RUNAWAY FOR SKIP AWAY

Well, the 14th annual Breeders’ Cup got “Byrned” Saturday. At the stake, so to speak.

Which is one way of saying a canny Anglo-Irish trainer who speaks to horses ran away with two of the most prestigious horse races of the year against the finest cavalry the world of racing could round up against him.

And both his entrants broke the track records for their events, running the fastest times in the 14 years of the competition.

Hey! Move over Secretariat! Take that, Man o’ War! Pay attention, Affirmed, Seattle Slew and you other icons of equine history. Get some bumper stickers reading, “I Love Favorite Trick.” Or, “Diana Is My Favorite Countess.”

Patrick Byrne showed up at this Super Bowl of turfdom with the best 2-year-old colt in the land and the best 2-year-old filly. Both of them won as they pleased, and the only question left is not whether they’re the best 2-year-olds of the year but whether they’re the best horses--period.

His colt, Favorite Trick, was so far ahead of his field they probably didn’t know he was in the race. And his filly, Countess Diana, similarly showed her heels to the best field of fillies money could lure. Since the money was at least a guaranteed $1 million in each case, there were no ribbon clerks in this game.

Byrne did not overshadow this Breeders’ Cup with multiple entries in each race, with a pull in the weights, racing luck. His horses won by a combined 14 lengths, Countess Diana by 8 1/2, Favorite Trick by 5 1/2. That’s the the equine equivalent of one-round TKOs. If it was a fight, they would have stopped it.

It was more than impressive. It was stunning. It might be like seeing Michael Jordan in high school, your first look at a rookie named Willie Mays or the first Sinatra record you ever heard--a legend in the making.

To the public at large, the champion horse race of the year is the Kentucky Derby. The winner is the equine heavyweight champion.

Horsemen know it’s not necessarily so. He has to be good, but often proves to be not necessarily great. Horsemen know the spring of the year is too early, and 3 years of age too young to measure true prowess. That’s one reason they dreamed up the Breeders’ Cup. It’s a time of year and a time in life when greatness can be more accurately gauged.

But that can’t overlook an unbeaten season. Even a 2-year-old one.

An axiom of horse racing is that an older horse will always beat a younger horse. So? A horse is asked to outshine his contemporaries.

To be sure, 2-year-old horses are the equine equivalent of teenagers and, like teenagers everywhere, they are prone to be, to say the least, inconsistent. You know. The first time you let them out on their own they come home with a safety pin through their nose. Or purple hair.

On the other hand, what better standard of consistency can you find than eight races entered, eight races won? You have to say that is anybody’s favorite trick.

The only way this Trick can be trumped emerged in the last Breeders’ Cup race Saturday. The richest horse race in the world, the Breeders’ Cup Classic, was won by a 4-year-old colt named Skip Away with such ease that his camouflage-like coat seemed to be in a different race.

But Skip Away has run more often than the Wilshire bus. Twenty-nine times he has been out. Eleven times, he has won. Commendable. But 17 times, he has lost. Favorite Trick hasn’t had that dubious pleasure yet. Who knows? He may never. He has a no-hitter going.

Skip Away probably won the Establishment vote by hurtling to his six-length win in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday. He also broke the record for that event with a 1:59 clocking. The track at Hollywood Park on Saturday was a pool table.

Could Skip Away beat Favorite Trick? Probably. And the Green Bay Packers can beat Michigan. And a heavyweight fighter can beat a middleweight.

The horse of the year should be chosen for how much he outruns his company. Skip Away beat a field so fractured his owner-trainer ponied up a $480,000 supplemental fee to put him in the $4-million race. He was that sure he had the winning hand. His horse has now won more money, $6,876,360, than all but one other (Cigar) in the history of racing.

But Favorite Trick has money to Byrne--more than $1.2 million so far--and he’s only a baby. “But he’s only beaten 2-year-olds!” complained Skip Away’s feisty trainer, Sonny Hine.

True. But he has beaten all of them. That’s more than Skip Away did in his 2-year-old season.

A Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner has never won a Kentucky Derby or Triple Crown race. But Skip Away never won any of them either. The only race Favorite Trick may lose this year is in a ballot box.