Kelly Breen called it “the perfect storm.” Right races, right horses, right timing.

It’s the most plausible explanation the veteran trainer of more than 6,700 career starters could come up with following an opening weekend at Monmouth Park that saw him win with six of his eight starters, including four winners on Sunday. The two horses that failed to win finished second and third.

Breen, who turned 57 today, will look to extend his impressive start this Saturday with four more horses entered on Monmouth Park’s eight-race card, a program that will be headlined by the $100,000 Serena’s Song Stakes for fillies and mares.

“It was like the perfect storm,” said Breen of his early success. “We had a couple of horses on the drop down, a couple of horses changing distances and a couple of horses that might not have liked to travel and have to get on a van again and ship. It was a little bit of everything that went our way.”

Breen, a three-time Monmouth Park training champion (2005, 2006 and 2020) who has 1,133 career wins, said he is certain he has had four-winner days at some point in his career, “just not at one track.” What made his dizzying start even more impressive is that he had six winners from just 16 races that were contested.

“There are times you have to run a horse and it’s just not the right spot,” Breen said. “But I can’t say we expected this, with the right races all going for the right horses. We’re pleasantly pleased.”

After winning 14 races at Monmouth Park a year ago, Breen’s six wins give him a clear lead in the trainer standings. Though he no longer is aggressively seeking to win another title, Jorge Delgado was Monmouth’s leading trainer a year ago with 21 wins. Breen is almost one-third of the way to that total with 48 racing days left in the 50-day meet.

“We ran a little more than 20 percent of our horses last weekend, so to run eight and win with six that was a big deal for us,” said Breen. “We’re just enjoying this right now. Everyone at the barn is happy. But we’re not resting on our laurels. You want to keep something like this going as long as you can.”

On Saturday’s Monmouth card, Breen has Baby on Board entered in the first race, a $10,000 maiden claimer; Bee N Dee entered in the third race, a $7,500 claimer; It’s the Stones entered in the fourth race, a $12,500 maiden claimer, and Man With the Money entered in the eighth race, a $40,000 maiden claimer at 5½ furlongs on the grass.

He also has Grant the Great going in the 14^th and final race on Saturday’s Preakness Stakes card at Laurel Park.

“I keep saying we have a smorgasbord of horses that fit a lot of different conditions,” said Breen, a New Jersey native and Monmouth Park fixture since he started training in 1992. “That gives us an opportunity to run in a lot of different races.”

A positive outlook doesn’t hurt either. It has been almost three years since he had neck fusion ceremony that caused him to wear a heavy neck brace and walk with a cane for nearly two years.

He says this is the best he has felt physically in quite a while.

“I have been battling this for a while now,” he said. “I don’t know at what point I started feeling better, but it was just recently. It makes a difference, I think.”

One noteworthy change for Breen on Saturday will be the absence of 12-time leading rider Paco Lopez, who will be at Laurel instead. Lopez had five of Breen’s winners last weekend, with Luis Rivera, Jr. riding the other winner. Rivera and Jose Gomez will handle Breen’s four starters on Saturday.