Bobby Flay's latest throwdown!
I'm one of 415,000-plus followers celebrity chef Bobby Flay has on the social networking site Twitter. He's the only celebrity chef I follow, not because I'm anxious for his cooking tips but because he is also a high-profile Thoroughbred owner and breeder. I'm probably in the minority for following Flay for his insights into the Thoroughbred world.
Most of Flay's Tweets involve cooking, TV shows like “Throwdown! With Bobby Flay,” or one of his highly successful restaurants. For example: "I'm making red chile carnitas tonight." (Oct. 30). Or "I'm putting 16 spices in my new fried chicken at Mesa Grill NY. The Colonel has nothing on me! Mango-honey with red chiles too." (Nov. 17). Or "On way to @todayshow to judge the Meatball Madness contest.. check in for some deliciousness. Then come to Mesa Grill for Chorizo meatballs" (Dec. 2)
Flay occasionally ventures into horse racing topics on Twitter, as he did on Nov. 3, with "Breeders Cup, yo." Or "Tattersalls starts so early when you live in NY." (Nov. 29)
As you can see, most of his racing observations are pretty innocuous. That’s why I was so stunned to see a Tweet from Flay early Monday morning that, even by my standards, was a cheap shot at one of the Thoroughbred industry’s most respected operations, Claiborne Farm.
He wrote: “Scratch CLAIBORNE off my list of potential farms to do business with. They finally got lucky with one....how long before they mess that up?”
I can only speculate what Flay was being so critical about, since he didn’t reply to my inquiry. Perhaps he has a mare or two he wanted to breed to a Claiborne stallion and didn’t get the answer he wanted.
Reminds me a little bit of the chef who’s not happy with a dinner recipe, so he’s taking his spatula and going home.
Flay is entitled to his opinion. He’s come a long way in the horse business in a few short years as an owner, with a 2010 Breeders’ Cup winner in More Than Real and a growing stable of high-quality bloodstock, including a pair of Graded Stakes winners in 2011.
But Claiborne Farm has been around the racetrack a few laps, too.
“They finally got lucky with one?”
Is Flay talking about War Front, the hot, young son of Danzig, or perhaps 2010 champion older male Blame, who joined his sire, Arch, at the Claiborne Farm stallion barn this year. Or maybe he’s referring to Flatter, or Pulpit, two sons of A.P. Indy who have done quite well. Or maybe Seeking the Gold, or Mr. Prospector, or Danzig, or Secretariat, or Round Table, or Bold Ruler, or Nasrullah.
Twenty-seven times Claiborne Farm has stood the leading sire under the management of three different generations of the Hancock family, including the current president, Seth Hancock.
Lucky? Sure, you need to luck in this business, but Claiborne Farm hasn’t been around 100 years because of luck.
Now I’m just a chump with a website, and there’s only 2,670 people who follow @raypaulick on Twitter. But if I were Bobby Flay, I’d stick to chicken recipes and let Claiborne Farm do what they do best: managing stallions and raising some of the best horses this game has ever seen.
