Hovdey: Bray focusing on the highlights

Somehow, Simon Bray has been able to squeeze a few glasses of lemonade from the beach ball of a lemon he was handed last June with a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a malignancy of the blood that strikes only about 1 percent of all those dealing with some kind of cancer. The average age of those stricken with multiple myeloma is 65. Bray is 45.

So much for the bad-luck department, for which this surely qualifies. Bray, a former Thoroughbred trainer and top assistant to Bill Mott, has carved out a successful second career as a horse-racing analyst with TVG and then with the Fox Sports series of national feature events. Relentlessly upbeat and hopelessly in love with the game, the thoroughly Americanized Bray retains just enough of his native British accent to give his audience a spritz of international flavor while still being able to deep dive into the ninth at Mountaineer.

Last May, he broke his back, shattering his T-9 vertebra in a routine gym session. Tests confirmed that the vertebra had been weakened by the previously undiagnosed blood disease, which set in motion a chain of events that included a horrific back surgery to stabilize his spine, localized radiation to treat the initial cancer diagnosis, medieval bone-marrow draws to monitor the myeloma (please don’t ask), and a program of chemotherapy that Bray claims is not as bad as he thought it would be. We’ll take his word for it.

In spite of the ordeal, however, Bray can point to a handful of silver linings with which anyone can identify:

He has all the time in the world to spend with his son, Oliver, turning 3 in October.

He is not required to get up for the overnight feedings of his daughter, Josie, who was born July 22.

He has kicked his Diet Coke habit.

He hasn’t shaved since June.

Small things, yes, but they make a challenging life a little more bearable. There is not a day that goes by without some shadow of mortality crossing Bray’s brow – multiple myeloma has no known cure and remains of mysterious origin – and the embrace of his wife, Danielle, and young family only serves to exaggerate that mortality.

Bray, though, is one of those rare creatures possessed of a vigorously engaged positive outlook. He is no Pollyanna whistling past his awaiting grave. The disease can be treated, managed, and mitigated to a certain extent, and to that end he said he will be back to work on TVG in six weeks, maybe five.

On Tuesday, Bray was reached just a few hours before he was scheduled to begin a second, 22-week round of chemotherapy at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., not far from Santa Anita Park.

“If you saw me now, you’d probably think, ‘Aw, there’s nothing wrong with him,’ ” Bray said. “From what I’ve learned, the chemotherapy I’m getting is not as strong as what is used for some other cancers. I don’t get the IV infusion sitting in a chair. Mine is oral chemotherapy, and I get a shot once a week. I go in every Tuesday, then on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday I don’t feel all that great. Kind of lethargic and tired, which is hard for someone who’s always been active. But by the weekend, I feel pretty good.

“I hate to use clichés, but it could be worse,” Bray said. “When I walk into that hospital every Tuesday, there’s people from age 5 to 95 that are in much worse shape than I am, even though I have a pretty serious disease.”

Bray stepped away from his role at TVG after Memorial Day to deal with his increasingly painful back. Two weeks later, American Pharoah won the Triple Crown.

“Watching the Belmont was probably the most I felt I missed being on the job,” he said. “I knew I’d be on that trip for TVG. Of course, at that time, I hadn’t been diagnosed yet. I couldn’t believe it – 37 years without a Triple Crown, 20 years in the business, and here I am laid up with a broken back.

“I was diagnosed on June 17, and at first, I was pretty much trying to deal with the news,” Bray said. “At City of Hope, they deal with this every day. They don’t fluff it. Here it is, this is what we’re going to do, and this is what you’ve got to do. It hits you pretty hard.”

Bray does not venture forth often, so it was a big deal that on Sept. 5 at Del Mar, he made his first racetrack visit since May with a brief cameo on the TVG set. He also has maintained a presence on Twitter, proving he is still very much engaged in the game.

As for the home front, it is young Oliver who gets the lion’s share of his father’s attention.

“My son is very smart,” Bray said. “He picks up on a lot of stuff. We’ve made a concerted effort to keep the word ‘cancer’ away from him right now. What he understands is that daddy has a bad back, and he’s going to kiss daddy’s back to make it better. When I go in for chemotherapy on Tuesdays, I just tell him I’m going to work.”

Soon, with luck, that’s exactly where Bray will be going.