Messenger - Vol. 2, No. 1, Page 3 Fall 1992 Working on the 'backside'; Gail Hanford, '85, says she is not uncomfortable as a minority in the male-dominated, horse-training business, which, she concedes, can be very rough. Gail Hanford remembers the Shetland pony her father gave her when she was 5 years old. She remembers the winters spent as a little girl in Aiken, S.C., where he trained thoroughbred race horses. What she cannot remember is when she decided to go into the horse-training business herself. Old photographs have blurred the line between experiences that were her own and those of her father, she says. In short, she remembers being around horses all her life. It is no surprise, then, that Hanford, Delaware '85, rises every morning before the sun to head for Delaware Park, a one-mile race track in Stanton, Del., near the University. Like her father, Carl, she is a trainer, preparing horses for races on the turf and dirt tracks of Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania. What makes her situation unusual is her gender. According to an article in the June 1991 edition of The Backstretch, the official publication of United Thoroughbred Trainers of America (UTTA), women slowly began to break into horse training in the 1930s. The largest horse owners' and trainers' association in the country, UTTA reports that today a mere 8 percent of its members are female trainers. Hanford says she is not uncomfortable as a minority in the male-dominated, horse-training business, which, she concedes, can be very rough. "I've spent all my life around the track," she says, "and I do all the things around a horse that any guy could do. I've never really felt other than an equal to any man. A lot of it has to do with my personality." Of course, having the right temperament for dealing with all the characters that live and work on the "backside" of a race track is critical to surviving in the horse-training business. Personality cannot account, however, for success in horse training, which appears to run in the Hanford family like a well-bred colt. Carl Hanford gained prominence in horse racing as the trainer of Kelso, recognized as the Horse of the Year by "everyone" in the business from 1960 through 1964, experts say. Before his days as a trainer, the elder Hanford also was a jockey, and later, a steward, and the highest ranking official at a race track. Carl's brother, Ira, caught people's attention in 1936, when he became the first apprentice, or rookie, jockey to win the Kentucky Derby, a rider has matched in the last 56 years. Now, at 30, Gail Hanford is beginning to win races. From the beginning of this year through August, with six horses under her care, Hanford has had five wins, six second places, a third and two fourth places. To date, just one race in 1992 has seen one of her horses finish "out of the money," or below the top five places. For her efforts, Hanford receives about $1,500 per month per horse, most of which goes into feeding the animals and paying two assistants. She also earns 10 percent of any prize money the horses' owners receive for a first-, second- or third-place finish. Still, all those numbers don't add up to much in take-home pay, says Hanford, who majored in business administration at the University. "You're very lucky if you make money, extremely lucky," she says. "Right now, I'm real pleased because all my owners have been winning races and they're making money, but, gosh, they've gone for years without making anything." Hanford has three clients, the Rooney brothers. A family connection between the Hanfords and the Rooneys-Carl Hanford trained horses for the Rooneys' father-created the current owner-trainer relationship. One of the brothers, Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team, placed a 6-year-old from Ireland named Marabeau Special with Hanford. "She's really done a good job," he says. "Before Gail got the horse, it was not doing so great." Since she began training Marabeau Special, the horse has won three races, finished third once and fourth once. All that in just six races. Hanford attributes much of her success to group decision-making. "Back when I was first starting out, I more or less took everything my father said as gospel," she says. "That was the way to do it. But since then, I've worked with different people and listened to different opinions, and now I have some of my own opinions. Still, I really like to find out what people around me think before I decide anything." Though Hanford says she doesn't "get real excited over anything" at the track, there have been special moments. This year, one of those moments came on "the turf," complements of Marabeau Special. "He ran real big in every race last year, but he just couldn't win," she says. "I hate to give a horse excuses, but this one had a valid excuse every time. You could see the way he was running that he had a lot of ability. "This year, I had to run him on the dirt one time to qualify him for some other races, and he didn't run well. But the next time I stuck him where he belongs, which is on the grass, and he won. That was thrilling." Another recent triumph for Hanford also came on the turf, this time in Atlantic City, N.J., where a 2-year-old filly named Sunshine Mary ran against the colts, or young male horses. "Most people think it's a big disadvantage to run a filly against the colts, but I don't personally agree with them," Hanford says. "If you run a filly, you get a couple of weight allowances and the horse gets in lighter, so I think it's really an advantage. We ran her with the boys who had been in stakes down in Atlantic City, which we thought would probably be over her head, and she just blew past them. That was exciting, too." To obtain her trainer's license, which she did as a University senior, Hanford had to pass a written test, administered by the stewards of Delaware Park, as well as a barn test given by the Delaware Horsemen's Association. She also had to have her own horse run in one race. That horse finished the race in second place with a bowed tendon, a career-ending injury that ranks right up there with the special victories as the most emotional part of a trainer's work, Hanford says. Working seven days, starting around 6:30 a.m. and ending around noon-only to go back for feeding time around 4:30 p.m. for a few more hours, Hanford is completely responsible for the care of her owners' horses, from feeding to bathing, exercising and grooming. She also picks the races in which the horses run. In the end, she explains her passion for the ponies this way: "You kind of have to be in love with animals to work with them every day. The owners are in it for the love of the sport, but the people who put in 24-hour days...why else are they doing it but for the love of the animals?" -Stephen Steenkamer, Delaware '92