LOS ANGELES, September 1, 2009--I'm going to be rooting for Mast Track, the 5-year-old who's bred, owned and trained by Bobby Frankel, in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. I said root for, but not bet. You've got to draw a line somewhere.

Mast Track, who hasn't won in 14 months, will be 10-1 or higher in the million-dollar race, and there will be those who say that Frankel's won enough Pacific Classics. I say it would be fun if Frankel won one more big one at Del Mar, with another longshot. I don't know if that would be enough to get him back on his feet, and back on the job at his bi-coastal racing operation, but it's worth a try. The game misses Frankel, who can laugh with you one minute, and saw you off with a withering glare the next. The one thing with Bobby, you always know where you stand. He's seldom been asked a question he wouldn't tackle. Frank Bobby Frankel, that has a ring to it, and I'd say there's not another horseman in the Hall of Fame who's as good with the breed, and as honest talking about it.


I don't know what's wrong with Frankel, only that he hasn't been on the job, except by phone, for several months. His illness is his own business. He is such a consummate horseman that his loyal help, such as Humberto Ascanio, who will saddle Mast Track at Del Mar, hang around for years and years. They are skilled people in their own right, and by paying attention while in Frankel's employ, it shows. Had it been his wont, Ascanio could have gone out on his own years ago, and done well.

But Frankel's hands-on approach has been missing much of this year, and his surrogates can only take a stable so far. The last I looked, the Frankel outfit was 13th nationally in purses, and while that's commendable for most trainers, it's a lowly niche for Frankel, who's used to being at or near the top. When Frankel led the money list for the first time, in 1993, he ended a 10-year titular reign by Wayne Lukas. When Frankel led the list again, in 2001, he stopped Bob Baffert after a three-year run. But this year the Frankel barn will be lucky to reach the $5-million mark in purses, which would be its lowest total since 1998.

We've had a good-times-bad-times existence. When I arrived in California, in the early 1980s, Frankel's old friend from New York, the trainer Buddy Jacobson, was in Attica, doing a 25-years-to-life slide for murdering his former girlfriend's boyfriend. Jacobson was shopping for media support for an appeal, and Frankel put me in touch with Jacobson's sister, who arranged a jailhouse interview. "You know me," I said to Frankel before flying to upstate New York. "I can't promise anything." "That's all right," Frankel said. "I don't know whether he did it or not." Jacobson died, of cancer of the spine, on the day when a judge was scheduled to hear his appeal.

By 1990, Frankel had moved from a claiming king to one of the best trainers in California, but his stock, like Charlie Whittingham's many years before, was largely devoid of 2-year-olds. That year, however, he discovered the Kentucky Derby and sent two colts to Churchill Downs. One of them, Pendleton Ridge, was a maiden. In a weak moment, trying to pass myself off as a poor man's Jim Murray, I wrote a piece from Louisville that mentioned Pendleton Ridge just once by name. The rest of the story, I called him "The Maiden," which was what everybody on the backside at Churchill was calling him.

The morning of the draw, Bruce McNall, who owned Pendleton Ridge, called Frankel from California. "See what Christine wrote?" McNall said. "You're not going to embarrass me by running this horse, are you?"

At the draw, Frankel was less than cordial. I've lost count over the years, but I believe he used the eff word six times in one sentence. I walked away before he got to the next sentence. Pendleton Ridge finished 13th. Frankel's other horse, Burnt Hills, was 14th.

It was either between the Derby and the Preakness, or between the Preakness and the Belmont, when I was at Hollywood Park and saw Frankel for the first time since his blowup in Kentucky. By accident we were standing on the wooden backstretch platform where some of the trainers gather for workouts. Frankel approached me, and my first thought was, "He's not finished."

"I owe you an apology," he said. "I got a bum steer back there. I read that column when I got home, and it wasn't that bad. You had some fun, but it wasn't that bad. I'm just sorry about what happened."

I said something about having a thick skin. "I used to cover baseball," I said. "I got what you gave me about every day in those days."

After that, it seemed like Frankel was going to spend the rest of his life making amends. He returned phone calls. He never gave me short shrift around the barn. He suggested that I write up Marquetry big going into the Hollywood Gold Cup, and for a day I was a handicapping genius, advancing a race with a feature about a winning 27-1 shot.

Shortly after I left the Los Angeles Times, Santa Anita ran a race in my honor and Frankel's horse won. "Whatcha gonna do now?" Frankel said in the winner's circle. You can take the man out of Brooklyn, but you can't take Brooklyn out of the man. "Maybe I'll write your life story," I said, and he laughed. Nothing's come of it, of course. But win the Pacific Classic one more time, Bobby, and we'll talk.