Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin will start top contender Invasor in the $5 million Classic on Saturday at Churchill Downs
By Tom Pedulla, USA TODAY
LOUISVILLE — Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin will start top contender Invasor in the $5 million Classic and favored Henny Hughes in the $2 million Sprint on Saturday at Churchill Downs, knowing that being at the Breeders' Cup World Championships is triumph enough.

He'll never forget the stabbing pain in his right shoulder which jolted him awake one night in October 1998 and changed his life forever. He drove himself to a hospital in Garden City, N.Y., where doctors believed he was suffering from a pinched nerve. A magnetic resonance imaging exam, however, revealed lesions on his brain and spinal cord, leading to a devastating diagnosis.

The more McLaughlin learned about his chronic disease — one that follows an uncertain but always hurtful course — the more depressed he became. It can cut deeply into the patient's quality of life, diminishing sight and coordination. Some cases result in blindness and paralysis.

He was a trainer on the rise, a Lexington, Ky., native who had written a school paper as a 12-year-old about his dream of working with Thoroughbreds. The MS diagnosis temporarily robbed him of his spirit as he agonized about the future.

He remained at home for weeks, able but unwilling to go to the barn. Question after question raced through his mind.

Could he continue as a trainer? Could he support his wife, Letty, and their two children? Could he live normally?

"He was just sitting in a chair," Letty recalled, "shocked and scared about the future."

There was nothing anyone could say to comfort him. No words could ease his fear and anxiety. Determination needed to come from within.

"I knew he'd bow his neck and handle it," said Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who had helped give McLaughlin his start by hiring him as an assistant. "If anybody was going to handle it, Kiaran McLaughlin would. That's just his nature. He's an extraordinary young guy."

Sure enough, after a month or so, McLaughlin emerged from his chair with a renewed determination. He received steroid treatments soon after the onset of his illness, and constantly tells friends and family that he has the potentially debilitating disease "in my hip pocket."

"It does not have him; he's got it," said Art Magnuson, one of his assistant trainers. "He's living life very well."

McLaughlin, 45, can cap an exceptional season on Breeders' Cup day. He earned his first Triple Crown victory when Jazil, who closed for fourth in the Kentucky Derby, pulled away to a 1¼-length win in the Belmont Stakes inMORE - USATODAY.com