TDN Weekend

had in any other part of the world. When I came here, I was a nobody." Shah is so intent on being recog- nized as an American that when he was granted U.S. citizenship he de- cided it was the only country with which he wanted to be officially identified. "All of us have choices to make, so the day I became a U.S. citizen, I gave up my Indian citizenship," he said. "You can't be married to two wives. Polygamy is not acceptable. Everything about this county, from the democratic principles to the values of this country, appeal to me every which way. It was a volun- tary choice." He has made his fortune as the sole owner of CALNET Inc., a com- pany he founded in 1989 with $3,000 in capital. CALNET's web- site describes the company as "one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the Intelligence Analysis, Language Services, and IT consulting services arena." After 9-11, the U.S. Government became CALNET's biggest client. Because of security reasons, Shah doesn't like to say much about his company, but, according to the company's website, its services are put to use in, among other places, Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and Korea. "We are proud to serve in all the hot spots around the world today," Shah said. Born in Bellary, India, Shah, 54, never could have imagined that this would be his future career. Nor did he ever have any reason to be- lieve that he would develop one of the top racing stables in the U.S., winning the 2014 GI Breeders' Cup Classic with Bayern (Offlee Wild), the 2015 GI Santa Anita Derby with Dortmund and the 2016 the GI Del Mar Futurity with Klimt (Quality Road) and would pre-enter four horses for this year's Breeders' Cup. That he would become involved in horse racing is not surprising. Shah's father and his uncle, S. S. Shah, were among the top train- ers in India. Majeed Shah came to the tracks in the city then known as Bombay in the early sixties and his clients included the Bollywood superstar Mehmood Ali. He trained the winner of 15 Indian Classics including an Indian Derby winner named Nijinsky, who pre-dated the better known equine star by the same name. Majeed Shah retired in the early nineties. S.S. Shah is still active. Father and son were close and Kaleem spent many a morning and afternoon around his father's sta- ble. "At one point in my life, I did want to be a trainer," he said "I loved and admired my dad and thought I'd follow in his footsteps. That was quickly squashed. It was not a choice available to me." The elder Shah felt that being a horse trainer was too hard a life for any of his children and that they could fare much better in other fields. In a country where children are taught that their parents' de- cisions are not to be questioned, Shah was told in no uncertain terms to stay away from the race- track. "Until high school, I would go with my father to the races on the weekends and during the summer Shah's father, S.M. SHAH 20

• Cover