Kelly Breen: Determination to Prevail

For the select group of trainers fortunate enough to win the recently renewed GI Belmont S., a race of its magnitude offers the unique opportunity to validate the life decisions that got them there. That was the case for Kelly Breen six years ago when his first Belmont S. entry, longshot Ruler On Ice (Roman Ruler), won the race and elevated the trainer to the national stage. “Dug in with good determination to prevail,” is a line from the racing chart describing that Belmont win, but the same might be said of Breen.

Breen, who experienced another strong spring after training Miss Sky Warrior (First Samurai) through a five-race win streak culminating in Aqueduct's Apr. 8 GII Gazelle S. before she was caught in a speed duel, lost a shoe and faltered to an eighth-place finish in the May 5 GI Kentucky Oaks, spent this year's Belmont day at his home base at Monmouth Park, sending out a pair of entrants to second and third-place finishes.

Growing up in Old Bridge, NJ, 20 miles from Monmouth, Breen is the youngest of four–his closest sibling eight years his elder. His father labored in Manhattan's Steamfitters Local 638 to support the family and relaxed playing the ponies at local tracks like Aqueduct, the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park. Trips to the track with his father sparked a passion for racing in the young Breen and a goal to make racing a career.

“I wanted to be a jockey,” said Breen, 48. “We went to the racetrack and I thought I could do what these guys here are doing.”

A petite and agile athlete in school, Breen excelled in soccer and wrestling's lightweight class. He knew he was the size to be a jockey, he just lacked one thing–he'd never ridden a horse.

But Breen was determined to do whatever it would take. He gave up sports and began riding lessons on hunter/jumpers at Baymar Farms in nearby Morganville, mucking stalls in the mornings before school to pay for lessons in the afternoon. Soon Breen was riding racehorses for Ralph DeSantis, a Thoroughbred trainer at a farm down the road.

By the time Breen could get a jockey's license at age 16, he had learned as much as he could with DeSantis and left for a job at the racetrack, exercising horses for trainer Walter Reese. But when Breen hit a growth spurt 18 months later and couldn't control his size, he realized that despite his hard work, he would never be a jockey.

“When I got too big, it was heartbreaking,” said Breen.

Trainer Scooter Dickey offered Breen a job as his assistant and a chance to keep the dream of a career in horse racing alive. A year later, Breen was with John Forbes, exercising horses and assisting with the stable. Seeing the uncertainty of a sustainable career in racing, Breen split his time over the next few years between Forbes's barn and the family business, steamfitting.

“Whatever he was going to do, he was going to do well in,” said Dan Breen, Kelly's older brother who followed in their father's footsteps as a steamfitter. “Either becoming a jockey and then all of a sudden becoming a trainer–or even with steamfitting.”

Breen worked with his father and completed three years in a five-year apprenticeship with the steamfitters union in New York, becoming one of the top apprentices in his class. It was also during this time that he won his first race as a trainer with Contarito, a horse he claimed for owner Ricky Gallo. Into his early 20s, it was time for Breen to make a decision about his future.

“The winning keeps you going,” said the competitive Breen. “When I was doing construction with my dad and I worked in the World Trade Center back in the '90s, it was kind of neat to put in the air-conditioning unit, the sprinkler system, whatever it was and when you were done you were like, 'Hey, we built that.' But it wasn't winning.”

Breen dove back into racing full-time and took an assistant trainer's position with Ben Perkins, Sr. Over the next eight years Breen learned the ropes from Perkins. Perkins showed him not only how to prepare the horses in the barn, but what to look for at the sales and how to bring in new horses.

“We really had a good rapport,” said Breen. “He's the person that really taught me the most and allowed me to observe the most with some nice horses.”

With Perkins, Breen was involved in the development of many stakes-winning horses like Appealing Skier, who took the pair to the Breeders' Cup twice in the mid '90s.

“I knew he learned the right way,” said the now 84-year-old Perkins. “I could tell the way Kelly was breezing the horses and the type he was getting at the sales, he did terrific. He's still doing good and he's going to keep doing good.”

When Perkins retired in 2000, it was an opportunity for Breen to go back out on his own. By 2005 he had won the leading trainer title at Monmouth Park and repeated the feat in 2006. The same year he got his first graded stakes win when Dean DeRenzo and Randy Hartley's Praying for Cash (Songandaprayer) took Monmouth Park's GIII Long Branch Breeders' Cup S. Breen was making a name for himself in New Jersey and people were taking notice.

George Hall, a New York investment mogul and horse owner, gave the up-and-coming trainer a shot. The duo found success early on and campaigned stakes-winners like West Side Bernie (Bernstein), Pants On Fire (Jump Start) and Bern Identity (Bernstein), to name a few. But in 2011, Ruler On Ice took both men to a new level, giving each his first Grade I win.

While a recording of Frank Sinatra's New York, New York, a song the Breen family grew up listening to, blasted over the Belmont grandstand, Breen was gathered with his wife and kids, father, brother, sisters, and in-laws to witness the validation for years of hard work and determination he put into his chosen career.

In five weeks Breen was able to take the talented yet immature Ruler On Ice, who missed the Kentucky Derby because he lacked the earnings to qualify, from beaten favorite in Pimlico's Federico Tesio S. to Grade I winner in Belmont Park's most prestigious race.

“Probably, one of the best days of my life,” Breen said with the emotion of the moment six years earlier audible in his voice. “I don't think I've had that much of my family at one race ever.”

Today, Breen may not have the name recognition of a Todd Pletcher or Bob Baffert, but the kid from New Jersey has become a regular player on the national stage with more than 600 career wins and earnings over $28.7 million. He continues to aim high and plot a path to achieving his goals, which include seeing success in his three children, taking his wife of nearly 20 years golfing in Hawaii, and securing victory in another Triple Crown race.