Ex-Saint Schweda scores as trainer

Brian Schweda, who played defensive end on the first New Orleans Saints football team, is on the best run of his career as a trainer.

Schweda, 72, has won with 6 of 15 starters this month, with the victories split between Fair Grounds and Delta Downs.

On March 5 at Fair Grounds, Schweda won two races, including a 10 3/4-length victory by the gelding Greeley’s Wish in a maiden race for 3-year-old Louisiana-breds. Schweda owns Greeley’s Wish, who ran six furlongs in 1:10.71.

On March 12, the 4-year-old filly Believeinsomething led all the way in the one-mile Red Camelia Stakes for older Louisiana-bred fillies and mares. Her three-length victory gave Schweda, her owner and trainer, his first stakes victory. He began training in 1992.

Schweda has nine wins, eight seconds, and six thirds from 48 starters this year. He already has equaled his third-best victory total for a year, and his purse earnings, $223,640, already are his third-highest for a year. Schweda’s high for wins in a year, 24, came from 174 starters in 2015, when he also set a career best for purse earnings, $544,455.

“I’ve had some real good horses sitting in the wings,” Schweda said in explaining his recent success. “I’ve been waiting with them since last summer.”

Schweda played for the Saints in 1967 and 1968. He began his NFL career with the Chicago Bears.

In his first four years as a trainer, he won eight races from 168 starters. In 1995, “I got out of it,” he said. “I had a junkyard.”

In 2009, he returned to training. He had single-digit win totals in each year from 2009 through 2013 before winning 17 races in 2014.

“I got out of the junkyard in April of last year,” said Schweda, who has a 26-horse stable. “I said, ‘The horses will have to take care of me,’ So far, they’re doing a pretty good job.”