Buddy from Brooklyn Character Profile
Robert J. “Bobby” Frankel
Brooklyn horseman, Buddy Jacobson protégé, master of the claiming game and one of the most accomplished Thoroughbred trainers in American racing history.
Robert J. “Bobby” Frankel was one of the great self-made figures of American horse racing. Long before he trained champions, won the Belmont Stakes or commanded barns filled with valuable international runners, Frankel was a sharp Brooklyn racetrack regular trying to understand every angle of the game. His earliest education came not from an elite racing family or an expensive breeding operation, but from gambling, observation, hard stable work and his association with Howard “Buddy” Jacobson.
Frankel’s place in the Buddy from Brooklyn story is therefore much deeper than that of a famous trainer who happened to know Buddy. Frankel belonged to Buddy’s working world. He learned inside the intensely competitive New York racing culture in which horses were claimed, improved, entered, shipped and raced with little room for hesitation. He later transformed those lessons into a career that reached the highest levels of the sport.
From Brooklyn Railbird to Horseman
Frankel was born in Brooklyn on July 9, 1941. His parents were in the catering business, but the young Frankel became fascinated with Belmont Park and the racetrack. He initially approached racing as a bettor. Determined to gain better access to the horses and stable area, he began walking horses after their morning exercise, performing the unglamorous but necessary work of a hot walker.
That position gave Frankel an education unavailable from the grandstand. He could watch how horses behaved after training, how experienced horsemen evaluated their condition and how small decisions affected future performance. His eye for detail, memory for horses and willingness to study the claiming ranks became the foundation of his career.
Frankel began training on his own in 1966. His first years were not instantly spectacular, but they established the pattern that would define him: finding potential in horses that other people had overlooked. Rather than depending entirely upon expensive yearlings and fashionable pedigrees, Frankel learned to identify runners whose ability had not yet been fully revealed.
The Buddy Jacobson Connection
Public racing histories identify Bobby Frankel as an assistant to Buddy Jacobson during the early part of Frankel’s career in New York. This placed him inside the operation of a trainer known for aggressive claiming, ambitious placement and an instinct for turning relatively inexpensive horses into productive runners.
Buddy and Frankel were also remembered as personally close. Years later, Buddy’s son, trainer David Jacobson, described Frankel as being very close with his father and called him a trendsetter. The relationship continued after Frankel established his own operation. When David was still a teenager, Buddy sent him west to work for Frankel at Santa Anita, giving the younger Jacobson firsthand exposure to the operation Frankel had built in California.
The surviving stories suggest a relationship built on more than casual racetrack acquaintance. Buddy trusted Frankel professionally, helped connect him with other horsemen and eventually entrusted his own son to Frankel’s supervision. In one remembrance, longtime farrier Ray Amato recalled that he finally agreed to work for Frankel after Buddy Jacobson instructed him to accept the account.
These details reveal the informal network through which racing knowledge and opportunity passed from one barn to another. Trainers, assistants, riders, farriers, owners and gamblers repeatedly crossed paths. Reputation was currency, and a recommendation from an established trainer could change a young horseman’s career.
Frankel eventually became far more famous than nearly anyone from his early circle, but the qualities that first made him successful remained closely connected to that New York education: observation, nerve, claiming knowledge, competitive instinct and the confidence to act before everyone else recognized a horse’s value.
The Claim That Changed Everything
Frankel’s first major stakes victory came in the 1970 Suburban Handicap with Barometer, a horse he had claimed for $15,000. The victory perfectly represented his emerging reputation. Frankel could examine an ordinary-looking runner, detect unrealized ability and develop the horse beyond what previous connections believed possible.
His work with claiming horses earned him attention in New York and gave him the resources to expand. He won his first Saratoga training title in 1970, demonstrating that his methods could succeed against the leading barns at one of the most prestigious racing meetings in the country.
California and the Rise of a Racing Powerhouse
Frankel moved his operation permanently to California in 1972. The transition produced immediate results. During his first Hollywood Park spring meeting, he won 60 races and established a meeting record. The Brooklyn horseman who had entered the sport through the claiming ranks was now one of the most closely watched trainers on the West Coast.
California gave Frankel year-round racing, major owners and access to a wider population of American and European horses. His barn gradually evolved from a collection of claiming runners into an international stakes operation. Prominent owners including Edmund Gann, Bert and Diana Firestone, Jerry Moss, Stavros Niarchos and Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms entrusted him with increasingly valuable horses.
Frankel became particularly respected for handling European imports. He understood that a horse arriving from overseas could not always be trained exactly like an American dirt runner. His willingness to adjust feeding, exercise, medication, equipment, distance and racing schedule to the needs of each individual horse became one of his defining professional strengths.
The Frankel Method
Finding Hidden Ability
Frankel became famous for recognizing talent in horses that appeared ordinary in another stable. His best claims often improved dramatically after joining his barn.
Individual Training
He resisted using one rigid program for every horse. Frankel observed each animal closely and altered its routine according to temperament, condition and response.
Patience and Placement
Despite his hard-driving personality, Frankel could be patient with a valuable runner. He searched for the right distance, surface and level of competition rather than racing solely for convenience.
Relentless Competition
Frankel studied rivals, conditions and racing schedules intensely. He expected loyalty and attention from the people around him and was known for expressing his opinions directly.
A Record Among the Greatest
Frankel trained from 1966 through 2009, compiling 3,654 victories and more than $227 million in purse earnings. He won 30 individual meeting titles and earned the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer in 1993, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003.
His extraordinary 2003 season included 25 Grade 1 victories, then a world record for top-level wins in a single year. That season also brought Frankel his long-awaited American classic victory when Empire Maker won the Belmont Stakes.
- Inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1995.
- Won five Eclipse Awards as America’s Outstanding Trainer.
- Trained ten officially recognized champions.
- Won six Breeders’ Cup races with six different horses.
- Won the Pacific Classic a record six times.
- Won the 2003 Belmont Stakes with Empire Maker.
- Trained 2004 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Ghostzapper.
- Won major races on dirt and turf throughout the United States.
- Accumulated 3,654 victories from 17,657 career starts.
- Finished his career with purse earnings exceeding $227 million.
Champions and Major Horses
Frankel’s most celebrated horses included Ghostzapper, Empire Maker, Bertrando, Ginger Punch, Squirtle Squirt, Intercontinental, Leroidesanimaux, Sightseek, Peace Rules, Milwaukee Brew, Starine, Ventura and Medaglia d’Oro. They represented different surfaces, distances and racing styles, demonstrating the breadth of his ability as a trainer.
His influence extended well beyond the horses he personally trained. Chad Brown, who worked as Frankel’s assistant, went on to become a dominant championship trainer. Members of the Jacobson family also carried his lessons into later generations of racing. Frankel’s barn functioned as both a championship stable and an informal school for future horsemen.
A Difficult but Respected Personality
Frankel could be blunt, suspicious, emotional and intensely private. He was not known for polished public relations. He could argue with riders, question decisions and react strongly when he believed a horse had not been handled properly. Those qualities sometimes made him difficult, but they also arose from his relentless involvement with every aspect of his stable.
People who knew him frequently emphasized his natural connection with animals. Behind the confrontational racetrack exterior was a trainer who remembered the habits of individual horses and cared deeply about their condition. After his death, a division of the Old Friends Thoroughbred retirement organization was named in his honor. Frankel also left the organization a substantial contribution and his collection of racing trophies, helping provide dignified retirement for former racehorses.
Bethenny Frankel: Bobby’s Famous Daughter
Bobby Frankel was the father of entrepreneur, television personality, producer, author and philanthropist Bethenny Frankel. Although she became famous in a very different arena, her drive, directness and instinct for business have often reminded observers of the uncompromising personality associated with her father.
Bethenny first received national television attention as the runner-up on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. She later became one of the best-known original personalities on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York City.
She used that television exposure to develop Skinnygirl, beginning with the Skinnygirl Margarita and expanding the name into a broader lifestyle brand. Bethenny also became a bestselling author, television producer, podcast host and frequent commentator on business, celebrity culture and consumer products.
Disaster Relief Through BStrong
Bethenny founded the BStrong disaster-relief initiative in partnership with Global Empowerment Mission. The program supplies emergency aid, food, shelter, gift cards and other direct assistance to individuals and families affected by hurricanes, fires, wars and other humanitarian crises.
Father and Daughter
Bethenny has publicly described her relationship with Bobby as complicated. Her parents separated when she was young, and she was largely raised by her mother and stepfather, horse trainer John Parisella. Bobby and Bethenny were estranged for portions of her life, but they reconciled before his death in November 2009.
Their story adds a personal dimension to Frankel’s public legacy. To the racing world, he was a legendary trainer whose name belonged beside the greatest horsemen in the sport. To his daughter, he was a brilliant but emotionally distant father whose influence remained present even during years of separation.
Why Bobby Frankel Matters to the Movie
Bobby Frankel provides an important bridge between Buddy Jacobson’s early New York racing empire and the larger national world of American Thoroughbred racing. His transformation from Buddy’s assistant into a record-setting California trainer demonstrates the level of talent, ambition and influence that existed inside Buddy’s original circle.
On screen, Frankel can represent the young horseman absorbing everything around him: Buddy’s claiming instincts, the language of the stable, the pressure of owners, the calculations behind each entry and the constant search for an advantage. As Frankel’s career rises, his success also reveals what Buddy might have achieved had his own life not moved toward scandal, crime and destruction.
The relationship offers both admiration and contrast. Frankel carried the competitive lessons of the New York racetrack into a disciplined, decades-long career. Buddy possessed many of the same instincts but became consumed by forces outside the stable. One man reached the Hall of Fame; the other became the central figure in one of New York’s darkest and most complicated true-crime stories.
Bobby Frankel emerged from Buddy Jacobson’s racing circle and built one of the greatest training careers in the history of the American turf.