ARCADIA, Calif. – Brendan Walsh was born and raised in Ireland and first started working for English and Irish trainers. Over there, things generally are much different for stable workers than they are here. Walsh would not only ride horses in the morning, he was responsible for all aspects of their care – cleaning stalls, feeding, grooming. Walsh came Saturday to Santa Anita from Kentucky to meet two horses he trains who both look like very live chances in Friday Breeders’ Cup races – Maxfield in the Juvenile, Vitalogy in the Juvenile Turf. Yet within that superficially high-profile presence, Walsh was going back to his roots. His stable is in flux this weekend, horses being shifted around in Kentucky and some moved to winter quarters at Fair Grounds. With his staff tied up in organizing that process, Walsh came to Santa Anita on a solo mission. He met the horses himself and solely was their caretaker Saturday and Sunday. “This is the stuff I really like, actually,” Walsh said after setting the feed for Vitalogy, who trained after Maxfield. Walsh bathed and cooled out the two horses himself following routine (but successful) gallops on Saturday at Santa Anita. With no rider yet in town, Walsh enlisted Roger Horgan, who works for Kiaran McLaughlin and has been riding Dawn the Destroyer (Filly and Mare Sprint) here in recent days to get on his horses Sunday. “Both of them were really good,” Horgan said. Walsh describes the colts as “180-degree opposites.” Maxfield, winner of the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity last out, already is a mountain of a horse, standing, by Walsh’s estimation, 16 hands 3. Walsh assumes he’ll grow to be 17 hands but Maxfield “is light on his feet, really athletic.” Horgan said it took less than a furlong for him to feel the powerful beast beneath him. Vitalogy is smaller than Maxfield over every part of his body, but he’s not especially small and is very well put together and athletic. Horgan said Vitalogy was really bouncing over the Santa Anita dirt track despite being a turf horse. Walsh took over Vitalogy’s training from Ireland-based Joseph O’Brien. In O'Brien's care, Vitalogy won a maiden race making his career debut at Naas, was third in the Grade 3 Acomb Stakes over a left-handed seven furlongs Aug. 21 at York, and finished a closing third in the Grade 1 Summer Stakes at Woodbine. For Walsh, Vitalogy finished second by a neck to Juvenile Turf starter Peace Achieved in the Bourbon Stakes Oct. 6 at Keeneland despite a very challenging trip after breaking from post 14. “Javier [Castellano] said that even if he’d just had the 10-hole he thought he’d have won,” Walsh said. Vitalogy came to Walsh with the reputation of a horse that might pull too hard in his training and racing, but quickly and smoothly made the change from bucolic training in Ireland to the more claustrophobic regimen of an American racehorse. Indeed, both Maxfield and Vitalogy ate with gusto and presented coats glowing with health. It was their trainer himself who shined them up Sunday.