Bert Firestone, who with his wife, Diana, campaigned the superstar filly Genuine Risk, winner of the 1980 Kentucky Derby, died on Monday at a hospital in West Palm Beach, Fla. Firestone was 89. Racing on both sides of the Atlantic, with breeding operations in Virginia and Ireland, Bert Firestone and his wife played at the very top level of the game throughout the 1970s and 1980s and had a remarkable string of international champions during an era in which overseas travel was a rarity. In addition to their racing and breeding stock, Firestone also owned Calder Race Course and Gulfstream Park from 1989-1991. “We are all deeply saddened by the news of Bert Firestone’s passing,” trainer Christopher Clement, who trained the Grade 1 winner Winchester for the couple, said in a social-media post. “He was a true class act. Always putting his horses first and absolutely loved the game.” Firestone made his money in real estate, but he was an avid horsemen throughout his life. He galloped horses for one summer for Charlie Whittingham in Southern California in the 1950s, and both he and his wife were active with show horses and hunters. In the 1970s, Bert Firestone won several amateur-rider races in Ireland, and trained several of his own homebreds in the 1980s. The Firestones campaigned two Eclipse Award winners in the 1970s, with Honest Pleasure capturing the 1975 2-year-old colt championship and What a Summer named the sprint champion of 1977. The Firestones also raced General Assembly, who was a top juvenile in 1978 and set a Saratoga track record when he won the Travers the following year over a sloppy track. The record held until Arrogate broke it in 2016. Genuine Risk brought the couple fame outside of the Thoroughbred world when she became only the second filly to win the Kentucky Derby – and the first since Regret in 1915. Genuine Risk finished second in the other two legs of the Triple Crown that year and won the Ruffian Handicap. Her record led voters to name her 3-year-old filly champion and the Firestones as champion owners that year as well. The next year, the Firestones had two champions in Europe in the 3-year-old division with the colt Blue Wind and the filly April Run. That same year, their Play It Safe was named champion 2-year-old filly in France. April Run raced twice in the U.S. in 1982, winning both the Turf Classic at Aqueduct and the Washington, D.C. International, earning champion grass mare honors. In 1987, their homebred Theatrical, trained by Bill Mott, won six Grade 1 races and was named champion grass horse. Theatrical would go on to sire Winchester. The Firestones began downsizing their racing and breeding operations in the late 1980s, but they continued to run horses through this year. Bert Firestone is survived by his wife, along with four children: Matt, Greg, Ted, and Alison.