Jess Jackson

Call it a Hail Mary pass for the Breeders' Cup -- and an incomplete pass at that. Less than two months before racing's world championship comes to Santa Anita, the Breeders' Cup said Friday that it will add $1 million to the winner's share of the Breeders' Cup Classic on Nov. 7 if both Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta start in the $5 million race. The winner's share in the 1 1/4 -mile race would increase to $3.7 million. The problem is that Jess Jackson, owner of the 3-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra, has said repeatedly that he would not run his horse on Santa Anita's synthetic track.

There are at least two ways to ponder the vision of a Cal sophomore named Jess Jackson, playing football in the late 1940s for the semipro San Francisco Seagulls against the Petaluma Leghorns. Without a helmet. One is the obvious: He is how he is today because of the hits he took back then. Or the other: Anybody who would do that is stubborn, tough, hard-charging and unstoppable. With the benefit of hindsight, we can assume the latter. Jackson is 78 now, ranked somewhere around No.

When Jess Jackson coaxed his family into helping crush a load of grapes some 25 harvests ago, he had no clue he was about to create one of the nation's largest wine empires. "I was attracted by the lifestyle. I wanted to get away from law and become a farmer," said Jackson, a former property rights attorney from San Francisco. Since that modest first vintage of 16,000 cases in rural Lakeport, about 90 miles north of San Francisco, his winery has carved out a niche as the Starbucks of wine.

Jess Jackson made his mark as a lawyer, carving out an accomplished career as a land-use attorney. He got into winemaking and became a huge success, building an empire on Kendall-Jackson chardonnay. So far, though, he doesn't seem to have gotten the hang of retirement. Jackson, who briefly stepped down from the top spot at Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates Ltd.

Former Hewlett-Packard chief Lew Platt is ending his short second career at Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates as founder Jess Jackson has decided to take the company off the market. Platt, 60, was hired in January 2000 as chief executive to restructure the Santa Rosa, Calif.-based firm, one of the largest wineries in the country, and get it ready for a public offering or sale to a large international company that could further its global expansion plans.