good, Stronach used the principle of self-improvement to drive profits. His business grew so dramatically that the company became overextended in 1989, something his racetrack empire is experiencing today, and something that many believe will be his downfall. But don’t bet against Stronach, or Ghostzapper, for that matter.
In 1991, via further expansion, outside-the-box thinking and $100 million in convertible bonds, Stronach not only saved his company but grew the business into the giant it is today. And that’s a good lesson for Stronach, for many of the racetracks owned by his Magna Entertainment Corp. presently are floundering.
Since buying Santa Anita Racetrack in 1998, he has acquired nine others, overpaying for many because he believes in legalized gaming as a growth industry and that the states where his tracks live would approve expanded gambling through installation of video lottery terminals and slots. What he has learned in Florida and in Maryland, to name two, is, the approval of referendums notwithstanding, millions of dollars worth of lobbying doesn’t buy what it used to.
Stronach’s true passion these days remains racing itself. In the 17 years since his Adena Springs Farms was founded, now with nurseries in Kentucky, Florida and Toronto, his is one of the most successful racing and breeding operations on the planet. Ghostzapper is Stronach catching lightning in a bottle. Again.
Before 2005, Stronach was recognized with racing’s highest honor, the Eclipse Award, twice as a breeder, three times as an owner, and has won the Sovereign Award, Canada’s Eclipse, eight times. With performances like the one witnessed by 15,000 people live and at the simulcasts — but with nary an ESPN or major network in sight — he is odds-on to add to these gaudy totals by year’s end.
In winning the Metropolitan Handicap as the 123-pound high weight by 6-¼ lengths, Ghostzapper’s mile in 1:33 1/5 is the fourth fastest in 112 runnings of the event and was the fourth Met Mile win for his Hall of Fame trainer, Bobby Frankel. He is scheduled to race only four more times this year, culminating with the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Belmont Park, where he is now 5-for-5, on October 29.
But he could race after the Breeders’ Cup, which will either be anticlimactic or an event for the ages. In the rarified air already accorded greats Dr. Fager and Forego, brilliant sprinters but also record holders at longer distances, Frankel has Ghostzapper’s degree of greatness fixed on the mighty Secretariat, who ended his career winning on grass in Canada. Canada is where Secretariat’s trainer Lucien Laurin and jockey Ron Turcotte were born, where Stronach made his fortune. Maybe mainstream North American sports fans will have seen or heard of Ghostzapper by then.
What made this year’s Met Mile so memorable, now and for years to come, was Ghostzapper’s participation in it. And, for that, a tip of the hat to the sportsman, Frank Stronach. It’s difficult if not impossible to envision another major owner/breeder risking a $10-million breeding season to race his horse as a 5-year-old. What will shock and awe many is that Stronach was a man of his word.
At the post-Breeders’ Cup press conference following Ghostzapper’s Classic victory at Lone Star Park last fall, a proud owner announced that he was keeping his horse in training at 5 because he wanted to give something back to the game. After Monday’s performance, it is clear he has done just that. In an industry where its leaders often talk the talk, Stronach walked his. Even his enemies must give him that.
