Kaleem Shah

The son of one of India’s top trainers, Kaleem Shah was instructed by his father, Majeed, not to follow him into racing despite the fact that Kaleem loved going to the track. “My dad kept us out of the racetrack life,” Kaleem Shah told Jay Hovdey of the Daily Racing Form in a January 5, 2012, story. “He wanted me to concentrate on my studies, and he made it absolutely clear to us that he never wanted us in the sport as a trainer.”

His dad won the India Triple Crown twice with Bright Hanovar and Our Select. And Shah’s uncle, Saeed Shah – also a trainer – won the India Derby twice.

Shah, who was born on July 6, 1962 in Bellary, India, earned a degree in electrical engineering at Bangalore University and then moved to the United States, getting a Master’s Degree in computer engineering at Clemson University and an MBA from George Washington University.

He first worked as a software programmer at Telenet, then founded his own communications company, CalNet, in 1989, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, near where Shah lives with his wife, Lubi, and their daughter and son, Sophie and Arman. CalNet offers intelligence analysis, information technology, and language services. One of CalNet’s biggest clients is the U.S. government, which mandates that he keep much of his work confidential.

He has no restrictions on revealing his feelings about America. He became an American citizen in the early ’90s, and when he followed through on his delayed childhood dreams and became a Thoroughbred owner, he designed his silks in red, white, and blue.

Shah began racing in Maryland with trainers Jim Murphy and Dale Capuano; then, after his company opened a division in California, with Doug O’Neill before hiring Bob Baffert. He has 30 horses with Baffert in California and 10 broodmares at Hill ’n’ Dale Farm in Kentucky, where his first top horse, Concord Point, stands. Shah bought Concord Point after he won his maiden in 2009, and the son of Tapit went on to win the $250,000 Grade 3 Iowa Derby by 81⁄2 lengths in track-record time and the $750,000 Grade 2 West Virginia Derby by a length in 2010.

Eden’s Moon, the highest-priced filly ($390,000) at the 2011 Mid-Atlantic Two-Year-Old Sale, gave Shah his first Grade 1 victory when she captured the 2012 Las Virgenes. She also won the Grade 2 San Clemente Handicap and finished second in the Grade 2 Hollywood Oaks and third in both the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks and Grade 2 Indiana Oaks. 

When Declassify won the Triple Bend in his first stakes attempt, Khaleem Shah had another Grade 1 victory. Two years earlier, he told Hovdey, “If winning comes as a result of racing, all the better. 

What I truly enjoy is my red, white, and blue silks out there running.”