Raised in Ireland until he was 12, when his father took a training job in the UK, Paul McEntee has lived in the States for over a decade now and trains a string of horses at the Thoroughbred Center in Lexington. He is proud of his Irish heritage and wears his shamrock on his sleeve, and on his t-shirt, his helmet cover, and his saddle pad.
Although based in Lexington, Mcentee’s truck has clocked up more than 200,000 miles over the past two years, hauling his horses to Mountaineer Park, Charles Town anywhere he sees a suitable race. He was in Saratoga Springs for the Skidmore Stakes last Friday with 2-year-old colt Baytown Warrior (who finished down the field on his first try in black-type company, but hey, it gave McEntee an excuse to return to a place he loves).
All the horses he buys as yearlings carry the Baytown prefix, as do his brother Phil’s horses back in Britain.
“It all started with my Dad,” he says. (Phil McEntee Senior was champion apprentice before turning to his first love as a jump jockey in Ireland and later he trained a small string of racehorses in the UK). “He bought a horse called Baytown Coke for my older brothers Phil and Mark to ride in apprentice races, and years later, after Dad passed, we started to use the Baytown prefix and then add family members names in Dad’s memory.”
McEntee started training Stateside with one horse and a job as nightwatchman to supplement his income. That launched a career of long hours for the hands-on horseman, training cheap horses for various owners, a lot of low-level claiming stuff.
“I thought the best chance I might have of making something could be from going to the yearling sales, looking for small, early types that I might be able to run at the Keeneland Spring meet, and I started to have some success doing that. The first one I bought, Baytown Turls, he was a giveaway at the sales. He finished third, beaten a length and a half at Keeneland first time out. I sold him for $80,000.”
But the horse that really changed things for him was Baytown Jimbo. “He was an RNA at the September sale in 2017, and I negotiated to buy him for $1,200. He ran a few times, then I took him to Kentucky Downs. I remember I had just signed the lease on an apartment in Georgetown.
“He paid $50 on the tote and got up by half a length in a $135,000 maiden. I had the Exacta [which paid 170/1]. I got the Trifecta up also [3,200/1]. And I owned the horse.” (The author’s son, Jack Gilligan, rode him that day - September 6, 2018.)
Bargain-basement purchases
A week later, McEntee put down $100,000 and bought his own farm. “I named it Baytown’s Legacy Farm. Baytown Jimbo earned $112,00 in purse money for me before he got claimed. When he dropped down to low-level claiming, I contacted connections and they sold him back to me for a dollar.”
Baytown Jimbo is retired on the farm now and wife Cheryl’s retired racehorse project. “I also got Baytown Lindy back last September,” says McEntee. “She was a 5-time winner for me whom I’d named after my mother, and she is now retired back on my farm also.”
Baytown Warrior is another bargain-basement purchase, a $1,350 Keeneland September Sale graduate from Sierra Farms.
“When I viewed him he must have been around 16.3 hands with massive feet - the exact opposite of what I look for," says McEntee. “He was just a big, backward baby. I got him going but he wasn’t showing much - until we jumped him from the gate. He was a different horse then.”
McEntee took him to Keeneland, where he ran twice without troubling the judge. After selling a quarter share in the horse following a promising run at Churchill to Joe Trawitzki, of Resolute Racing, he took him to Charles Town to break his maiden in style under lightning fractions. Then he ran third in the Tyro Stakes at Monmouth, finishing third.
In Saratoga, McEntee has been enjoying full Irish breakfasts at the Parting Glass Pub. He enjoys Guinness at Saratoga, with his horse, with his wife and he has a runner in a stakes with a horse who has earned him $40,000 this year.
“My first experience of Saratoga was when I worked for Christophe Clement at the age of 22, and now I’m 47,” he says.
“Even though Keeneland is my local track and I love Keeneland, Saratoga is my favorite track in America. It is like stepping back in time. It hasn’t changed. You can imagine the same scene 100 years ago It hasn’t lost any prestige. It is timeless, like the July Course at Newmarket, or the Curragh.
“So many modern tracks with the casinos haven’t got any atmosphere, but at Saratoga the whole family comes with picnics, and then there’s the barns, the training track, all of it. If you are training horses in America, there is nothing better. It’s true racing, and the pinnacle of the sport.
“My dad had given his whole life to horses in Ireland and England, and when he passed he didn’t have much to show for it. I didn’t want to end up like that. That’s why I came to the States.”
American Dream
It is all paying off now for the 6ft 4ins ex-jump rider from across the Pond who loves all things Ireland. He won’t be feeling homesick while he is in Saratoga, though. McEntee will take his horses anywhere, willingly, anywhere they may have a shot that means a lot of racing tracks with sparse crowds. But, when you are leading your horse around the paddock at Saratoga on a summer’s morning, you are living the American Dream.
He told me he drove 13 hours, overnight, to get to Saratoga, and it rained nearly all the way. It is worth driving 13 hours overnight in the sleeting rain to reach Saratoga. It is worth crawling through the desert to get to Saratoga.
Whatever you need to do to get to Saratoga, do it.