‘Patience and love’ carries them through

HOW much do you get back if you bet $20 win-place on a 39-1 shot? Former Hastings Park trainer Brian Phillips knows.

The 78-year-old conditioner saddled his only horse, Nu Soup for Baby, to drill the field into submission in the third race on Wednesday at the Downs, and led all the wheelbarrow bettors straight to the cashing windows.

Making just his third start of the year under new jockey Kerron Khelawan, who also moved his tack here from Hastings Park, Nu Soup for Baby went right to the front from the start and despite heavy pressure from outside rivals, he had lots left when they turned for home, opening up into the stretch and coasting home to win by 1 1/4-lengths over yet another former Hastings Park horse, Pay My Way.

“I got back $1,100,” said Phillips. “I only had $47 in my HPIBet account, so I bet twenty-twenty on him.”

Nu Soup for Baby returned a whopping $79.30, $35.20, $9.60 across the board and topped a $1 exactor that paid $373. He also capped off a $3 Pick 3 that paid $2,285.10, centered a second one that paid $905.55, and kickstarted another that ended in the fifth race with a $1,479.45 payoff.

Money everywhere.

But for Phillips, the win was about more than the money. It was sweet for reasons that have nothing to do with a tote board. The three-time cancer survivor is operating with one kidney, doctors in Vancouver burned a spot off his lungs and they’re keeping an eye on another.

“They say it’s too small to do anything,” said Phillips. “Once it grows to a certain size, they don’t even bother biopsying me anymore. They just go in with a needle and hot blast it. They couldn’t do it years ago. They’re experts at it now.”

Brian and his wife Janis, who has family in Winnipeg, know the horse game inside out, and they know it together. They were married in 1967, Canada’s centennial year, and have been at it for 58 years. Brian started out with horses at Assiniboia Downs, working for trainer John Cizik. He paddocked horses before getting his trainer’s license in 1980 and running a public stable here through the mid-1980s. He had some decent seasons, then hit the wall every horseman knows.

“My last year I had no stock, said Phillips. “I didn’t win a race. I went 0-for-41.”

So he went downtown and worked as a draftsman for an old employer, who offered him a full-time job, but before he could take it, the phone rang. It was Malcolm Thwaites, another former ASD trainer Phillips had become friends with while that trainer was in Manitoba. Thwaites was now a champion trainer in Malaysia running a 100-horse stable, and wanted Phillips to come and work for him.

“I told him we’d be right over,” said Phillips.

What followed was the horse adventure of a lifetime. Thwaites had 60 horses at the track and another 60 at the farm, with a mile turf track that Phillips helped carve out of a palm oil plantation in the jungle. Phillips was also in charge of developing the babies. The heat was extreme, being so close to the equator, and the horses had to all be out by 9 a.m.

“When you first get there, it just knocks your ass right out,” said Phillips.

Thwaites was the champion trainer while the Phillips were in Malaysia, and the high class racing carried the couple to New Zealand, Australia and Thailand. They returned home in 1992 and set up shop at Hastings Park, but scattered among the years were also horse training forays to Nebraska, Chicago, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Through all of it, they raised two children and never made a fortune. Brian trained while Janis spent more than 15 years as the main tacker for top Hastings trainer Dino Condilenios.

“We always won races,” said Phillips. “We never made a lot. But we made a little.”

Ask Phillips the most important thing he’s learned about horses in more than 50 years, and the answer comes fast. “Patience and love,” he said.

“We have a duty to do our best for them,” added Janis, which right now also means a teddy bear for Nu Soup for Baby. The idea came from Roger Attfield, the best trainer in Canadian history.

“From an article I saw,” said Phillips. “We thought, well, something to help take any stress away. If it was good enough for Attfield, why not try it?”

Nu Soup for Baby said thank you…

On Wednesday.