Wellington racehorse trainer ready to slow down

By Marty Metzger
Correspondent

Like the course of a long horse race, Gail Castor's life has come full circle. The Wellington racehorse trainer declares herself semi-retired as of 2008.

"I want to stay home and enjoy the farm, to have fun with horses again," she said.

That farm is the one her parents bought in 1959. On it, Castor learned to run barrels, going on to show in multiple classes in the 1960s and '70s. In 1967, she bought her first registered Quarter Horse with babysitting money.

The pace picked up considerably in 1979 as Castor spent her Colorado State University vacation time ponying horses at a racetrack. Castor began training in 1983 when her now ex-husband jockeyed on the Colorado and Wyoming fair circuits. The couple traveled with racehorses seven months out of every year.

Castor said training is "20 jobs wrapped up into one." They include bookkeeping, jockey agent, entering paperwork, pacifying owners, placing horses in appropriate races, maintaining horses' physical and mental well being, and learning and following race commission rules.

She also laughed as she described the plethora of equipment and paraphernalia required for hauling and campaigning racehorses. A friend once told her, "The reason God invented carnies (carnival workers) was so race trackers wouldn't look so bad when they moved."

For Castor, two mainstays of that frenetic travel are her two pet mini-lop bunnies. "You can't have too many rabbits' feet when you race!" she quipped.

Luck aside, Castor's talent has many times taken her own and clients' horses to winners' circles, including many derbies and futurities over the years.

On the Paint scene, she trained Go Again Joe, the 1995 World Champion gelding. She said the most prestigious race she's won was with Tough to Call in the Grade I Stakes on All American Day, Labor Day 1995, at Ruidoso Downs.

At their December 2007 convention, the Rocky Mountain Quarter Horse Association awarded Castor the Individual Special Recognition Award for chairing the Holly Tornado Victim Benefit, held on opening day at Denver's Arapahoe Park racetrack. Due largely to her tireless work over several months on all aspects of the benefit, the event raised $30,000. The proceeds were equally divided among eight racing families affected by the devastating tornado.

Also at the convention, her 4-year-old Johns Rare Style received the Aged Horse Division High Point Race Gelding buckle, and she received the jacket for Reserve High Point trainer.

"There is no bigger honor than to have your peers give you such an award," Castor said. "It was one of the most memorable and exciting evenings of my life."

Castor treasures her award all the more because, she said, racing is a male-dominated world in which female trainers must struggle to earn respect.

For the past seven years, Castor has been in charge of the RMQHA Youth Racing Experience, which has become one of the best and most consistent programs of its kind in the United States. Each fall, four scholarships are awarded based on an essay, application and interview process. Participants can work all around the track, including the starting gate, with photographers, and in most every aspect of racing.

Another feather in Castor's trainer cap is 5-year-old Izyk, owned by Galen and Kathy Hill of LaSalle. The Castor-trained gelding set two Arapahoe Park track records in 2007 - 44:09 for 870 yards and 51:62 for 1,000 yards. The second record was in a race in which Izyk was the only Quarter Horse running against Thoroughbreds.

Castor continues training today but is cutting way back. She and horseshoer husband Donny Castor will work with their own two remaining horses, both Quarter Horses. (They are selling their two Thoroughbreds.) She will continue working with the Youth Racing Experience program and is serving a second term on the Colorado Horse Racing Association Board.

As the made-for-speed trainer slows down just enough to smell the hay, she ponders a new possibility. Her Special Recognition Award included a $400 gift certificate to Hat Works, a Greeley company that makes President George W. Bush's hats.

Castor said, "After winning such a beautiful hat, I might have to start showing horses again." She then mused, "Do you think race horses could place in halter classes?"