HORSE RACING

Former trainer, TVG's Bray, battles rare cancer

Jonathan Lintner
@JonathanLintner
Former trainer Simon Bray holds his Kentucky Derby hopeful, Startac, after morning workouts on May 4, 2001, at Churchill Downs.

Former thoroughbred trainer Simon Bray, who saddled a Kentucky Derby runner and has worked as an analyst for more than a decade, announced Saturday he's battling a rare form of blood cancer.

Bray said in a statement that his multiple myeloma, while not curable, can be treated. He'll undergo care at City of Hope Hospital in California and hopes to return to TVG, "the job I love so very much."

"A month ago I was in the healthiest and best condition of my life, so it was surprising when I broke a vertebra in my back after one of my routine workouts," said Bray, 45. "It was a rare fracture. My doctor therefore ordered a battery of tests and scans. Unfortunately, the results of those tests turned my life upside down in an instant."

TVG set up a fund at bit.ly/supportsimon and will match up to $10,000 in donations on Bray's behalf to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

Bray, an Englishman, came to the United States in 1992 and worked under Bill Mott, helping condition champion horse Cigar. Once out on his own, Bray saddled, among others, Startac, who finished 10th in the 2001 Derby before winning Arlington Park's Grade I Secretariat Stakes next time out.

According to Equibase, Bray won seven graded stakes in all, four of them with Astra, a mare he also trained in the early 2000s.