It’s feeding time for Pants On Fire (above) as thoroughbred trainer Kelly Breen makes sure his Resorts Haskell Invitational entry is in peak form for the $1 million race. In addition to Pants On Fire, the Farmingdale trainer has Belmont Stakes winner Ruler On Ice (left) in the field. PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff From the undercard to the main event. That’s been the journey of thoroughbred trainer Kelly Breen of Farmingdale.
“I used to come to the Haskell for the hat,” he said. “Now I’m coming for the trophy.”
Therewas a time, Breen recalled, when he justwanted to have a horse in one of the races on the card the day that Monmouth Park ran the Grade I Resorts Haskell Invitational. Now he has a chance to win the $1 million Haskell Invitational that is being run on Sunday.
Breen has two of the pre-race favorites with Belmont Stakes-winner Ruler On Ice as well as Pants On Fire, who is coming off a victory at Monmouth Park in his last start.
“They are two dynamite horses,” Breen pointed out over breakfast at Monmouth Park. “I can’t tell you which one would win.”
Breen made the decision to enter both in the Haskell after they went through a very good workout on July 17 at Monmouth.
“Fire and Ice,” as they are known, are two completely different racehorses. Pants On Fire is a speed horse who likes to run from the front, while Ruler On Ice, in winning the 1½-mile marathon called the Belmont Stakes, has the stamina and can come off the pace to win .
Breen plays no favorites, and as long as one of them gets home first, he’ll be happy. He has two “world class” jockeys riding his entries. Elvis Trujillo will be riding Pants On Fire, and Ruler On Ice will be ridden by Jose Valdivia, who guided him to his Belmont Stakes victory.
Winning the Haskell would be special to Breen because it was at Monmouth Park at age 13, when his father, Jackie, took him there for the first time, that his obsession with horse racing began.
Things have changed in a big way this year for Breen, thanks mostly to winning the Belmont Stakes with the long-shot Ruler On Ice. It was the first win in a Triple Crown race for the trainer, who, as an avid golfer, knows that a Triple Crown win is like winning a Majors championship in golf.
“I feel like I belong now,” he said. “You get elite status.”
Although Ruler On Ice was a 24-1 shot, Breen was confident his horse would run well.
“He had been training awfully well,” he said. “I remember saying before we left [for Belmont] that I’m going to hit the board. I had a feeling he’d do well and that he belonged.”
Breen added that the muddy track suited Ruler On Ice because he’d raced on an offtrack before. After returning to his home base at Monmouth Park following his victory at Belmont Park, everyone sought Breen out to congratulate him.
“It was like I was a rock star,” he said. “It was surreal.”
In the cafeteria in the stable area at the racetrack, press clippings on Ruler On Ice’s win hang on the wall in recognition of Breen’s accomplishments. He was the local boy who made it big. PantsOn Fire started off what has been an incredible year for the Old Bridge native (a Cedar Ridge High School graduate). Back in March, Pants gave him his first $1 million purse victory, the Louisiana Derby. Three months later, he took the next big step, winning the Triple Crown race at Belmont.
Like the Haskell, the Belmont was very important to Breen because it is the tri-state area’s premier race. It means more to him personally than the Kentucky Derby because his roots are here.
Belmont was also the culmination of everything that Breen has worked for since he became enamored with thoroughbred racing. The date 6-11-11 (the date of the 2011 Belmont Stakes) is when everything changed for Breen, who now has a stable of 33 horses that he trains.
He recalled working in Marlboro as a 13- year-old for no pay mucking out stalls. Going from those humble beginnings to the winner’s circle at the Belmont Stakes “fulfilled every dream,” he said.
It was also a tribute to his parents, Milve and Jackie. They would drive him to work in Marlboro (first at Baymar Farms and then with Ralph DeSantis) in the morning before school and then take him back after school.
“They’re a big part of my being able to live out my dream,” he said. “They followed the dream of a 13-year-old.”
Winning Sunday would be another dream come true for Breen, who trains for horse owners George and Lori Hall, who have a summer home in Atlantic Highlands and who, like Breen, call Monmouth Park their home track. Breen was the leading trainer at Monmouth in 2005 and again in ’06.
If history means anything in this race, Ruler On Ice is the son of a previous Haskell winner, Roman Ruler.
Breen knows that winning the Haskell (ABC will broadcast the race nationally from 5 to 6 p.m.) is far from a given.
“It’s a great field,” he pointed out.
The field of eight horses will include Shackleford, who won the second leg of the Triple Crown — the Preakness — and will be the likely favorite. Also in the field is Rattlesnake Hanover, who won the Long Branch Stakes at Monmouth. Trainer Bob Baffert, who has won the Haskell four times, will go to the gate with either Coil (son of Haskell winner Point Given) or Prayer For Relief
“I only hope we have a record crowd,” Breen said. “These are my people.”
Nothing would please Breen more than to win another $1 million race at his home track in front of his people.