#1 [url]

Nov 1 15 9:35 PM

So, let's go back a while, to say 1998...



A quote: "Horse owner James McIngvale made the news in Kentucky early this year when he went through trainers like George Steinbrenner went through baseball managers years ago."

and 2004 http://www.utsandiego.com/sports/20040429-9999-1s29derby.html (I laughed at the title, apparently it was too soon.)

Furniture baron isn't meddling with trainers the way he used to do

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

April 29, 2004


KEVIN FUJII / Houston Chronicle
James McIngvale, tennis buff and furniture baron, hopes for a Derby ace with Wimbledon. 

Kentucky Derby field
trans_1x1.gif

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – When James McIngvale plunged into horse racing, he became both a trainer's dream and nightmare.

A dream because, as the founder of Gallery Furniture, he had plenty of money to spend on promising stock. A nightmare because of his tendency to meddle and be impatient.

But since McIngvale hooked up with three-time Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Bob Baffert, he is, he says, "a changed man." And if a gray colt named Wimbledon can get to the wire first Saturday in the 130th Kentucky Derby, McIngvale will join the list of rich and, in some cases, colorful clients – Mike Pegram, Prince Ahmed bin Salman, Bob and Beverly Lewis – Baffert has escorted to racing's promised land.

"He got into the business because he wants to win the Kentucky Derby," Baffert said yesterday. "And he's going to win the Derby. I don't know if it's going to be this year or when, but he's going to win one."

McIngvale, 53, was a successful furniture salesman in Dallas before starting his own enterprise, Gallery Furniture, in Houston in 1981.

The story goes that McIngvale began Gallery Furniture with a $5,000 investment and it has grown to annual sales of more than $100 million.

McIngvale's personal involvement in the promotion of the business cannot be overstated. The company spends $8 million to $10 million annually on advertising, and the vintage TV ads in Houston, which mercifully are not shown nationwide, have topped the "worst" list in voting by marketing students at the University of Houston for at least a decade.

Think Cal Worthington, only more bizarre.

"You know, I'm a shameless promoter," said McIngvale, who these days wears patriotic red, white and blue almost everywhere he goes. "And I sell mattresses. I figure if I wear a mattress, people can associate me with what I sell. So I started wearing a mattress, with holes for arms, legs and the head cut out. And I became known as 'Mattress Mac.' "

Born in Starkville, Miss., McIngvale plunged into the racing business in 1996, investing $1 million in five yearlings at various sales with an eye toward the 1998 Triple Crown.

A series of injuries during the winter 1998 racing season at Gulfstream Park in Florida ended that dream and started McIngvale on a jag of interfering with and then firing trainers the way George Steinbrenner used to do with Yankees managers.

He took 15 horses from Nick Zito's barn and moved them to former Zito assistant Steve Moyer. He replaced Moyer with a former night watchman, considered going with Hall of Fame trainer Jack Van Berg – whose last big horse was Alysheba in 1987 – but instead chose his sister-in-law Laura Wohlers as his trainer of record.

"If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't buy so many horses so fast," McIngvale said. "I overbought horses and I bought a lot of bad ones. The lesson I learned was that I should stay the hell out of it and let the people who devote their lives to horse racing run the horse racing business."

That is what he has done since hooking up with Baffert. McIngvale started sending horses to Baffert a couple of years ago, but the two didn't meet face-to-face until last summer at Del Mar. McIngvale has 12 horses with Baffert, and 10 more 2-year-olds are soon to populate the Baffert barns.

"It's hard for people who come into the horse business after being successful in something else to give up the kind of control they're used to having in (the other successful venture)," Baffert said.

"But you can't control a horse and you can't control a horse race like you can other things.

"As a trainer, you almost don't want to be the first (for a hands-on owner). Chances are you're going to get fired and so will a couple of others before (the owner) learns the business."

Wimbledon was a $425,000 purchase at a Florida 2-year-old sale in February of last year. Baffert brought the colt to Del Mar for his racing debut last summer with high praises and expectations.

But Wimbledon ran only once there, finishing fifth of 10 in a 5½-furlong maiden sprint in which the first three finishers – Siphonizer, Cooperation and Minister Eric – have gone on to achieve success. Minister Eric is a Derby entrant.

Wimbledon didn't get his first win until his fifth start, second this year, in February at Santa Anita. A win in the Louisiana Derby in March legitimized his Kentucky Derby candidacy. A ninth-place showing in the Santa Anita Derby dropped his stock somewhat.

Javier Santiago, a top Puerto Rican rider who had been in the United States just over a month, was aboard for the two victories and the Santa Anita Derby disappointment. Jerry Bailey, the top rider in North America and a two-time Derby winner, has taken over for the Run for the Roses.

McIngvale is a tennis buff. He owns the West Side Tennis Club in Houston, which has grass courts modeled on the more famous ones at Wimbledon, the place for which the colt is named.

"I've got a friend with the United States Tennis Association who keeps asking when I'm going to name a horse U.S. Open," McIngvale said.


Dancing bananas ROCK! Banana