There's optimism in the Air
Smooth showing at Churchill Downs the goal for Mount Joy Stables entry
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The two nuns were perplexed.
They were the guests of late Bears chairman Ed McCaskey at Arlington Park and were as Irish as a Michael Flatley tour bus. They were about to meet the owner of Mount Joy Stables.
(Courtesy)
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Opening Day at Arlington
''They couldn't understand why anyone would name their stable after such a notorious place,'' Brian Burns said. ''They were talking about the prison outside Dublin. When I told them it was actually the name of the town within a town that my father was born in in County Tyrone, on the border to the north, they finally lost their looks of concern.''
Burns and his Chicago-based family associates with Mount Joy Stables will look on with proud Gaelic concern Saturday when their Smooth Air goes postward in the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby (4 p.m., Ch.5). The home-bred son of Smooth Jazz will start from Post 12 and is 20-1 in the Churchill Downs morning line. He comes in after an overlooked second-place finish in the Florida Derby five weeks ago to 3-1 Kentucky Derby favorite Big Brown.
For Burns and family, it will be the latest step-dance in a long association with racing that has its emerald roots in the South Side neighborhood of Beverly.
''Actually, I was born in Brooklyn,'' Burns said. ''My father, Jimmy, came over from Ireland as a teenager in 1927 with the clothes on his back. He started to work in a department store and eventually sold ties for 10 cents apiece. That led to an extended career with Hart Schaffner Marx and our move to Chicago. I started at Mendel [High School] just before my junior year in 1963.''
That also was the year Burns met a young coed from Roseland -- and nearby Mercy High School -- named Janice Bow. They started dating before he went to DePaul to major in finance and she trekked to Illinois to focus on education. They've been married 38 years, with son Dan, 32, and daughters Brittany, 30, and Jamie, 27.
''Jan also allowed me to eventually pursue my interest in thoroughbred racing and breeding,'' Burns said. ''But business came first.''
Business became insurance, which led to Pro Financial Services, now based in Schaumburg. It is the largest domestic underwriting agency associated with American professional sports, handling ''billions of dollars per year,'' according to Burns, in contract and performance insurance for the NFL, most major-league baseball teams and large chunks of the NBA and NHL.
In a multimillion-dollar deal last fall, PFS was sold to National Financial Partners of New York, although the Burns family retains a contract to manage it.
''All of this business stuff allowed me to get into horse racing,'' Burns said. ''The start came through a neighbor in Bannockburn named Mike Minnini. I told him I wanted to find a [bloodstock] agent with honesty and integrity. Mike told me of a fellow named Chuck Calvin. ... We couldn't find him and finally took out a full-page ad in the Daily Racing Form that basically said, 'Chuck, call Mike.' He did.''
Calvin's first questions: How much did Burns want to spend? What was his goal in horse racing?
Burns replied: $20,000, and win the Kentucky Derby.
''There was long silence,'' Burns said.
The silence gave way to the first Burns horse of note, The Name's Jimmy, a tough colt honoring his father. As keenest Arlington Park fans will recall, The Name's Jimmy won the 1992 American Derby in most dramatic fashion: Jockey Pat Day lost his irons but managed to sustain a rally in midstretch, split rivals and win for trainer Charlie Stutts. A new Irish Joy was taking root.
''Eventually, we purchased a succession of broodmares,'' Burns said. ''That's how Smooth Air came about. His father is a grandson of Storm Cat named Storm Boot. The dam, whom we own, is the French Deputy mare Air France. Their lineage goes to Deputy Minister.''
Smooth Air's trainer is Bennie Stutts Jr., 70. His father used to train at Arlington, and Charlie Stutts, the trainer of The Name's Jimmy, is his cousin. He has six horses in his stable and has seen one Kentucky Derby -- in 1959.
''I watched that one from the roof of a car on the backstretch,'' Stutts said. ''Saturday will be a little different.''
It will be a lot different if Smooth Air bests Big Brown and 18 others.
The colt blasted onto the Triple Crown trail with a win in the Grade II Hutcheson in January at Gulfstream. Since then, he finished a troubled third in the $200,000 Samuel F. Davis at Tampa Bay Downs and chased Big Brown in the Florida Derby. But Burns and his troupe of 60 in Louisville remain optimistic.
''As Pat Day and I were discussing ... the other night, 'If we give the Lord honor and glory, you will get exactly what you deserve,''' Burns said. ''So Saturday, who knows?''
