On Saturday afternoon at Santa Anita Park, Jim Rome did something few horse owners have accomplished: he won a Breeders’ Cup race for the second consecutive year. Two days later and 2,000 miles away, he sold the horse that did it for him, Mizdirection, for $2.7 million.
Rome runs his horses in the name of Jungle Racing, a reference to his nationally syndicated radio show; he owned and raced Mizdirection in partnership with Bill Strauss, Danny Gohs, Borris Beljack, and Kevin Nis.
A year ago, the four-year-old Mizdirection got her first Grade 1 victory when she won the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, coming to the race off a five-month layoff and rallying to beat males by a half-length. The Breeders’ Cup was at Santa Anita in 2012, and this year, trainer Mike Puype took the same route back to the winner’s circle; the race on Saturday was Mizdirection’s first since June, and she repeated her victory against male horses, again by a half-length, and this time as the favorite.
Said Rome after the race, “I'll say again right now what I said last year at this time: outside of the day I married my wife Janet and the birth of my two boys, last year's win right here was the single greatest and most surreal day of my life, and today might be better. It is that good.
“There is something special about this girl. I'll say it for the record and I'm not afraid to say it: she's one of the loves of my life. I love this mare.
“Mike Puype has been getting up at 2 a.m. every morning to make sure the mare was ready. He knew this was a huge day. I know he loves the mare, and you couldn't find a better trainer and a more honest trainer. I'm so proud of Mike and the barn; they did an amazing job.”
Bred in Kentucky by Joseph J. Perrotta, Mizdirection was sold as a yearling for $85,000, then pinhooked a year later, bringing $50,000. Her victory on Saturday brought her career earnings to $1,719,621. From 17 career starts, she won 11 times, with four seconds and a third.
The connections of the gray mare had little time to bask in the victory with her; she was booked on a flight early Sunday morning to Lexington, Kentucky, where she was catalogued as a broodmare prospect in the Fasig-Tipton sale.
"Why do you do something like [sell her now]?” said Rome in the post-race press conference. “One of the only things I don't like about this business is that it's a business. The Miz ride has been one of the great experiences of my life. But the fact is before Mizdirection, I always had a great passion for the sport, but we got our brains beaten in and we lost a lot of money.
“It's so rare to have an opportunity to take money off the table, and I want to see her go out a champion. I want her off the track. I want her to have a good life as a mama, and I think the time is right to sell. It's gut‑wrenching. It's tearing me up, but from a business standpoint, and this is a business, it's something we need to do.”
Mizdirection was purchased by Sheikh Joann Al Thani’s Al Shaqab Racing, a Qatar-based racing enterprise increasingly prominent in recent years in international racing circles. The cousin of Sheikh Fahad and brother of Qatar's ruling Emir, Al Thani won the prestigious Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe last month with his three-year-filly Treven; three days later, he set an international record when he purchased a yearling filly for $8.86 million at the Tattersalls sale in Newmarket, England.
Rome has been involved in Thoroughbred racing since 2007 and currently owns 14 horses on his own or in partnership.
“Janet said at one point, ‘You need a hobby. All you do is work,’” related Rome. “Billy Koch, owner of Little Red Feather Racing, had approached me once to buy into a horse and it never really interested me. Janet said, ‘Let's do this, it will be fun.’
“And, of course, the worst thing that could have happened to me did happen to me: a horse that was 15‑1 came out of the clouds to win from last to first, and all of a sudden I'm looking around for horses to buy.”
Rome was referring to Wing Forward, the first horse he owned, who won his first start in the United States in the fall of 2007, paying $31.
“Had that horse finished middle of the pack, I probably would have lost interest right away,” said Rome.
Prior to owning horses, Rome had a reputation as a detractor of horse racing, a reputation he acknowledged that he’d earned through his comments on his radio show. Now, he speaks about the sport with all the fervor of the converted.
“I didn't know what it was about,” he admitted. “Everybody likes to throw it in my face. ‘Weren't you the guy that dogged the sport back in the day?’ I'll say, guilty, yes, I did.
“But I'd never spent time around the barns or the animal or the jockeys or the trainers; then I started to come around and I got to know the horses. At the end of the day, the biggest reason we're in this is we love the horses. It didn't matter if it was a stakes horse or Breeders' Cup or a claimer. They're all different, they all have a different story, and I think they're fascinating animals.”
