Trainer of Lava Man is shaken, not deterred

LOUISVILLE, KY. —  Sometimes it seems as if trainer Doug O’Neill has lived about a decade in the last year.

He had a Kentucky Derby hopeful, Stevie Wonderboy, who got hurt and never saw the twin spires.

He has a brother, Dennis, who got cancer, but got well.

He was penalized for a “milkshake” positive, but felt vindicated, or at least partly.

And now he is poised for what could be the biggest day of his career at Churchill Downs on Saturday, when he will send out five horses for Breeders’ Cup races, including Lava Man, the Cinderella claimer who is the 6-1 third choice in the $5-million Breeders’ Cup Classic behind Bernardini and Invasor.

The pressure never seemed to wear on O’Neill, 38, who tends to defray it by teasing his owners or making jokes about his diminishing hair.

“You talk about ups and downs, he’s had an incredible year. He’s been a rock,” said his brother, Dennis, who underwent chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma earlier this year and has been declared cancer-free.

It’s hard whenever someone becomes seriously ill, but for the O’Neills, it was perhaps more difficult because they already had lost a brother, Danny, to another form of cancer.

“Doug was under a lot of stress, but he’s incredible with how he manages his time,” Dennis said. “Throughout my ordeal, he was there for all my chemo, all my doctors appointments.”

O’Neill’s habit of defraying pressure with humor might not always be ideal, however. When ESPN asked if it could put a microphone on him for the Breeders’ Cup, Dennis advised against it.

“I said, ‘You know, when the stress comes out, we like to joke to ease the stress. We could lose a lot of owners.’ ”

Losing owners was in the back of O’Neill’s mind after a horse he’d trained, Wisdom Cat, tested above the permitted level for total carbon dioxide at Hollywood Park in May.

O’Neill repeatedly has denied “milkshaking” -- or administering a baking-soda-like concoction -- to the horse, or directing anyone else to. He also challenged the testing program and penalty in court but failed in his attempt to get a temporary restraining order, and for 30 days was required to send his horses to the detention barn for 24 hours before they raced.

One of those days was the day of the Hollywood Gold Cup, when Lava Man was out for a repeat victory, having won by 8 3/4 lengths last year. Lava Man won by a nose, after stumbling badly at the start.

“I think Lava Man proved that he could be watched or not watched,” O’Neill said. “There is nothing artificial about him. He’s an amazing athlete.

“The thing that’s left for him to show is he can be productive outside of California, and that’s why we sent him to Keeneland three weeks early, to get the flight out of the way.”

A month after the Gold Cup, Lava Man won the Pacific Classic at Del Mar with ease, but rival trainer Murray Johnson, whose Perfect Drift was fourth, publicly mused about what Lava Man’s total carbon dioxide level might be.

Johnson later apologized, and Chairman Richard B. Shapiro of the California Horse Racing Board took the unusual and controversial step of announcing that Lava Man’s total carbon dioxide level tested the lowest of any horse in the race.

“I think Mr. Shapiro took it as a real gut shot to California,” O’Neill said. “It was very classy of him, not so much selfishly, though it was nice for me, but just for the horse and owners.”

Steve Kenly, one of Lava Man’s co-owners, said he was uncomfortable about racing out of the detention barn for the Gold Cup, but not about O’Neill.

“The milkshake thing was kind of an embarrassment,” Kenly said, calling the issue “bogus” because some horses have naturally higher levels than others. “As far as Doug, I didn’t lose confidence.

“But running out of the detention barn, that’s a lot of pressure. Lava Man is one who likes his own surroundings. Well, he won out of the detention barn. I’ve got to think Lava Man has been a blessing.”

O’Neill might feel vindicated, but he has not been exonerated.

Dr. Rick Arthur, equine medical director for the CHRB, said baking soda can be beneficial to horses and some trainers legally add it to horses’ feed at low levels. But he remains skeptical that any trainer could have a horse test over the limit because of inadvertent actions.

“I do find it fascinating, regardless of the denial, that trainers, whenever they go to the detention barn, don’t know how they got a high TCO2, but they seem to know how to get it down,” he said.

O’Neill, third nationally among trainers with almost $8.7 million in earnings this year, says he hopes the “milkshake” issue is behind him.

“I just try not to dwell on that,” he said. “Our percentages maybe dipped a little, but they stayed relatively the same out of the detention barn.

“Some naysayers thought I would go 0 for 100 or whatever. A select few were hoping to catch me with one, to say, ‘Aha, that’s how he’s been doing well.’

“I would like to think it’s been put to rest.”

Besides Lava Man in Saturday’s Classic, O’Neill has Thor’s Echo and Areyoutalkintome in the Sprint, Sharp Lisa in the Distaff and Great Hunter in the Juvenile, a year after winning it with Stevie Wonderboy.

They are a few of the 100 or so horses in his barn that keep him on the go from the Santa Monica home he shares with his wife, Linette, and their two young children, to his base at Hollywood Park and the races at Santa Anita, Fairplex, Del Mar and beyond.

“I’ve just been blessed,” he said. “I don’t know if my mom, Dixie, instilled it, or my dad, Pat, but you try to keep improving every day. Don’t look at things that are going to slow you down or overwhelm you. I’ve been able to watch Dennis go through what he did, and kick the butt out of that cancer. That was huge.

“And Stevie Wonderboy, what he gave us with that Breeders’ Cup win will be with us forever.

“I kind of look at it like every day is a day off.”

robyn.norwood@latimes.com