Husband-Wife Teams Marry Professional, Personal Lives On The Backstretch
By: Sarah Warren

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Apr. 27, 2003) - On the way to the hospital to give birth to her second child, Dana Barnes wasn't surprised when her husband, Jim, had to make a pit stop.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Barnes rubbed her swollen belly as Jim rushed into the family's barn to check on a horse. She sighed and waited her turn - the horses come first, everything else comes second.

Ten years ago, Barnes was sitting in that car waiting to deliver her daughter, Jordan. Today she's in Bob Baffert's barn at Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, keeping watch over the horses Jim helps to train. Barnes is an exercise rider for Baffert's team, while Jim is an assistant trainer for Baffert.

Barnes rides the horses - feels them out. Jim relies on her information to know how the horses are feeling mentally and physically. It's give and take, and it's worked well for the Barneses, who have worked with many prestigious horses, including near Triple Crown winners Real Quiet and War Emblem.

Working together is all the couple has known for the past two decades as they've followed each other from job to job. They haven't tried to get jobs with the same trainer at the same time, but they always seem to end up in the same place - something they see as a personal advantage, not a necessity. They just do their jobs as best as they can and stay out of each other's professional way.

"He's got a very specific job and I've got mine," Barnes said. "It doesn't overlap. I'm laid back and he's intense, and I really think that helps us."

For Patrick and Jill Byrne, it's more their horse philosophy that keeps them in the same business. Patrick is a trainer, while Jill - the daughter of a trainer - helps him with training dutiesas well as serving as a racing analyst for the Television Games Network (TVG).

Although she isn't always directly working with the horses during Derby Week, her face still covers the walls of Byrne's Churchill Downs office, beaming through the frames of many of championship photos that line his walls. Horses like Ethan Man, Duckhorn, Illioquidity, Eugene's Third Son and Awesome Again - winner of the 2002 Breeders' Cup Classic (GI) - grace his office. According to Patrick, he owes much of his training success to Jill.

"She's behind me 100 percent - she kind of pushed me to go ahead," Byrne said of making the jump from an assistant trainer to having his own barn.

The pair also confers on the minutia of running a training business.

"This is a business of decision making and I respect Jill's opinion," Byrne said. "We're lucky because we think about horses the same way; it makes working easier - it's not perfect, but we get along very well."

Amy Mullins and her husband, Jeff, also run a barn together. Amy gallops the horses and Jeff trains them - including Buddy Gil, this year's Santa Anita Derby winner now pointed for the May 3 "Run for the Roses." The Mullinses have a rapport similar to the Barneses and the Byrnes, but for Amy, there is a definite structure to the professional relationship.

"He's the boss," Mullins said, then she smirks, "I just do what my husband tells me to do."

On the home front it's different, as Mullins has her way around the house and with the couple's two children. And although Mullins has not had to delay labor for her husband's barn pit stop, she's not surprised that it's happened to someone a few barns away at Churchill Downs. According to her, horse couples are all a like, because they love what they do, and they love doing it together.

"It's such a way of life - it's not a job," Mullins said.

Sarah Warren is a student at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan. and is a member of Churchill Downs' Annual Collegiate Sports Journalism Seminar. Ms. Warren received an award of merit for this piece due to her ingenuity in finding a unique story.

« Back To Derby News