Plus Que Parfait Trainer Walsh Keeps Rolling Along

The words come forth thoughtfully and without hesitation from Brendan Walsh as he tries to sum up the past 29 days, maintaining their articulation even when there is substantial weight of emotion behind them.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, really, given that a trainer's job is to keep focus at a razor's edge no matter what whirlwind makes landfall in their path. But if ever Walsh had reason to let his diligent mind succumb to being overwhelmed, the past month has provided the native of Ireland reason beyond rebuke.

On the evening of March 30, the former work rider for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum's Godolphin operation saw one of his career bucket list items move from the fantastical to reality. In his first visit back to Dubai since his residency there, he departed with a souvenir for the ages when his charge Plus Que Parfait became the first U.S.-based horse to capture the $2.5 million UAE Derby Sponsored By Saeed & Mohammed Al Naboodah Group (G2).

Walsh could have ditched the airbus and flown back to the States on the emotional high of that defining triumph, but his arrival in Florida was greeted with news of the crushing kind. His father, Patrick, had taken a turn for the worse in his battle with cancer, and so, with his head already trying to wrap itself around one life-altering moment, Walsh returned home to County Cork, Ireland, to bid farewell to the man who helped pry the doors open on his son's life's passion.

It hasn't been a month since his father's funeral, but another pressing issue has inserted itself into Walsh's world. That chestnut runner who pulled off magic in Dubai is now set to become Walsh's first Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) starter. Like everything else that has transpired around him of late, trying to digest that is something that just has to wait.

"It's all happened so quickly," the affable Walsh said. "I got back from Florida and I was back a day and had to turn around and go to Ireland, and that all happened over a series of a few days. Then we came back here and we've been rolling since we got back here. 

"I don't know if I've really gotten my head around the whole thing yet. Even the Dubai thing, everything has happened so, so fast. But that might be a good thing, too, that we didn't have as much time to think about it. It probably, for me, was a good thing that I was thrown straight back into it."

The moments to sit back and take a reflective breath have been in short order for Walsh the last few seasons. In his seventh full year of hanging out his own shingle, the former assistant to Eddie Kenneally is enjoying the fruits of a career that has turned the corner in terms of quality and is producing graded stakes winners on the regular.

He's already had one classic starter in Multiplier, who competed in both the 2017 Preakness Stakes (G1) and Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets (G1), and he's been achingly close to adding a first grade 1 victory to his résumé: something Proctor's Ledge came three-quarters of a length away from achieving when second in the Longines Just a Game Stakes (G1T) in June.

That Walsh is set to do the Kentucky Derby walkover May 4 with a horse who boasts both proven form over the Churchill Downs strip and a recent high-class victory is a testament to how much Walsh has kept his barn marching forward since saddling his first winner in 2012. To hear him tell it, however, this is all just an extension of a pattern established at an early age.

The infamous pony of his childhood has been getting as much publicity recently as the ridgling set to represent Walsh in the first leg of the Triple Crown. The pony was purchased with the £200 that Patrick Walsh won in a raffle back in the day, a gift to his son who found himself afflicted with the common disease of becoming horse crazy.

It didn't matter that neither a young Brendan Walsh nor anyone in his family actually knew how to ride at that point. For two years, the would-be trainer got on his little steed determined to figure out the skill of becoming a horseman. 

For two years, he would spend a portion of his day on the ground as he learned some of his best and earliest lessons about the dedication required to succeed.

"We learned to ride on this pony. We didn't have a clue. For two years when I got him, he just ran off with me, and I fell off him literally for two years," Walsh recalled. "Then, eventually through different people and basically teaching ourselves, we got him going pretty good and he turned into a half-decent jumping pony. 

"But that's what Dad always said to me: 'You must have been so keen, because if any other kid went through what you went through with this pony initially, they would have quit ages ago.'"

If anything, Walsh's love of all things equine and his desire to make a path for himself in the industry has only been bolstered with time. At 15, he did a brief stint at the Jockey School at The Curragh. In addition to his years working with some of the world's best bloodstock as part of the powerhouse Godolphin team, he also spent a few seasons learning the craft alongside Newmarket trainer Mark Wallace before joining Kenneally's operation in 2007.

Just three full years into his own training career, Walsh surpassed $1 million in earnings for the calendar season when he hit that mark in 2014. By 2017, more milestones were dropping as he won a career-high seven graded stakes—including Multiplier's triumph in the Illinois Derby (G3)—and saw his runners earn more than $3.7 million.

"At the end of the day, you need to have the stock, but you know for the horses we've had back throughout the years … we've done well with what we've been given," Walsh said. "We've tried to get the best out of every horse, and hopefully that leads to getting better stock and getting exposure to these bigger races. If we can do that, and we get the best out of them, that's probably why things have gone that much better from year to year more than anything. 

"I'm not that concerned about having a huge number of horses. I just want to have good, quality horses and be involved in these kind of races."

Success breeds confidence, and you could rightfully argue that the biggest score of Walsh's career came as a result of him trusting what his experience was telling him. 

After Plus Que Parfait finished up the track in the Feb. 16 Risen Star Stakes Presented by Lamarque Ford (G2), no one outside of his connections was putting the ridgling's name in any sentence that contained the phrase "Kentucky Derby contender." Walsh, however, was still convinced that the horse who ran second by a neck in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes (G2) at Churchill in November hadn't lost his upside. He just needed to get away from the Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots track, where he clearly was not thriving, and into an environment that would play to his strengths. 

The UAE Derby has taken its share of knocks when it comes to how its winners have performed beneath the Twin Spires on the first Saturday in May. None of those who triumphed in the Dubai-based prep and made the journey to Louisville have managed to hit the board, much less win, the signature American classic, and the last two years have been particularly ignominious, with multiple group 1 winner Thunder Snow being pulled up after a bucking display at the start in 2017 and regally bred Mendelssohn  getting knocked out of sorts en route to finishing last in 2018.

Given that Plus Que Parfait had only a maiden win to his credit prior to splitting horses down the lane to notch his UAE Derby upset—and was non-threatening in the Risen Star and Lecomte Stakes (G3) before that—there hasn't exactly been a groundswell of invaders on his bandwagon since returning to the states. While he understands where the critiques of his charge are coming from, Walsh warns those wanting to throw Plus Que Parfait onto the "toss" pile that he is seeing the same positive intangibles now that he saw once he arrived overseas.

"I thought when he went down to Florida, he had a better look about him. And his work in Florida before he went to Dubai was really good," Walsh said. "But when I got to Dubai, he looked like he was doing well again for a horse who had traveled. Just his coat and his overall physique looked a lot better, and I think he's held that and looks great now. I haven't had one moment of hesitation since he's come back where I thought, 'Well, maybe we shouldn't (go to the Derby).' It's been all positive. 

"I actually wasn't too put out by the Lecomte because he lost a shoe and he stumbled coming out of the gate, and I didn't probably have him cranked. But the Risen Star, I just don't know. For whatever reason, he didn't run a good race, and everyone kind of wrote him off. And I think they're not giving the Dubai race enough respect—at least, I hope I'm right in saying that. We just have to prove it."

The better Plus Que Parfait looked during his time in Dubai, the more Walsh had to keep his mind from getting ahead of itself and drifting toward the best-case scenario. He has spent an inordinate amount of time since trying to keep his emotions in check through all the peaks and valleys life has thrown at him.

Should another defining moment occur on the evening of May 4, Walsh may finally concede to being overwhelmed by it all. 

"It's like in Dubai—the horse is doing so good, and I just try to not let myself think I might be able to win this," Walsh said. "I think we'll just roll on and do the best we can this week and bring him over there in the best shape possible.

"My brother made a speech at (father's) funeral, and he said there's no need for all this sadness and crying—he'd just want us to be happy and to keep rolling along," Walsh said. "And that's what we're trying to do. That's the best way to approach it."

Video