The Man Takes Charge Of His Horse

Before going to New York , Longden claimed he was misquoted about the usefulness of most Belmont Stakes winners. It is true that Count Fleet, the colt he rode to a Triple Crown against a poor wartime field in 1943, never raced again after his 25-length Belmont victory. But if Johnny really thinks this is the general pattern after the classic known among horsemen as the breeders' race, he has failed to do his homework thoroughly. Just in recent years Nashua , Gallant Man, Sword Dancer, Jaipur , Quadrangle and Damascus lost either the Derby or Preakness or both, then won the Belmont and further fame later on. "I didn't mean it the way it came out," says Longden. "I know there are good horses who won the Belmont . What I meant is that there are some who were not as good ever again. And what I also didn't get around to saying in that one interview is that there have been a number of other horses—like Buckpasser, Swaps, Dr. Fager and Kelso—who skipped the Belmont altogether and became great horses later on despite that."

The McMahon children, Francine, 12, and Bettina, 9, came home from school for their tennis lesson with professional John Spassoff, an assistant trainer for the Baltimore Colts , whose father, Dick, also a Colt trainer, drops by every day to give Frank a message. McMahon sent them on their way with a friendly pat and got back to his favorite subject. "I may not be the most knowledgeable owner-breeder in the horse business, but I don't think I'm all that stupid, either. A lot of people who are reading about Majestic Prince figure me for a guy who just got into the game last week. I've actually been in it for 25 years and have had both fun and success."

Long before Frank was going into partnership with friends like Dana Fuller, Wilder Ripley and Max Bell he was a serious college student and an even more serious oilfield hand. At Gonzaga University in Spokane , where he was a varsity second baseman, he got to know a fellow in the class below him who "used to come to our smokers and really belt out a song." His name was Bing Crosby , and the two have been good friends ever since. Frank quit college to work in his father's mines and later went into the oil business with brothers George and John. All this eventually led to vast riches accumulated partly through a 2,200-mile trans- Canada natural-gas pipeline.

Some 20 years ago McMahon and Publisher Max Bell organized Alberta Ranches, Ltd., a 640-acre operation outside Calgary . Longden was doing a lot of riding in Canada at the time, and his eldest son, Vance, came in on the Alberta Ranches deal and soon became the stable's trainer. Getting rid of the cheap horses they had acquired along the way, Bell and McMahon sought a higher-caliber animal, and their search often took them to sales in England .

Among their early successes were Royal Serenade, bought in England for $20,000, and the English-bred Indian Hemp, who was good enough to be invited to represent Canada in the first Washington, D.C International at Laurel in 1952. But the star was Meadow Court, picked up for less than $10,000 in Ireland by Paddy Prendergast. He was second to Sea-Bird in the 1965 Epsom Derby . Then, on the eve of the Irish Derby, an incident occurred that led to an eventual curtailment of the partnership with Bell. It also gave McMahon a taste of what it is like to be relegated to the sidelines by your own friends.

"You see," McMahon says, "Meadow Court ran abroad in Max's name, and Max never bothered to declare the proper ownership. Everyone thought the horse was his. He liked that fine, but Betty and I didn't exactly go for it—even though we always got our share of the purses from Max later. A few days before the Irish Derby, Max got hold of Crosby and invited him to join us in Dublin . And to sweeten the invitation, Max told Crosby , in effect, 'If you'll come over I'll cut you in on Meadow Court.' Well, Crosby came, the horse won and we were practically trampled to death by the crowd at The Curragh trying to get a glimpse of Crosby . Bing did a hell of a job and sang When Irish Eyes Are Smiling at the presentation ceremony, but Betty was mad because we didn't get much mention at all. The point is, if Max had asked me what I felt about Crosby coming in for a third of the horse I would have probably said O.K., but he never even asked me."

With Longden's assistance as a rookie trainer in the summer of 1966, McMahon started buying horses in the sky-high, competitive U.S. commercial market. Since then, he estimates, he has spent close to $1 million at yearling sales alone, most of it in buying from Leslie Combs at the Keeneland Summer Sales. All told, McMahon has some 35 horses in training in the California and Canadian divisions of his stable, and another three in England and Ireland . In addition, he has a few weanlings and yearlings in partnership with Combs, four broodmares of his own and 10 others with Combs. "Even with the sort of stock I'm gradually getting," says McMahon , "my stable is running a $1 million deficit. So it's nice to win some purses. And the prestige is nice, too."

On the night of July 24, 1967 McMahon and Longden sensed they were about to experience a kind of prestige unknown to either of them. They had observed the wondrous progress of a sturdy chestnut colt by Raise A Native out of the unraced broodmare Gay Hostess (by Royal Charger) virtually since his foaling date on March 19, 1966. He was a beauty, this one, and both Longden and McMahon wanted him badly. But so did California owner Mrs. Bert Martin, who, only moments before the chestnut was led into the Keeneland sales ring, had paid $55,000 for a Nashua colt she eventually named Right Cross. As the bidding rose to the $200,000 mark, Mrs. Martin showed no sign of giving in. When she bid $240,000 there was a pause. "What wasn't known then by anyone but Leslie and myself," McMahon recalled last week, "was that although Leslie was listed as the breeder, I owned half of the dam, Gay Hostess. So I had a choice when Mrs. Martin went to $240,000: I could drop out and collect my $120,000 from the sale to Mrs. Martin or I could raise the bid to $250,000 and only be out $125,000. I wanted the colt so badly that's what I did."

Now, nearly two years later, Majestic Prince is at Belmont Park , exercising lightly and trying to regain some of his weight before the final works that will tell Longden whether he should or should not attempt to become the ninth Triple Crown winner and first since Citation 21 years ago. In his training along the way to New York the Prince has already broken two track records in his morning gallops. Although McMahon doesn't necessarily agree that fit horses have to be worked that fast, he gives Longden no static on that score. "After all," he said as he slowly gathered up his pictures and papers at the end of a warm Palm Beach afternoon, "Longden learned a lot by being around the late Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons years ago. With Sunny Jim it was often a survival-of-the-fittest approach, and if Johnny gets off Majestic Prince in the mornings and tells me, 'I can't hold him, he wants to go,' I've got to go along with him.

"I think that if he's lost a little weight and is a little tired, that's natural. But if he is absolutely sound—and thus far he has been—he will bounce back. After all, if he's tired he can't be any more tired than Arts and Letters, and we haven't heard his people complaining, have we? We've had some pretty easy races along the way. Arts and Letters has had a much tougher go than we have, and nobody talks about him taking a rest instead of running in the Belmont ."