When Patrick Kearney decided at age 83 to buy his first horse, he was just looking for a little excitement. Mission accomplished. Just over a year after buying a 2-year-old filly by Upstart at auction, Kearney has one of the top choices for Friday’s $1.25 million Kentucky Oaks in Kathleen O., an undefeated two-time graded stakes winner. “I’m living a dream,” Kearney, now 84 said, recently. “This is beyond incredible.” Kearney campaigns Kathleen O. with the Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey, who won the Oaks 29 years ago with Dispute. The two are members of the Indian Creek Country Club near Miami, Fla., and have known each other about 25 years. When COVID hit in 2020 and curtailed some of the activities Kearney was involved in, including a weekly poker game, he discussed with McGaughey what went into owning horses. :: For the first time ever, our premium past performances are free! Get free Formulator now! “Shug showed me some invoices, I looked at them for a day or so – he wanted to make sure I understood this was an expensive proposition – and I said, ‘This is fine. I can do this,’ ” Kearney said. Kearney said McGaughey told him: “You don’t get in this to make money; it’s not a money-making proposition. You get into it for the enjoyment and the excitement of owning a racehorse. I said that’s fine with me.” Kearney said McGaughey advised him to buy two horses, a colt and a filly. McGaughey had a filly in mind at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton auction at Gulfstream Park, but that filly surpassed the price McGaughey wanted to pay. The next sale was in Ocala, Fla., where McGaughey purchased Kathleen O. His friend Niall Brennan, a former trainer and leading consignor, breaks horses at his farm in Ocala and told McGaughey about the filly. The price was $275,000. At the same sale, McGaughey bought Kearney a gray colt by Noble Mission for $130,000 whom Kearney named Cloudy. That horse went 0 for 2 as a 2-year-old, got hurt and has just recently returned to the work tab. Kearney named the Upstart filly after his wife Kathleen, whose maiden name is O’Boyle. The filly made her debut at Aqueduct on Nov. 12, which just so happened to be Kathleen’s birthday. In a seven-horse field, Kathleen O. wore number 7, the same number Kathleen’s father wore when he played football at Notre Dame under legendary coach Knute Rockne and later the Green Bay Packers. Kearney said he told his wife, “Don’t make too much of that, she’ll probably finish seventh.” Kathleen was seventh and last for more than a half-mile of the seven-furlong race before kicking hard down the stretch and getting up to win by a head. “I was just amazed,” Kearney said. When McGaughey couldn’t find an allowance race, he opted to run Kathleen O. in the Cash Run Stakes on New Year’s Day at Gulfstream Park. With his family visiting for the holidays, Kearney and his wife took their daughter, her husband, and their three teenaged children to the track where Kathleen O. won by 8 1/2 lengths. “Talk about things that are unreal,” Kearney said. “If somebody were to write a story about this they’d say it’s too corny.” Kathleen O. raised her profile with visually impressive victories in the Davona Dale in March and the Gulfstream Park Oaks in April, both Grade 2 stakes at Gulfstream Park. Prior to owning Kathleen O., Kearney’s horse racing experience had involved going to Arlington Park, about 30 miles from where he grew up in Wilmette, Ill., a town about 15 miles north of Chicago. “They gave you cardboard tickets and no phones were allowed at the track,” Kearney said. “We had fun and I actually did pretty well.” Kearney followed in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer before moving into the securities business and then working for a real estate investment bank. He also became partners with a high school friend in a food-flavoring business called Sethness Greenleaf, which he sold in 2011 when his friend died. :: Get Daily Racing Form Past Performances – the exclusive home of Beyer Speed Figures Despite the early success with Kathleen O., Kearney did not buy horses at auction this spring. However, he and Kathleen became minority partners in Woodford Racing’s Hero’s Honor partnership in which they have an interest in nine 2-year-old colts, the majority of whom will be trained by McGaughey. John Sadler, in California, will be getting a couple as well. “The beauty of getting involved with them is I can get excited about nine different animals,” Kearney said. Who knows? Perhaps next year at this time, Kearney will be making a return trip to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby. “That would be an impossible dream,” Kearney said. “I didn’t ever consider dreaming about this.”