2022 Kentucky Derby: Barker trying not to look beyond Tampa Bay Derby

Eddie Barker’s favorite movie is “Hoosiers,” and there’s a line in the film, uttered by the actor Gene Hackman, that Barker has kept at the forefront of his mind in recent weeks.

“There’s a tradition in tournament play to not talk about the next step until you’ve climbed the one in front of you,” Hackman, who plays coach Norman Dale, tells his team in the locker room before a pivotal game.

Barker can relate. The veteran trainer, 76, has a chance to go to the Kentucky Derby for the first time, but only if Shipsational – the runner-up in the Sam F. Davis Stakes last month – can continue to progress in coming weeks, starting Saturday when he runs in the Tampa Bay Derby.

Barker has been in the sport for nearly 40 years, starting as an owner, and has trained for nearly 30 years. He’s never even been to Churchill Downs. He’s been around long enough to know not to get ahead of himself. But he knows, deep down, this could be the chance of a lifetime.

“I’m looking forward to the race,” Barker said from his home on Long Island, before leaving Wednesday for Florida. “It’s exciting to have a colt like this.”

Barker is a newcomer to the Derby trail. Like the majority of trainers in the sport, he makes his living largely with claimers, and occasionally has a stakes performer. His best prior runner was the mare Yorkiepoo Princess, an $8,000 auction buy as a 2-year-old in 2016 who went on to be a multiple stakes winner, capturing 7 of 27 starts and earning $551,177. “Crooked as anything I’ve seen in my life,” he said of her conformation.

Getting a chance with a $210,000 auction buy like Shipsational is a rare opportunity, one that someone of his ilk has found even more challenging over the years, as more and more top prospects go to fewer and fewer trainers.

“It’s all about having the stock. If you’ve got good horses, there’s a number of small trainers who could do equally as well as I could,” Barker said. “When I first got in the game, the most you could have was 36 stalls. That was it. They didn’t care who you were. Horses filtered down to stables of my size.

“Now a lot of the bigger stables have four or five horses for every condition, and they only run one. If they spread it around you’d have bigger fields. It’s gotten out of hand, in my opinion. But you’ve got to keep punching.”

So there on Saturday in the paddock at Tampa Bay Downs, you’ll find Barker – who sent four horses to Tampa for the winter, and currently has 11, owing to the ebb and flow of the claiming game, back home at Belmont Park – saddling a horse for a Derby prep alongside the likes of Chad Brown and Todd Pletcher. Entering Wednesday’s racing, Brown had had 115 starters this year, Pletcher 163. Barker had 16, with two wins and six seconds.

“Too many damn seconds,” he said, laughing.

One of those was in the Davis, in which Shipsational rallied for second behind Classic Causeway, the favorite in the Tampa Bay Derby. That was Shipsational’s first start out of New York, and first start in open company, after winning 3 of 4 in New York-bred races, including the Bertram Bongard and Sleepy Hollow stakes at Belmont Park.

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Barker is New York through and through, right down to his Long Island accent. He grew up on the south shore of the island, went to high school and community college there, worked initially as a banker there – “It wasn’t for me,” he said – and still lives there. He’s had many of the same friends for 60 years, going back to high school, their bond in part forged by a near-tragedy.

On March 8, 1963, about 15 minutes before the school bell to end the day was to sound at Bellport High School, the fire alarm went off.

“I was thinking, ‘Why are we having a fire drill now?’ ” Barker recalled.

Suddenly, another teacher burst into room.

“It’s real. It’s a fire,” Barker recalled being told.

In a matter of minutes, the entire building burned. Barker had gotten out quickly. “My friend and I caught three or four kids jumping out of the second floor onto a blanket before the blanket tore,” Barker said.

News reports from local papers of that day said that 47 of the approximately 900 students were hospitalized. None perished.

“How nobody got killed is amazing,” Barker said.

So when you’ve gone through that, perspective is paramount. Being in the biggest race in the country would be a satisfying denouement. But first, on Saturday, Barker and Shipsational need to climb the step in front of them.