Parcells hoping to punch it in

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – For most his adult life, Bill Parcells was immersed in football, reaching the pinnacle of his coaching profession by guiding the New York Giants to a pair of Super Bowl victories in five years.

To fill the void left by leaving coaching, Parcells has immersed himself in horse racing, a hobby that has turned into a passion.

“I’m one of those kind of guys – I need action,” said Parcells, 77. “At my age, I got to have something to think about.”

For the last few weeks, Parcells has been thinking about the Breeders’ Cup with his 2-year-old Forty Under, who on Friday at Churchill Downs will try to give the Hall of Fame football coach his first Grade 1 victory in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.

Parcells, who races under the moniker August Dawn Farm, has owned horses for more than two decades. With his stable up to about 14 horses, Parcells is racing on a larger scale than when he was coaching or broadcasting.

In the summer of 2017, after many years with trainer Gary Sciacca, Parcells transferred his horses to Jeremiah Englehart, who at 41 is putting together one of the stronger outfits on the New York Racing Association circuit.

“I told him what I was trying to do,” Parcells said of Englehart. “I told him I’m not getting any younger and I’d like to get to a Grade 1 and win a Grade 1. That’s my objective.”

Said Englehart: “It’s exciting for me to have him be excited about it. I understand what he puts into it, and this is where he wants to be.”

Parcells sees a lot of similarities between football and horse racing.

“They’re athletes, too,” he said. “You see some of them have personalities like the players. Some of them like to train, others you have to coerce them to go to the track. Some are durable, some others aren’t.”

Parcells likens the sales to the combines where college athletes go through a series of drills hoping to improve their NFL draft status.

“You look at the prospects and try to pick them out,” Parcells said. “That’s what we do in football.”

Robbie Medina, an assistant to trainer Shug McGaughey, helps Parcells pick out horses, and the two talk a lot about football.

“He said, ‘I’m not going to buy horses unless you help me,’ ” Medina said. “His dream is to win a Grade 1. I just try to pick out a good horse. He’s excited to go down there. If he wins a Grade 1, he might pass out.”

Said Parcells: “I have a lot of confidence in Robbie and Shug, I’ve spent a lot of time with them over the years.”

Parcells said he has one horse with McGaughey and that he doesn’t want to have more with him because “I have a very good personal relationship with him and I don’t want any business things to get in the way of that.”

Forty Under got his name by coming in $40,000 under budget at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of preferred yearlings. He cost $180,000; Parcells was going to go up to $220,000.

Forty Under disappointed in his debut, finishing ninth, beaten 17 3/4 lengths in a sixfurlong dirt race. He came back four weeks later to win a maiden turf race at Saratoga at odds of 20-1 before winning the Pilgrim, over yielding turf, at 4-1.

Until Forty Under, Parcells’s biggest success in racing came with the New York-bred Hit It Once More, who in 2016 won the New York Derby and Albany

Stakes. He also had a stakeswinning New York-bred named Saratoga Snacks.

Parcells is most visible at Saratoga, where on most mornings he watches horses train from his SUV parked at the eighth pole on the Oklahoma training track. Parcells, who summers in Saratoga but spends the rest of the year in Jupiter, Fla., did not come to Belmont when Forty Under won the Pilgrim. He watched the race from the harness track at Saratoga with some of Englehart’s exercise riders.

As of Tuesday, it was unclear if Parcells would be in attendance Friday at Churchill Downs. If he does show, it would be his first time at the historic track.

“I’ve been by it, I’ve never been in it,” said Parcells, noting that he made several recruiting visits to Kentucky when he coached college football at Vanderbilt.

Whether he’s here or not, Parcells knows the importance of Friday’s race.

“It’s like going to a big bowl game or division championship or the Super Bowl,” he said. “It’s the same kind of feeling.”

The only difference is, if Forty Under wins, Parcells won’t be getting doused with Gatorade.

BARBARA D. LIVINGSTON Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Parcells now spends much of his time at the track. Among his 14 horses is Forty Under, who runs Friday in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.