Frater Takes a Favorite to the Kentucky Derby

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The first Saturday in May is one of the most anticipated days of the year for horse racing enthusiasts and 20 of the best three-year-olds in the country will be headed postward for the 134th Kentucky Derby. Only one horse can be draped with the blanket of roses and many feel it will be either Big Brown or WinStar Farms owned Colonel John standing alone in the winner's circle at Churchill Downs. Can the former cross the wire first in just his fourth career start from post 20 or will the latter secure the dream trip behind what should be a brutally fast pace up front and roll off by five lengths? More importantly, can any of the other 18 horses post the upset?

Colonel John (owned by Frater Kenny Troutt of Beta-Chi Chapter at Southern Illinois Univ.) will be faced with a tough mission in this the biggest race of its young career. The Kentucky-bred colt will be asked to run on a conventional dirt track for the first time, having run on synthetic dirt surfaces in all six of his starts in Southern California. His "bullet" workout, five furlongs in a sizzling 57 4/5 seconds, on Monday suggests that he will handle the Churchill surface over which his sire Tiznow captured the 2000 Breeders' Cup Classic.

His major competition and current favorite to win, Big Brown, has a serious obstacle to overcome - No horse has won the Kentucky Derby from the No. 20 outside post since 1929.

If Colonel John does what many experts think and wins Saturday's Kentucky Derby for WinStar, there will be nothing dubious about that honor, the biggest in horse racing.

About Winstar and Frater Kenny Troutt

If there is a heaven for horses, it might resemble WinStar Farm, birthplace of Santa Anita Derby winner and top Kentucky Derby contender Colonel John.

The 1,500-acre spread, about 10 miles west of Lexington in the heart of Bluegrass Country, could be described as the Augusta National of horse farms.

Inside the main gate is a man-made lake complete with a waterfall. Behind it is a modern two-story gray-brick office building that has the look of a clubhouse at an exclusive country club. At the entrance are bronze statues of a mare tending to her foal.

The farm is owned by Dallas billionaires Bill Casner and Frater Kenny Troutt (Beta-Chi, Southern Illinois Univ.), who in 1998 sold their long-distance phone company, Excel Communications, for $3.5 billion.

Over lunch, Casner, 60, said, "As a kid I'd spend summers on my cousin's ranch in central Texas. At age 5, I became smitten with horses. It has been a lifelong passion ever since."

It's the same with Frater Troutt, also 60. But their mid-life venture into the world of breeding, buying, selling and racing thoroughbreds is not something Casner and Troutt did just for the fun of it.

Their idea was to build a state-of-the art farm. "It's a competitive business," Casner said. "At the core of it is our stallions. We have to attract the best stallions out there, and this farm helps us do that."

The farm was only 450 acres when Casner and Frater Troutt bought it in January 2000. They have since purchased more than 1,000 additional acres. Casner and Troutt, along with WinStar president Doug Cauthen, the older brother of jockey Steve Cauthen, turned the place into what it is today.

However, Casner's wife of 34 years, Susan, gets credit for finding this year's diamond in the rough, Colonel John.

At a Keeneland sale in November 2001, it was Susan who insisted that her husband buy a black broodmare named Sweet Damsel for $65,000. Sweet Damsel and Tiznow, a two-time Breeders' Cup Classic winner who stands at WinStar, produced Colonel John.

The horse is named after John Geiber, 52, who works for Troutt and is a close friend of the Casners. Geiber, as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, spent seven months in Iraq in 2005.

Geiber has never seen Colonel John race in person, but he plans to be at Churchill Downs on Saturday.

Two years ago a WinStar horse, Bluegrass Cat, finished second to Barbaro in the Kentucky Derby. Besides Colonel John, WinStar also has a half-interest in another Derby starter this year, Court Vision.

"We've had six horses run in the Derby, but none have gone into the race with as short as odds as Colonel John will," Casner said.

In 1972, Casner and Frater Troutt met at a racetrack in Omaha and became friends. Two years later Casner met his wife, a mutuel clerk, at a track in Grand Island, Neb.

Then in the late '70s Casner and Troutt became partners in the oil business. "We got out of it when, after the price of gas went up to $17 a barrel, it dropped to $9 a barrel," Casner said. "That's hard to fathom these days when gas costs over $100 a barrel."

It was then on to other ventures, such as car washes and a recycling company. "Our nature is to swing for the fences," Casner said.

And that's what they did when Troutt came up with the idea in 1987 to start Excel Communications after deregulation in the telephone industry. "It started out with one employee, which was Kenny, and ended up becoming a $5-billion company" and the fourth-largest long distance carrier in the U.S., Casner said.

About Colonel John's Namesake

Colonel John, the human, actually is Lt. Col. John Geider, a 28-year veteran of active and reserve components of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army. The 52-year-old Dallas native, who serves as a personal assistant to Kenny Troutt as well as maintaining his reserve status with the Army, served seven months in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2005.

"He's served his country so long. This isn't just about Col. John, it's about all service people. He represents every single man and woman in the service, and we appreciate them all," said Susan, who resides with her husband in Flower Mound, Texas. Colonel John, the equine, truly has honored his namesake, having won four of six starts, including victories in the Grade 2 Sham Stakes and the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby in two starts this year for WinStar, which also will be represented by Court Vision in the Run for the Roses.

"What I'm really looking forward to is a winner's circle trip with these folks," said Lt. Col. Geider, while expressing his appreciation for the honor of being the namesake of a serious Kentucky Derby contender. "You never know if a horse is going to have that kind of talent, and as he's developed his skill and talent, it has been hugely exciting. It's almost indescribable."

During his Iraq tour of duty, Lt. Col. Geider served as chief of intelligence for the Army corps of engineering activity.

"They had the responsibility of overseeing the reconstruction of the Iraqi infrastructure," he said. "Unfortunately, it was a tough mission because every time we built something, something blew up."

"Bill keeps telling me to go to the sales with him and says, 'Could you just go and walk around and see if you get that feeling again?' " she said. "I've been several times, but I've never had that feeling where the horse and I communicate like I did that day when I saw Sweet Damsel."

Adapted from LA Times and Boston Herald News Articles. If you would like to see your chapter news here, contact Communications Coordinator Tom McAninch.