"George credits me with getting him into all of this," Farish said. "But with George, the light bulb was already on."
Through Farish, Bolton met John Moynihan, the bloodstock agent who bought Curlin for him. On Feb. 3, 2007, in his debut, the colt had raised eyebrows with an easy victory at Gulfstream Park.
Moynihan watched the race, then called Bolton and his two partners.
"Want in?" he asked.
The next day - Super Sunday - Moynihan raced to the Florida track, met Curlin's owners on the backstretch and closed the $3.5 million deal with a handshake. Eighty percent of the horse now belonged to a trio that included Bolton.
Writing the check made him "nervous as a cat," Bolton said. "I told my wife about it - after I did it. She said, `OK, but that's enough.'
"I mean, we could have had some serious egg on our face if Curlin had gone out there and gotten dusted."
The horse won twice more, then took third in the Kentucky Derby. The Preakness beckoned. Pinch me, Bolton thought on his way back to Baltimore.
The night before the race, Curlin's connections, 70 strong, dined on lump crab meat at - where else? - the Bolton farm. Saturday, as he'd done so often as a child, Bolton rode to Pimlico, but not as a tagalong.
Sitting with the other owners, he watched as Curlin stumbled from the starting gate.
"He went to his knees. His head almost touched the ground," Bolton said. "I'm thinking, `Great - we just lost 5 lengths.' "
But Curlin recovered and rejoined the pack, picking off horses one by one.
In the stands, Bolton swayed to and fro, as if on a rocking horse, murmuring, "Go Curlin, go Curlin, go Curlin."
Go, Curlin did. The race was his until Street Sense, the Derby champ, charged by on the final turn.
Bolton sagged. "Life goes on," he said to no one in particular.
But Curlin rallied again and appeared to win at the wire.
Bolton hushed the group.
"Nobody say a word until his number [4] goes up," he begged them.
Gripping his program, he stared straight at the tote board for almost a minute.
"We were parched, cotton-mouthed, exhausted," he recalled. "I thought, `Please don't let us get this close and lose.' "
No. 4 it was, by a nose.
That, Bolton said, was "the highlight of my racing life, times 10."
Curlin lost the Belmont Stakes by a head, then won two more major races before Bolton decided to cut ties and sell.
"I'm still the colt's biggest fan," he said.
In February, Curlin won the Dubai World Cup. Bolton was in the Miami airport but phoned his father, Perry, and had him call the race for him.
"My cell kept cutting out, and I was yelling, `Where is he? Where is he?' " Bolton said.
"Curlin won by 7 lengths," his father said.
Returning to San Francisco, Bolton climbed the steps to his den and touched the frame of a picture on the wall - a photo of jockey Robby Albarado aboard Curlin, his crop raised in Preakness triumph.
One year later, he said, seeing that picture "still gives me goosebumps."
mike.klingaman@baltsun.com
