Paladin, the TV character, dresses in black and travels far and wide through the Old West answering the plight of the oppressed and downtrodden, for money. He quotes Shakespeare and lives the high life in San Francisco, easing into action when someone shows up bearing one of his calling cards that reads, "Have Gun - Will Travel."
Paladin, the Thoroughbred, comes decked out in a caramel coat and a long, spreading blaze that disappears over his left nostril. He is a son of Gun Runner , and in his short life he has traveled often—from his Kentucky birthplace, to a Saratoga sales ring, to a racetrack in New York, a training center in Florida, and now to New Orleans, land of rascals and riverboat hustlers.
The Big Easy is where the four-legged Paladin will be putting his young and lofty reputation on the line in the $500,000 Risen Star Stakes (G2) Feb. 14 at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. The colt already has won at the Risen Star's 1 1/8 miles in the Remsen Stakes (G2) at Aqueduct Racetrack last Dec. 6. And even though he has not run since, Paladin finds himself in the role of current individual favorite in the future wager for the 152nd Kentucky Derby (G1), to be run May 2.
"These young horses can get a reputation quickly, and it's hard to live up to it," said Peter Brant, who owns Paladin in a partnership reminiscent of the group that raced Sierra Leone , also a son of Gun Runner.
"The good ones seem to stand out, and this one was a very good yearling—very well bred, super intelligent," Brant said. "I think we'll find out more about him on Saturday. He hasn't been away from the races that long, and his breezes have been very convincing."
Like Paladin, whose price tag was $1.9 million, Sierra Leone was an expensive yearling at Fasig-Tipton's The Saratoga Sale, lightly raced as a 2-year-old, and trained by Chad Brown. A brawny dark bay with a wild, winging action, Sierra Leone was beaten a nose by Mystik Dan in the 2024 Kentucky Derby after rough-and-tumble three-way finish that included Forever Young.
Paladin has the look of a more refined athlete, but Brant knows that pretty is as pretty does when it comes to classic colts. After decades in the game, his White Birch Farm operation still has only one Kentucky Derby victory among his gallery of trophies, as part owner of 1984 winner Swale. Brant also bred 1995 Derby winner Thunder Gulch.
"Going to the Kentucky Derby is always a difficult thing," Brant said. "It's our classic, but it takes its toll. My first trainer was Frank Whiteley, and he was always skeptical of the Derby for a young horse."
Hostile is more like it. Whiteley's disdain for running a young 3-year-old a mile and a quarter in early May was legendary. In a Hall of Fame career that spanned half a century, while training for some of the sport's most prominent breeders, Whiteley started exactly two horses in the Derby. He finished third with both Tom Rolfe (1965) and Damascus (1967), then brought them back two weeks later to win the Preakness Stakes.
"It's an honor to have a horse even being considered for the Derby," Brant said. "But if they show you any signs on the way that they are bothered by something, you've got to give them the opportunity to grow up a little more. I understand how tempting it is to run. There's a responsibility, though, to run them when they're at the top of their game."
Brant acknowledged that the colt's name has a certain flair and gives credit to Paladin's breeder, Jane Lyon of Summer Wind Farm. Paladin entered the ring with the name attached, and Lyon retained a piece of the colt following the sale.
"When I was a kid, I used to watch 'Have Gun - Will Travel,'" Brant said of the show that ran for 225 episodes on CBS between 1957 and 1963. "Richard Boone played the lead, kind of a bounty hunter. It was on Saturday night, and that was the night to watch television.
"Normally, when you buy a horse as a yearling it's the kiss of death to have them already named," Brant added. "But the breeder stayed in as part owner, and asked if we could keep the name. Of course, at the end of the day it's their record that speaks for itself—how brave they are, how hard they try. The good ones seem not to need any excuses. They don't have many bad days."
While Paladin performs in New Orleans, Brant will be otherwise occupied this weekend hosting family and friends for activities surrounding his induction into the United States Polo Association's Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame Feb. 13 in Lake Worth, Fla. Brant, who attained a 7-goal handicap as an amateur, fielded teams under his White Birch banner that won a record 12 USPA Gold Cup titles and the 2005 U.S. Open Polo Championship.
"I'm very excited about this," said Brant, who last played in 2018. "It's a great honor. I've been playing for almost 50 years, and it's totally consuming if you're going to do it right. There are many times I should have been someplace else other than a polo field, but I always seemed to find a way to stick it out. And the horses are great athletes. They play to an old age and really enjoy it. I've learned so much about racing from polo, and vice versa."
Brant also made a friend. The Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones was a fellow player who was angling to make a movie version of the Glendon Swarthout novel "The Homesman." Brant already had credits as producer of such art-oriented features as "Basquiat," "Pollock," and the Andy Warhol episode of "American Masters." But this was a departure. The tale of an unscrupulous saddle tramp taking on a rescue mission for a group of abandoned frontier women is by turns horrific and hopeful. It was also deemed unfilmable, until Jones and Brant came along.
"I was a big fan of Tommy Lee's from 'Lonesome Dove,'" Brant said. "It was a lot of fun, and a very profitable film for us to do. I was there in New Mexico for a lot of the filming. It was one of the great experiences of my life, to watch such a great group of actors at work."
Besides Jones, the cast included Meryl Streep, Jesse Plemons, and Hilary Swank.
"I watch it every six months," Brant said, "and it just gets better and better."
The estimable Andrew O'Hehir of Salon.com agreed. He called "The Homesman," released in 2014, "A wrenching, relentless and anti-heroic western that stands among the year's most powerful American films."
Asked to cite his favorite horse racing movies, Brant settled on "Casey's Shadow," starring Walter Matthau as a scuffling Quarter Horse trainer, and "The Champ," with Jon Voight as a punch-drunk fighter lingering on the backstretch of Hialeah Park. Brant saves his highest praise for a racing scene he facilitated at Aqueduct for the 1993 movie "A Bronx Tale."
"It was the first movie Robert De Niro directed," Brant said. "My trainer, LeRoy Jolley, helped set it up with some of my horses. We had all the jockeys involved—(Chris) Antley, (Jorge) Velasquez, (Richard) Migliore—and (Angel) Cordero was on the lead with a horse that was bet on by a guy named Eddie Mush, who was a loser. As soon as the gangsters found out they bet on the same horse, they tore up their tickets before the race was even over. Just like they figured, Cordero's horse gets caught right on the wire.
"The problem was, Cordero's horse wouldn't stop," Brant added with a laugh. "Angel wanted to make it look as real as possible. So they had to reshoot."
Typical Cordero. He hated losing even when pretending.
"It was very special," Brant said. "We did it for very little money, just to show off racing in part of what became very successful film."
And if you watch closely and listen carefully, you'll notice that the jockey on the winner was wearing a very familiar set of two-tone green colors, and you will hear the announcer, deep in the background, say, "White Birch wins it in an absolute shocker."
