Raging Torrent in the Flow for O'Neill in Met Mile

Four days before the Metropolitan Handicap (G1), trainer Doug O'Neill admitted to feeling some nerves, though not for the usual horse trainer reasons. It was not for O'Neill's participation in the $1 million race with Raging Torrent, but rather for something that induces stress for many: public speaking. Reached by telephone the evening of June 3, O'Neill was in Italy preparing remarks for a rehearsal dinner celebrating a wedding this week between his nephew, Patrick O'Neill, and NBC broadcaster Britney Eurton. Grateful for a few moments to clear his head by discussing one of his horses, "This is a welcome distraction," he said. His fondness for the couple notwithstanding, training horses, or talking with a reporter about his horses, is more in O'Neill's comfort zone, having trained 2,996 winners from 18,725 starts. Among his victories are two wins in the Kentucky Derby (G1) with I'll Have Another (2012) and Nyquist (2016), a 2012 Preakness Stakes (G1) win from I'll Have Another, and five Breeders' Cup victories from 2005-15 with Stevie Wonderboy, Thor's Echo, Maryfield, Goldencents, and Nyquist. According to Equibase statistics, only 24 active trainers have won more races than the 57-year-old O'Neill, who won just a single race with his first 30 starters from 1988-92. His career win percentage now stands at 16%. Approaching a 3,000-win milestone, O'Neill, a Michigan native and now longtime California resident, said, "It's really something I never thought was possible. It seems like just yesterday that I was at Hollywood Park and just a pimple-faced, nervous kid who went into it and was surrounded by the (training) greats like Laz Barrera, Bobby Frankel, and Charlie Whittingham, and just thinking, 'What the heck am I doing here?' "And fast-forward to today. I have an unbelievable team that I get to work with every day, and I just have an awesome group of owners that have gifted us a lot of really top-notch horses running in competitive spots. Really, you put all that in the blender and you mix it up and you get hopefully 3,000 wins here soon." Between entries at Santa Anita Park and Saratoga Race Course June 6-8, O'Neill has seven opportunities to chip away toward the milestone, led by Raging Torrent in the Metropolitan Handicap. O'Neill said he would return to the United States from Italy after the wedding to be at Saratoga in time for the race. The grade 1 winner is a 5-1 shot in the Metropolitan Handicap, a race more commonly referred to as the Met Mile, behind even-money favorite Fierceness, 9-5 second choice White Abarrio, and 4-1 Just a Touch. The race begins out of the Wilson Chute with the field making a half turn before entering the backstretch. Raging Torrent has won five of his last six starts, including graded/group victories in the 2024 Pat O'Brien Stakes (G2) at Del Mar, the 2024 Malibu Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park, and in his lone start this year in the April 5 Godolphin Mile (G2) in Dubai at Meydan Racecourse. "I've been blessed enough to work alongside some really good horses, and he definitely stacks up with one of the better ones I've been around," O'Neill said. "So we're excited." "We" includes Craig Dado, who, along with sports radio talk show host Scott Kaplan, heads the Great Friends Stable. Great Friends co-owns 4-year-old Raging Torrent with Yuesheng Zhang of Yulong Investments. Zhang has become a power player in the international racing scene. Great Friends Stable originally became a partner in the midst of the Maximus Mischief colt's 2-year-old racing season with owner Mark Davis, who acquired the colt for $75,000 from the 2023 Ocala Breeders' Sales Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training from the Randy Bradshaw consignment. Davis sold his remaining stake in Raging Torrent to Zhang after the Malibu. "Forever grateful for Mark Davis for him," O'Neill said of Raging Torrent. The Great Friends partnership—formed by Dado 17 years ago when he was an executive at Del Mar, aimed to attract new owners to the sport and promote racing at the Southern California track—has never had a horse of the quality of Raging Torrent. With their stake in ownership in Raging Torrent split into 20 shares, they weren't interested in parting with him, Dado said. "My group wants a horse that's gonna run, and we knew that Breeders' Cup would be in our hometown this year, and my group wasn't even close (to selling). They wanted to stay in for sure," he said. The Met Mile is part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Win and You're In, providing a paid, automatic berth in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1) this fall at Del Mar. O'Neill believes that with continued maturity, Raging Torrent, a winner of six of 13 races and earning more than $1.2 million, may carry his speed around two turns up to 1 1/8 miles. Including Dado, about 17 people associated with Great Friends are scheduled to travel from California to New York for the Met Mile. About the same number traveled to Dubai to watch the horse win there for a $1 million purse. They hope Raging Torrent can make some more million-dollar memories Saturday with international riding star Frankie Dettori again in the irons. The horse is expected to be a part of the early pace from his outside post in the field of five. "It's interesting. Obviously, we're not the favorite, you know, we're running against two of the best horses in the world, so I'm not nervous at all," Dado said of Fierceness and White Abarrio.