Ahmed Zayat
Zayat was born in Cairo, Egypt to a wealthy family, and grew up in an ethnically diverse (majority jewish) neighborhood where he learned to ride horses. At age 18, he moved to the United States where he attended college and ultimately obtained a master's degree in business and public health from Boston University. After a brief career in commercial real estate in New York City, he returned to Egypt, and for about a decade ran the Al-Ahram Beverages Company, which he owned as part of an investment group. After the company was purchased by Heineken in 2002, Zayat stayed on a few more years but also began investing in racehorses and established Zayat Stables in 2005. Upon returning to the United States for good in 2007, he made his racing stables his full-time occupation, working with his son, Justin, to build the business.
While generally successful with his race horses, Zayat's goal of winning the Kentucky Derby eluded him several times, including three second-place finishes, until his win with American Pharoah. He also filed bankruptcy proceedings in 2010 when a bank called a note due and tried to foreclose on his horses. Zayat Stables successfully completed its Chapter 11 reorganization, but Zayat was next plagued by legal issues related to his penchant for betting large sums of money on horse racing. Nonetheless, Zayat generated considerable positive publicity on social media for his efforts to save his racehorse Paynter from life-threatening health problems, a successful struggle that earned the colt the 2012 NTRA Moment of the Year Award and Secretariat Vox Populi Award.
The Zayat family lives in Teaneck, New Jersey with his wife, Joanne. They have four children: Ashley, Justin, Benjamin, and Emma. Their eldest son, Justin, helps run the Zayat Stables operation, and their youngest, Emma, inspired the name of Littleprincessemma, the dam of American Pharoah.
Early career and personal life
Ahmed Zayat was born in Egypt in 1962 to an affluent family and grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood in the Cairo suburb of Maadi. His father, Alaa al-Zayat, was a prominent doctor and professor of medicine, a personal physician to Anwar Sadat. His grandfather, Ahmed Hasan al-Zayyat, was a leading intellectual who established the Egyptian literary magazine al-Risala, described as "the most important intellectual weekly in 1930s Egypt and the Arab world." Born into what was then a peasant family, the earlier al-Zayyat studied at Al-Azhar University before taking up legal studies in Cairo and Paris; he taught Arabic literature at American University in Cairo, and for three years in Baghdad, before founding al-Risala in 1933.
As a young man, Ahmed Zayat learned to ride horses at the local country club. Zayat competed in show jumping during his early teens, winning national titles as a child in the under-12 and under-14 age divisions. He moved to the United States at the age of 18, and earned an undergraduate degree from Yeshiva University. He obtained a master's degree in public health administration from Boston University. Though the Zayat Stables, LLC website once stated that Zayat attended Harvard University, he did not. After graduation, he worked for Zev Wolfson, a New York City commercial real estate developer and investor. Zayat described Wolfson as "the toughest guy I ever worked for ... such a perfectionist. A great negotiator."
Zayat returned to Egypt in 1995 and formed an investment group, which purchased the Al-Ahram Beverages Company in 1997, outbidding Anheuser-Busch and Heineken International. Al-Ahram had been owned by the Egyptian government and Zayat had helped find American investors to take over government-owned businesses that had been nationalized by Gamal Abdel Nasser back in the 1950s. The original beer product was of poor quality, mocked as being able to "power heavy machinery if there was no diesel fuel available." Under Zayat's leadership, additional brands of beer were introduced, and he developed a non-alcoholic beer, Fayrouz, designed specifically for the Muslim market. The company was modernized from a run-down operation to a publicly traded business that sold in 2002 to Heineken International for $280 million, more than three times its pre-acquisition valuation, in what was then the largest corporate buyout in Egyptian history.
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Zayat continued to run Al-Ahram until 2007, but periodically returned to the United States, where he started buying racehorses and formed Zayat Stables in 2005. His motivation to return to the US was, in part, to commute less and be more involved with his family and children. Upon leaving Al-Ahram, he declared that he was "retiring", but as his wife explained, "he can't be retired for more than 15 seconds," and he soon expanded his horse operation to include both breeding and racing stock. He still owns other business interests in Egypt, including being the majority shareholder of Misr Glass Manufacturing, which is Egypt's largest maker of glass containers.
Zayat lives in Teaneck, New Jersey, with his wife, Joanne. The couple have four children: Ashley, Justin, Benjamin and Emma. Justin, a 2015 graduate of New York University, works closely with his father in the Zayat Stables business. While residing primarily in New Jersey, the Zayats also have residences in New York, Egypt and London. Zayat donates to schools and charities, including those that help special-needs children. Although The New York Times has stated that Zayat has publicly identified as both Jewish and Muslim at times, Zayat stated, "Why is it relevant, and why does it matter? It's personal."
Zayat Stables
Zayat first began buying Thoroughbred race horses in 2005. Zayat Stables owns approximately 200 horses at any one time. Zayat made a number of big-ticket sales purchases early on including a horse he named Maimonides, purchased at Keeneland as a yearling in 2006 for $4.6 million. In addition, Zayat paid $1.6 million for the highest-priced horse at the 2006 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale, a filly by Empire Maker named Mushka, whom he resold in 2008 for $2.4 million.
Maimonides was named in honor of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, who is respected by both Jews and Muslims. At the time, Zayat explained, "If this horse was going to be a superstar, I wanted an appropriate name... I wanted it to be pro-peace, and about loving your neighbor." Zayat also had difficulty obtaining the name from the Jockey Club, as it had been reserved by Earle I. Mack, who owned race horses and also happened to be the chairman of the board of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, . After Zayat donated $100,000 to the school to "promote peace," Mack released his reservation of the name. But, in the first of Zayat's many racing disappointments, the colt's promising racing career was cut short by injury after two races.
The horses of Zayat Stables began to earn race purses in 2006. In 2008, Zayat was North America's leading owner by earnings. Zayat Stables ranked second in the nation for earnings in 2007, third in 2009, fourth in 2010 and fifth nationally in 2011. Between 2006 and 2014, Zayat Stables ranked in the top ten leading owners by purse money won in six of those years and always in the top 20. Zayat has horses at all stages of the racing process, stallions, broodmares, young horses in training and active racing stock. His daughters were the inspiration for the names of two race horses, stakes-winner Point Ashley, who in turn inspired daughter Ashley's costume jewelry business name; and Littleprincessemma, dam of American Pharoah. Race horse Justin Phillip was named for Justin.
The business base for the horse racing operation is Hackensack, New Jersey, but Zayat's horses live in different locations across the US. His horse breeding stock live mostly in Kentucky, young horses are started in Florida. The racing stock have been in training with multiple trainers including Bob Baffert, Mark Casse, D. Wayne Lukas, Todd Pletcher, Dale Romans and others. Zayat Stables keeps about 30 broodmares and their foals in Kentucky along with roughly 20 yearlings. In 2015 the operation stood 13 breeding stallions at stud. Zayat typically retains a 25% interest in the stallions he sends to stud, though in the case of Pioneerof the Nile, he kept a 75% interest.
As of 2015, Zayat's horses include American Pharoah and 13 other Grade I winners. These include: 2013 Breeders' Cup runner and 2012 Haskell Invitational winner Paynter; 2013 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap winner Justin Phillip; 2012 Arkansas Derby winner Bodemeister; Pioneerof the Nile who won the 2008 CashCall Futurity and 2009 Santa Anita Derby; three-time Grade I winner Zensational. He has entered horses in the Breeders' Cup races 16 times, with his best result a fourth-place finish in 2007.
Zayat has experienced significant highs and lows in his quest for Triple Crown classic wins. Three times Zayat's horses placed second in the Kentucky Derby. In 2009, Zayat's homebred Pioneerof the Nile started a streak of Zayat horses finishing second in the Kentucky Derby and other classic races when he was defeated by Mine That Bird. In 2010, Zayat campaigned Eskendereya, winner of the Wood Memorial and considered the favorite for the Kentucky Derby. On the Sunday prior to the Derby, Eskendereya was withdrawn from the race and subsequently retired to stud due to a soft tissue injury that would have taken at least a year to heal. In 2011, Zayat entered Nehro, who finished second to Animal Kingdom.