Byrne on Fire

A trainer in his native England thought his level was mucking out stalls.

In California, Bill Shoemaker didn’t have a spot for him as his right-hand man.

In New York, he turned down a job with Hall of Famer Woody Stephens to take a post with another trainer.

“Fate is fate,” Patrick Byrne was saying. “But I will say this: I’ve worked hard for a long time in this game to get where I am.”

Byrne is smack-dab in the limelight for the 14th Breeders’ Cup, to be run Saturday at Hollywood Park. There are seven races worth $11 million, and the Byrne barn has brought horses that will be favored in three of the $1-million stakes--the Juvenile, the Juvenile Fillies and the Sprint.

“We got here [from Kentucky] early,” Byrne said. “All three have settled in nicely and have worked like they really like this track. I’m ready to go.”

His showcase horse is the undefeated Favorite Trick, who has assembled a seven-race streak, an accomplishment by a 2-year-old that ranks with Foolish Pleasure’s seven in a row in 1974. If Favorite Trick wins the Juvenile, Byrne thinks horse-of-the-year voters should pay attention, even though a 2-year-old hasn’t won the national title since Secretariat in 1972.

Favorite Trick’s winning ways have almost been matched by Countess Diana, Byrne’s entry in the Juvenile Fillies. Countess Diana’s five-race record has been blotched by a second-place finish at Churchill Downs in June, on a day when she blew a shoe and still lost by only half a length.

In the Sprint, Byrne will send out Richter Scale, a lightly raced 3-year-old who has won stakes in Florida, Kentucky and New York. Richter Scale is a California-bred who has never raced here, and Byrne was surprised to learn that a Cal-bred has never won a Breeders’ Cup race, a 13-year curse that has victimized 35 starters.

If all three get to the wire on time, Byrne would share a page in the Breeders’ Cup record book with Wayne Lukas, who in 1988 at Churchill Downs won the same three races that Byrne is running Saturday.

Lukas is running against Byrne’s contingent in all three races this time, including the formidable Grand Slam in the Juvenile and Love Lock, the only filly to beat Countess Diana, in the Juvenile Fillies.

Lukas, winner of 13 Breeders’ Cup races, is on the media back burner for this edition. For one thing, he has kept his horses at Santa Anita, away from the hubbub at Hollywood Park. For another, the Breeders’ Cup scheduled a bus Tuesday morning to transport press cross-town, from the headquarters hotel near Hollywood Park to Lukas’ barn, and nobody showed up. And third, the Breeders’ Cup press office is distributing a daily page-long report on Byrne’s horses. Lukas’ hopefuls are listed in the regular updates for each race.

The London-born Byrne, 41, has never started a horse in a Breeders’ Cup. He worked as an exercise rider and assistant trainer for some of the best trainers in New York and California before he took out his own training license in 1986. Married to the former Jill Howe, the daughter of a trainer, Byrne left New York in 1990 with only two horses, both of whom they owned.

“No matter what happens [Saturday], we’ve been in the business long enough to know there are ups and downs,” said Jill Byrne, who used to exercise her husband’s horses. “But you’ve always got to say to yourself that tomorrow is another day. You have to know about the struggling years to appreciate the highs if they come.”

Osmosis brought Byrne to the game early. He is a fifth-generation horseman whose grandfather and father’s uncle were killed in riding accidents. As a young man, he worked in England for Reg Akehurst, mucking out as many as 20 stalls a day and frustrated that he wasn’t given anything else to do.

“He didn’t do me any favors,” Byrne recently told the Sporting Life, an English racing paper. “I worked my backside off for him, and it wouldn’t have hurt for him to give me a ride. It was almost Dickensian the way you worked. But if you left, there was always the threat of being blacklisted. I don’t have a chip on my shoulder for England, but here if you work hard, it’s going to happen.”

Byrne was 21 when he went to New York and was befriended by John Russell, a fellow Brit who was training for the powerful Phipps stable.

“John told me something I didn’t forget,” Byrne said. “He told me not to get lazy. He said, ‘A lot of the guys around here get done at 10 in the morning, and then they’re in the bar by noon. Stick around as long as you can. You’ll pick up a lot of things that will help you down the road.’ ”

Russell, now retired and living in Del Mar, doesn’t remember saying that, but he does remember Byrne.

“His background was horses and he was a good exercise rider,” Russell said. “He was very serious about what he did. I wish I could take sole credit for his success, but he worked for a lot of excellent trainers. Patrick was God-gifted to succeed in this business, and while luck always plays a part, with him there hasn’t been that much luck involved. He’s earned it.”

Russell sent Byrne to California, recommending him to trainer Tommy Doyle. After that, he was in New York with LeRoy Jolley and David Whiteley and in California with Neil Drysdale.

“The thing Patrick learned from Neil was patience,” Jill Byrne said. “He’s conservative about running the horses.”

Richter Scale won the Derby Trial this year at Churchill Downs, and for his owners, Richard and Nancy Kaster, that brought on a galloping case of Derby fever. The Derby was to be run a week later, but Patrick Byrne dissuaded them.

“That wouldn’t have been the right thing for the horse,” Byrne said. “The trick to this business is to get good horses and then do right by them. Of course, getting the good horses isn’t easy.”

In 1983, when Stephens was in the early stages of winning five consecutive Belmont Stakes, he offered Byrne a job.

“It was incredible how many good horses Woody had in his barn,” Byrne said. “But I would have been the fifth or sixth man there, and Howie Tesher asked me to join him. I was going to be No. 2 with him.”

After almost four years with Tesher, Byrne went out on his own. He won 50 races the first two years, but only 11 the next two years. Around 1991, he considered working full time for Shoemaker, the legendary jockey just starting out as a trainer.

“The opportunity didn’t seem that good,” Byrne said. “He had Paddy [Gallagher] already, and it was obvious then that Paddy was going to be his top guy.”

In 1994-95, Byrne won 11 races. With a young daughter now part of the family, he was just hacking out a living in Kentucky, but the Preston brothers sent him some horses, and so did Robert Sangster, from England. The breakout year was 1996, when the stable’s purse total approached $800,000.

This year, Favorite Trick alone has earned more than $700,000. At Churchill Downs, Byrne won with the first eight horses he saddled and finished the season with 14 wins in 17 starts. His three other runners finished second.

“I would have liked to have gone 17 for 17,” the insatiable Byrne said. “I’m not up with the Lukases and [Bob] Baffert yet. I’m not at the sales with millions of dollars to spend.”

But he’s at the Breeders’ Cup with millions to win.

“Stat-wise, I think I’ve always been above average,” Byrne said. “But this has already been an amazing year.”

* THE MILE

Spinning World figures to be the latest foreign favorite. C6

* SAD TALE

Tale Of The Cat is not expected to run because of hot weather. C6

* OPENING DAY

Ridgewood Pearl Stakes is feature race at Hollywood Park today. C6