Matt Bryan says Exaggerator's saga began at Lone Star Park

Matt Bryan on Wednesday was still reveling in Exaggerator’s win in the Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown, last Saturday at Pimlico. The resident of Texas co-owns the horse with Ronny Ortowski, Sol Kumin, and trainer Keith Desormeaux.

“I honestly don’t think it’s completely set in,” Bryan, 46, said. “It’s a dream come true. I’ve still got a smile ear to ear.”

The tale of Exaggerator started back in 2012 at Lone Star Park. Bryan attended a sale of 2-year-olds in training at the Dallas-area track in order to meet Desormeaux. The introductions were arranged by Kirk Godby, the owner of a stable Bryan participated in who now helps Bryan manage his Big Chief Racing Stable.

“Kirk knew Keith, said he was coming up here for the Texas sale and said he’d really like for me to meet him,” Bryan said. “I talked to Keith, spent about 30 minutes at the sale with him, and went home and talked things over with my wife. We gave him some money, and he went to OBS and bought my first 2-year-old, which was a horse called Ive Struck a Nerve.”

Ive Struck a Nerve was an $82,000 purchase at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. spring auction of 2-year-olds in training in 2012. He went on to win the Grade 2, $400,000 Risen Star at Fair Grounds a year later at odds of 135-1. And while injury kept the horse from advancing to the Kentucky Derby, his success set the tone for one of Bryan’s objectives in racing.

“We’re always looking for classic-distance horses,” Bryan said. “Keith’s a classic trainer. That’s his style. He’s old school, and that’s what I loved about him.”

Exaggerator came into the fray in 2014 as a $110,000 yearling purchase at Keeneland September. He’s a son of Curlin and the Vindication mare Dawn Raid. Exaggerator has won 5 of 11 starts and $2,971,120. His highlight reel includes a runner-up finish in the Kentucky Derby won by Nyquist, the champion whom Exaggerator subsequently defeated in the Preakness.

“Keith bought Exaggerator and was extremely excited that day,” Bryan said. “He said, ‘This is our Derby horse.’ He was on cloud nine that day. He picked him out. He was fired up. And he’s been proven right.”

Bryan has about 20 horses in training, including 2-year-olds. He races most of those horses in partnerships, he said. Other notable horses for the operation include Swipe, the runner-up to Nyquist in four graded stakes last year, including the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile; Crucero, who captured last summer’s Grade 3 San Juan Capistrano at Santa Anita; and Right There, a stakes winner who was third in last year’s Grade 1 Chandelier.

But the star of the barn remains Exaggerator, who picked up the first stakes win of his career in last year’s Grade 2 Saratoga Special. He proceeded to win the Grade 3, $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot and is now the first graduate of that Louisiana fixture to capture a Triple Crown race. Exaggerator’s other high points include a 6 1/4-length win in the Santa Anita Derby.

“Ronny and I are equal partners, and Keith owns a percentage of our horses,” Bryan said. “We sold 20 percent of Exaggerator after the San Vicente in February. We have to run it like a business. We’re not billionaires. After the Preakness, I said, ‘This is the people’s trophy.’ This is for all the people that dream big.”

Bryan was introduced to racing at a young age. A great-uncle raced horses at Ruidoso Downs, he said, while Bryan’s parents once brought him to the races at Agua Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico. Bryan also remembers watching the Triple Crown run by Seattle Slew on television. While in college at the University of Oklahoma, he went to the races at Remington Park.

Now, with a classic win, Bryan is part of racing’s elite, just like so many with ties to the Denton County area in which he lives, the north Texas town of Flower Mound. Bill Casner is a resident of the same city, while the next town over, Roanoke, was the headquarters for Nelson Bunker Hunt’s international racing and yearling operation. Alysheba’s connections, the Clarence Scharbauer family, continue to own and operate Valor Farm in the Denton County community of Pilot Point.

And there’s another significant Texas connection for Bryan and Ortowski, a resident of Fort Worth. Kenny Troutt of Dallas owns the WinStar Farm operation in Kentucky, where Exaggerator will retire when he leaves the care of Louisiana native Desormeaux.

“It’s neat that Texas and Louisiana are working together to accomplish the goal,” said Bryan.