Watch: Brown tells hometown graduates to 'start aiming higher'
Trainer Chad Brown returned to his roots Saturday, delivering a commencement speech at alma mater Mechanicville High School in which the future Hall of Famer urged graduates to create their own definition of success.
Brown, who also went on to earn a degree from Cornell University, said he made the decision as an animal science major to “shun” medical school and pursue a career training horses.
“So there I was, an Ivy League graduate living in a tack room on the backside of Belmont Park racetrack,” Brown said in his speech.
Years later, he’s the winner of more than 1,500 races with horses that have compiled $160 million in career earnings, with Brown saying, “I now own and manage the largest thoroughbred racing operation in the country. I’m currently the second-highest-rated trainer in the world.”
“So what is the definition of success?” Brown asked students. “Is it making a lot of money? Having your own Wikipedia page? Becoming famous? How about identifying your passion and making a career and life out of it? Finding happiness in what you are doing every day and enjoying any fruits of life that you desire.”
Brown, who played varsity baseball for Mechanicville, harkened back to those days and lessons he learned in defeat. Now, he noted, “If I lose 70% of my races, I’m considered brilliant.”
He also said “no award of victory in a horse race will ever compare” to the honor of giving that keynote speech.
“I challenge all of you,” Brown said, concluding. “Start aiming higher. I am certain that you all have the same foundation I had standing on this stage 22 years ago. You should fear nothing. Your potential is indeed unlimited.”
Later Saturday, Brown's barn delivered a stakes-winning double at Belmont Park, where Uni returned from a layoff to take the Perfect Sting and 3-year-old filly Dunbar Road prevailed in the Mother Goose (G2).
The school’s decision to have Brown arrived with some backlash, as The Daily Gazette newspaper reported some students and their parents were concerned with Brown’s recent settlement paying $1.6 million after a U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation into his barn.
Mechanicville senior Jacob DeRepentigny told The Daily Gazette that, “I think someone who shorts people and cuts corners with people is not someone who should be speaking to high school grads. It’s not the morals we were raised on, and I don’t think any of us should be looking up to that at all.”