In horse racing, the word trifecta technically means you guess the horses that will come in first, second and third, in that order.
But come Saturday at the Breeders' Cup, there is one horse that might have the worst odds, but also has his own little trifecta, all by himself.
LA-based champion horse trainer Doug O'Neill has a new contender on the track.
Handsome Mike may have 30-to-1 odds Saturday, but he has the one thing the eleven other horses in the Breeders' Cup Classic don't: the team which nearly won the triple crown.
He is owned by J. Paul Reddam, trained by Doug O'Neil and jockeyed by Mario Gutierrez, the three men who nearly won the Triple Crown this year with a horse named I'll Have Another.
Yet Mike is his own horse.
"Super different style than I'll Have Another, so I have to ride him a little different," Gutierrez said.
Handsome Mike comes off his career best winning the Pennsylvania Derby last month.
"We're hoping Handsome Mike can kind of pick up the baton and run with it," O'Neill said.
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And with a year as epic as it has been for Team O'Neill, history may have another entry Saturday with a feisty 3-year-old named Mike.
