WHAT A RUN! Just a month after the NCAA Tournament with the Lousiville Cardinals. Rick Pitino (inset center, right), will attempt to claim the Kentucky Durby as one of the owners of Goldencents (left), one of the favorits. (
)
Rick Pitino will lose no sleep this week, a major accomplishment considering all the sleepless nights he had in March through early April. He will not fret and plan, won’t suffer the elation and exhaustion that comes with an NCAA Tournament championship run.
No, Pitino, who is heading down the backstretch of one of the great two-month runs any native New Yorker could dream, will watch his horse, Goldencents, make a run for the Kentucky Derby Saturday without a care in the world.
“Coaching college basketball is my life,’’ Pitino told The Post. “You live and die with every possession, every game. You don’t sleep the night before a game or the night after a game. Every loss is awful.
“Horse racing is a hobby. It’s like golf. If my horse wins, I’m going to have a great time. If my horse loses, I’m going to have a great time.’’
That should be the title of Pitino’s new book — “I’m Having a Great Time” — although he is writing a tome entitled “The One Day Contract,” which is due out in October.
We have to go back to last August to find the starting gate to Pitino’s run. He was at Del Mar, watching Avare, a horse he owns a piece of, work out. Avare, on the inside, was running neck and neck with a horse on the outside that caught Pitino’s eye.
It was Goldencents.
“Dave [Kenney] said to me, ‘I like your horse,’ ’’ Pitino recalled. “I said, ‘I like your horse better.’ We started talking and he offered to sell me a 5-percent share. So I wrote him a check for $25,000 and joked, ‘You better not hold that for a few days or it may not clear!’ ’’
“But all kidding aside, when I saw Goldencents, I thought he was a very special horse.’’
Goldencents, primarily owned by Kenney, Josh Kaplan and Glenn Sorgenstein, trained by Doug O’Neill and ridden by Kevin Krigger, was listed yesterday as a 5-1 choice to win the Derby, just behind Orb 7-2 and Verrazano at 4-1.
This is pretty heady stuff for a part owner who lived the first years of his life on East 26th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues before the Pitinos moved to Long Island.
“I never thought about where I was in life except for two times,’’ Pitino said. “When I got the call to become an assistant coach with the Knicks in 1983, and in 1987 when I was fortunate enough to return as coach of the Knicks.”
Pitino has known the randomness of life as strikingly as anyone. He and his wife Joanne lost their son Daniel to congenital heart failure in 1987. His best friend and brother-in-law, Billy Minardi, was one of the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks.
It was a conversation with Minardi that was the inspiration for the title of the book, “The One Day Contract.”
“I told him that our jobs were similar and he said they were but they weren’t,’’ said Pitino, who after being elected to the Hall of Fame last month gave his jersey to his sister-in-law Mary Minardi Vogt.
“He said our jobs come with tremendous pressure, but if you lose a game you get to coach the next one. If my last trade fails, that could be it. It’s like being on a one day contract.’’
With two NCAA Tournament titles, a Hall of Fame election and a recently signed contract extension, with a base salary of $3.9 million that will take him through the 2021-22 season, Pitino has job security.
And he has a nine-month run, beginning last August, that is like hitting the life lottery. In early March, Louisville won the Big East Conference Tournament in the Garden.
Pitino’s son, Richard, got the University of Minnesota head-coaching job. Goldencents became a Derby favorite by winning the Santa Anita Derby. Pitino was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. In an epic NCAA title game, Louisville beat Michigan to cut down the nets in Atlanta.
After winning the national title he flew to New Orleans to cheer on the Louisville women’s team, which lost in the championship game to Connecticut. Then it was down to South Florida for some relaxation.
He just returned to Louisville about a week ago to begin to allow his mind to take in the remarkable run he has enjoyed and the possibility that tomorrow his horse could cross the finish line first.
Down the stretch he comes.
“My wife said, ‘Don’t talk about winning the Derby, it’s bad luck, like, we’ll get hit by lightning!’ Typical New Yorker,’’ Pitino said. “But I feel so fortunate to have run the gamut of emotions as a father, an uncle, a coach.
“You know, when you’re born and raised in New York, you learn early on that life has so much for offer. I’m humbled that I’ve experienced all that I have. Win or lose, the Derby will be a great day for me and my family.’’