He’s No Secretariat, but He’s Just as Freaky

A lot of horse racing fans think Secretariat was the greatest ever.

But he lost his first race, a 5 1/2-furlong sprint at Aqueduct. He inexplicably lost the Wood Memorial on his way to his Triple Crown sweep in 1973.

Other backstretchers vote for Citation.

But a horse called Bewitch beat him in his sixth start, and he lost a sprint to a horse called Saggy en route to his Triple Crown wins in 1948.

Man o’ War? OK, but he lost a sprint to a horse called Upset--giving the sports pages a new word to describe an unexpected outcome in any sport.

Native Dancer? A good bet. He lost only one race in his career. But that race was the Kentucky Derby, no less.

I bring up these imperial highnesses of the sport of kings because we have in our midst, this Breeders’ Cup week, a 2-year-old colt who bids fair to join their company, a colt who has been out seven times this year and has won all seven. And six of them were stakes.

Around the racetrack, they call a horse like this a freak. He’s an aberration. If he were human, he’d be Carl Lewis.

But with Favorite Trick, who is the favorite in the Juvenile in the Breeders’ Cup at Hollywood Park on Saturday, it’s hard to tell whether he’s the freak or his trainer is.

Patrick Byrne, the London-born trainer of Favorite Trick, won nine consecutive races in Kentucky this spring, 14 of 17 in one stretch, and 15 of 18 with three seconds.

What’s more, he may have two more “freaks” to throw at the Breeders’ Cup on Saturday. Juvenile Fillies favorite Countess Diana has won four of five--and finished second by half a length in the other--and Richter Scale is the one to beat in the Sprint.

You would think a handler with this kind of surgical touch would have been born in a stable or come from a long line of Chiricahua Apaches. But Patrick Byrne came from a suburb of London, where the only horse you would see would be at the cinema. The first time he got on a horse, he fell off.

He did come from a line of Irish horsemen. A grandfather was killed on horseback at the Curragh in Ireland and his father was in racing before he migrated to England.

It’s not that Pat Byrne whispers to horses, nor do they communicate with him by stamping their hooves. Mr. Ed was only a sitcom, after all.

But Mr. Byrne does seem to have a special way of communicating with his stable. He learned their language, so to speak, by riding thoroughbreds on dark mornings over a dozen race courses in the kingdom. He was just a little too tall and too heavy to be a proper jockey, but he put morning workouts in more than one royally bred hopeful.

The first thing he did on arriving in America 20 years ago--he is now a citizen--was make a beeline for Belmont Park, riding crop in hand, looking for a horse to exercise. He moved to Kentucky in time and more than held his own.

He acquired the tack on Favorite Trick when owner Joe LaCombe bought the horse at Calder Downs for $100,000 last spring.

He fell in love with the colt, not because of Favorite Trick’s conformation but because of his calm demeanor. He was as unflappable as a member of the House of Lords. If he were any haughtier, he’d wear a monocle. Some trainers have to work long, patient hours to get their horses to calm down. They even put hoods on them to get them in the starting gate, and they fret when their mounts get “washy”--what the entertainment world calls “flopsweat”--in the paddock.

Favorite Trick does everything but yawn at pressure. He’s as calm as a bridle path horse, Byrne maintains. Jockeys come back saying a trip on Favorite Trick is like riding a bus.

But is he true nobility? A Triple Crown horse? Another Secretariat? Native Dancer, even?

Conventional horse sense would seem to cast doubt. Favorite Trick’s sire was Phone Trick, a nice little sprinter but no router. And his foal might be a chip off the old hock, not able to get the classic mile-and-a-quarter distance.

On the other hand, they used to say Bold Ruler was just another nice little sprinter, a horse who would pack it in after a mile. But Bold Ruler was a close fourth in one of the best Kentucky Derby fields ever--Iron Liege, Gallant Man, Round Table, Bold Ruler--in 1957.

And guess who won the Preakness and beat most of them two weeks later. Bold Ruler. And guess who Secretariat’s sire was. Bold Ruler.

Favorite Trick may be able to go on. Trainer Byrne thinks he will. He tried him around two turns in his last race at Keeneland and he won the 1 1/16th-mile test effortlessly by three lengths.

“He just might be horse of the year if he wins the Breeders’ Cup,” says Byrne. “And he’ll win it.”

Sounds pretty freakish to the racing fraternity. And if trainer Byrne sees the light on in the barn some night and checks in to find Favorite Trick reading “War and Peace”--or the Daily Racing Form--or on the cell phone to his bookie, well, he may have to rename the horse, Trick Or Treat. And warn him not to brag in front of the bettors because it’ll cut the odds.