Crupper’s owner on just making the Preakness: ‘I feel like I’ve won the lottery’

Keith Crupper told Zoellner when foal was born: “This is the horse we’ve been waiting on”

News feature by Jennie Rees for the Preakness Stakes media team. Photo above: the 5-foot-10 Keith Crupper with his namesake, the then 5 1/2-month-old Crupper, with his late dam She’s All In nearby, at his farm in Paris, Ky. Photo courtesy Keith Crupper

         LAUREL, MD – Robert Zoellner was down to three broodmares in the spring of 2023. One mare hadn’t gotten pregnant the year before. One foal died. The third is on the cusp of being the long-time owner-breeder’s first starter in a Triple Crown race when Crupper runs in Saturday’s 151st Preakness Stakes (G1) at Laurel Park.

            “If there are about 20,000 foals and half are fillies, your chance is just one in 10,000,” Zoellner (pronounced ZELL-ner) said of the only 3-year-old in his racing stable getting to the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown. “I feel like I’ve won the lottery.”

            Zoellner – an optometrist, owner of five radio stations and entrepreneur from Tulsa, Okla. called “Dr. Z” or simply “Z” by his friends – has been in horse racing for 26 years, the last 20 with trainer Donnie K. Von Hemel. While he has had good horses, Dr. Z has never before been in American racing’s signature series. 

              Crupper may be 30-1 on the morning line for the Preakness, but he’s showed marked improvement in his last three races with blinkers and getting added distance, most recently in Oaklawn Park’s Bathhouse Row Stakes at 1 1/8 miles. That victory gave the colt an automatic spot in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness.

            “This horse Crupper, he’s a third-generation baby of mine, to have that legacy of his parents and grandparents, to see him mature,” Zoellner said. “Every step of the way, there are traps and snares waiting for him, right? And then to get through all of that, get to the races and now to be at this level. Every race he’s been in, they’ve said he doesn’t have a chance. He’s the Rodney Dangerfield of horse racing.”

            But Crupper’s success was predicted by Keith Crupper, who was smitten with the Candy Ride colt from literally day one. The colt out of Zoellner’s graded-stakes-winning mare She’s All In was born and raised on Crupper’s farm in Paris, Ky.

            “He facetimed me when he was born; he was so excited,” Zoellner said. “Even the night he was born, he was just taken with him. [The colt] popped up and was just very active. He was always dominant around the farm with the other colts and horses. He was just ‘the man’ coming out of the womb. Keith was always talking about him. I said, ‘I’m going to name this colt after you. This is the most you’ve ever talked about a horse since I’ve known you.’ So there you go.”

            Keith Crupper agrees.

            “This one stood up, and I was like, ‘This is the horse we’ve been waiting on,’” he said. “He was just special from the jump.”

            Crupper is special to his team in other ways. She’s All In died while foaling last year. Keith Crupper rushed her baby to the clinic in his truck in bad weather but the colt couldn’t be saved. Crupper also is the last horse that prominent Texas horseman Al Pike, who gave Zoellner’s horses their pre-track training for years, had for the owner before his death last summer after a long battle with cancer.

            “This was the last horse he had for Z,” Keith Crupper said. “He’d call me up and say, ‘He’s really good, but he’s got to overcome your name.’ Then he’d start laughing and hang up.”

              Even with a few mares still waiting to foal, Keith Crupper is joining Zoellner at the Preakness. 

              “I was talking to my son about that, and my brother the other day,” Keith Crupper said. “I was like, ‘You know what? If this horse wins and we get him in Kentucky standing in stud, he’d going to be in pedigrees on the sale [catalog] pages for 80 years.’ I mean, how cool is that? In all honesty, how do you top that?”

            Crupper needed four starts to win, but those races were all good efforts except for his debut sprinting. He won for the first time after Von Hemel added blinkers. After a third in an allowance race, he made his first stakes appearance in the April 18 Bathhouse Row.

            The perk of a fees-paid spot in the Preakness wasn’t on Von Hemel’s radar at the time.

            “It never crossed my mind,” he said. “I just wanted it because it was a mile and an eighth.”

            But Zoellner was highly aware of what was up for grabs beyond the first-place check and trophy.

            “Oh, heck yeah,” he said. “You kidding me? As an owner, we sit around all day and we get to dream and hope and pray. What ifs. You’re always looking at ‘if we win this, what’s next? What’s next? What’s next?’ When you run once a month roughly, you’ve got 29-30 days between races to dream. That’s what we owners do. We’re the head cheerleaders and head dreamers for the horses.

              “When I was interviewed right after the Bathhouse Row, I gave the ‘owner’ speech: ‘We’ll see how the horse comes out of the race. I’ll consult with my trainer. We’ll do what’s best for the horse’ – all the things an owner is supposed to say. But inside, I’m screaming and doing cartwheels, going, ‘Oh my gosh, I just qualified for the Preakness. And Oaklawn is even going to pay my way.’”

            The deal was sealed when Junior Alvarado, aboard Crupper for the first time in the Bathhouse Row, was available to ride in the Preakness.

            “I’ve got a great trainer. I’ve got a great jockey,” Zoellner said. “They’ve all got to run on the same surface. I love the line, ‘You can’t win if you’re not in.’ Right? It’s exciting. It will be fun. As an owner, it’s a victory just to be in this race, especially a little guy like me.

            “I had one horse born three years ago. One baby, and here I am running in the second leg of the Triple Crown,” he said. “That’s a dream come true. I’m competitive and would love to win. But even hitting the board would be a victory.”