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Another Arab elite dies young (thinking of Dodi al-Fayed). [EMAIL PROTECTED] Prince Ahmed bin Salman, Top Horse Owner, Dies at 43 July 23, 2002 By JOE DRAPE Prince Ahmed bin Salman, the Saudi Arabian businessman who owned War Emblem, the winner of this year's Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, and Point Given, thoroughbred racing's 2001 horse of the year, died yesterday at a hospital in Riyadh. He was 43. The cause was a heart attack, said Terence Collier, a consultant to the Thoroughbred Corporation, bin Salman's California-based racing stable. Bin Salman was a nephew of King Fahd and a son of Prince Salman bin Abdel Aziz, who is the governor of Riyadh, the Saudi capital. While two of his brothers followed their father into government - Prince Sultan, a former Saudi astronaut, runs the tourism authority, and Prince Abdul Aziz is deputy minister of oil - bin Salman chose the business world. He was chairman of Saudi Research and Marketing, which owns some 30 publications, including news weeklies, women's magazines and Asharq Al Awsat, a daily newspaper published in London that is perhaps the most prominent English-language newspaper in the Arab world. But it was on the backstretches and winners' circles of racetracks where bin Salman gained the most attention in the United States. After War Emblem followed his Kentucky Derby victory - the first for an Arab thoroughbred owner - with a triumph in the Preakness, a record crowd of 103,222 was on hand at Belmont Park to see if he could become horse racing's 12th Triple Crown winner and the first since Affirmed in 1978. Bin Salman fell in love with American racing in the early 1980's while attending the University of California-Irvine. As a student, he went to see the trainer Richard Mulhall at a farm to view a gray stallion named Jumping Hill, never mentioning that he was a member of his country's royal family. Bin Salman bought Jumping Hill and sent him to Riyadh, where the horse became a solid stallion. The transaction was the prince's entry into American racing. With Mulhall as his trainer, the prince had some success with 15 or so claiming horses before returning to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980's to build a career in publishing. "Even then he talked about winning the Kentucky Derby," said Mulhall, the prince's racing manager. Still, bin Salman and War Emblem were unlikely candidates to reach the doorstep of horse racing history. Just three weeks before the Derby, Salman purchased 90 percent of the colt for $900,000 from Russell Reineman, a Chicago businessman. Although War Emblem had won the Illinois Derby on April 6, he was widely considered a one-dimensional front-runner yet to be tested. By leading every step of the way of the Derby as a 21-1 long shot and demonstrating the ability to pass horses late at the Preakness, War Emblem dispelled those doubts. "I think this is one of the best investments I ever made in my life, besides buying oil in Arabia," bin Salman said after War Emblem won the Preakness. The prince was in Louisville and Baltimore for the first two legs of the Triple Crown. He answered criticism that he had bought the Derby with his late purchase and answered questions about how a quintessential American sporting achievement might be received in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Everybody buys the Derby because you have to buy a horse or raise a horse to win a Derby," bin Salman said. He also expressed confidence in his place in American racing. "Everyone respects me here, everybody actually makes me feel so good, sometimes I'm embarrassed," he said. "The American public treats me better than in Saudi Arabia." "We're all brothers," he added. "Bad people are bad people everywhere." Still, citing a a heavy business schedule, the prince did not attend the Belmont Stakes, where War Emblem stumbled out of the gate, nearly scraping his knees, and finished a well-beaten seventh to Sarava, a 70-1 shot. Bob Baffert, the trainer of War Emblem as well as Point Given, who won the Preakness and Belmont in 2001, said bin Salman never expressed regret about War Emblem's stumble in the Belmont or the fact he was not in New York for the race. "His whole deal was to win the Derby," Baffert said yesterday. "That was the one thing he wanted more than anything. Thank God, we got it done this year." In addition to his brothers, bin Salman is survived by his wife and five children. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/23/obituaries/23SALM.html?ex=1028453084&ei=1&en=3e7602f5ff684c0b HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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