by Pohla Smith

Beatrice Oxenberg celebrated her 87th birthday on Friday on a flight to Baltimore to watch her Holy Bull Stakes (G3) winner Hey Byrn run in the Preakness Stakes (G1) on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course.

The Put It Back colt will start the 1 3/16-mile classic from the extreme outside post of the 12-horse field under jockey C.C. Lopez.
       
Her decision to race the 20-to-1 shot in the middle jewel of the Triple Crown was not the one trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. suggested—he wanted to go instead to the Ohio Derby (G2).

But Oxenberg’s choice to experience her first Triple Crown start was more in keeping with the full-to-the-brim life she lived with her late husband, Bernard, who died in October 2003 at age 83. They were a couple who, along with racing horses, used season tickets to attend virtually every professional and major college sporting event in Miami.

Avid tennis players, they also traveled the world, visiting Europe, China, Australia, and New Zealand.

“They were the kind of couple you’d say about them, ‘They don’t miss out on anything,’ “ Plesa said.
 
“Why not go for the stars?” Oxenberg said of her Preakness decision in a phone interview from her North Miami Beach home before she caught an afternoon flight to Maryland. “I thought he was a better horse than to ride in the Ohio Derby. I thought he deserved the opportunity to show what he had. ... You only live once.

“… I think going to the Preakness is a little more exciting than Ohio. [Plesa] tried very hard to sway me the other way, but I was very averse to Ohio.”

Plesa understood her response.
 
“There’s no reason not to come here,” he said. “It’s her birthday. It’s a Triple Crown race.”
 
And, he said earlier this week, racing probably has been the most important part of her life since her husband’s death.
 
“Every time she has a horse in, she’s at the races,” he said. “She just drives her car and goes to the track.”
 
Oxenberg has about ten horses in training now, but she and her husband had as many as 15 during their 27-year tenure with Plesa.

She also has three broodmares standing at Marion Hills Farm in Ocala and stands millionaire Best of the Rest for $2,500 at Ocala. The stallion’s first crop is three this year.
 
“He’s been very successful with a limited amount of babies,” Plesa said. “Did he deserve to stand at stud? Probably. Was he promoted right? No.”
 
Oxenberg races her homebreds but also goes with Plesa to buy at auction. She approved the purchase of Hey Byrn, who is named for her husband, for $160,000 at the2007 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. March selected sale of two-year-olds in training.

"She’s got an eye for a horse that’s a natural thing,” Plesa said.
 
“He’s being too kind,” Oxenberg said. “There are certain things I look for. So far we’ve been lucky.” 

Pohla Smith is a Pennsylvania-based Thoroughbred Times contributing writer