Del Castillo's Training Style Unorthodox
By Lisa A. Hammond
The Ledger March 28, 1989
EAGLE LAKE - Most racehorses learn to run during one-mile jaunts within the
confines of a racetrack. Janet Del Castillo's thoroughbreds train by galloping
for three miles in the deep sand of an orange grove on her Rancho Del Castillo.
Her methods, including swimming the horses in Eagle Lake, are considered unorthodox.
"People feel sorry for me when I have to train on the farm and not at the track, but I wouldn't trade them," she said.
Her horses negotiate the sharp turns of the orange grove which, she says, makes the gradual curves of the racetrack a breeze.
"People say the sand will bow the horses' tendons, but my horses are very sound. Galloping through the deep sand and up the hills strengthens all of their muscles, and going around the sharp turns makes them surefooted," Del Castillo said.
The grove and ranch are located off of State Road 540 on Crystal Beach Road.
"I love the orange grove," she said. "To be able to support my family doing this is just heavenly."
She often treats herself to an orange plucked off a tree after she rides.
Del Castillo, 43, is a tall, stocky woman, who radiates strength. She has shoulder-length hair with a few streaks of gray. She seems very motherly and kind, especially to the horses, which she strokes with her large hands and calls her "little babies".
She began by training polo ponies when she was in high school.
"I started cleaning stalls so I would be allowed to gallop the polo ponies," she said.
Later her uncle, who owned a quarter horse ranch in Virginia, got her family involved with quarter horses, which she took to the Green Swamp for match races.
Her association with thoroughbreds began when her ex-husband, Dr. Hernando Del Castillo, acquired some.
"I watched how the trainer trained these horses and I couldn't believe that the horses could run. I think they really damage them structurally," she said. "I think they need a better foundation, which is why I train the way I do.
"I want to put guts in them," she said.
Trainer Dwaine Glenn of X-ville said Del Castillo's practices are based on a sound theory.
"Anytime you run a horse in deep sand like that, youıre going to leg them up real well."
Glenn said. "It's an endurance program-it does help them. I see nothing wrong with it." Glenn said more orthodox methods are often used because the trainers don't have the facilities to train the horses any other way.
Del Castillo's horses do not get drugs, liniments, or leg wraps, all common practices in horse racing.
"If a 2-year-old needs leg wraps, he shouldn't be training," she said.
She has been training thoroughbreds for about 10 years and says experience has been a great teacher.
"I used to gallop them all the time," she said. "But I learned that no matter how fit they are, they won't run any faster than God will allow them to run. They won't run faster than their natural ability."
The proof, of course, is in the race results, and Del Castillo's evidence is First Prediction, a horse she refers to as "sweetness and light."
First Prediction, owned and trained by Del Castillo, is a 7-year-old gray mare who has won two stakes races. Only 3 percent of thoroughbreds ever win a stakes race.
"She is a dream come true. People wait for years for a stakes horse, and I never knew what I had," Del Castillo said. She bought the delicate mare, which is gray with dark flecks, from a childrenıs home for $2,500. First Prediction has won more than $270,000.
First Prediction has displayed heart, a racehorse's most elusive quality, in both her racing style and in coming back from injuries.
"One time she started at 26 lenghts behind, and ended up losing by three lengths," Del Castillo said.
First Prediction has also had to recover from physical setbacks. "She had a bone chip in her knee from being kicked in the pasture, and then she got a virus and foundered (an inflammation of the tissue that attaches foot to hoof)," Del Castillo said. "People said she would never race again."
First Prediction's rehabilitation took place in Eagle Lake. Del Castillo would attach a long lead to the horse's halter and stand on a dock while the horse paddled around in the lake. Swimming exercised the horse without straining her sore feet and legs.
"She loves to swim now. Sometimes she'll lay over on her side and just float," Del Castillo said.
First Prediction returned to dry land to win several races at Gulfstream Park, including a stakes race, the Very One Handicap, which took place on Mother's Day of 1988. Del Castillo said that race was especially meaningful to her.
"She really is my baby, and it was wonderful to win a stake on Motherıs Day," she said.
First Prediction now is trained almost exclusively by swimming because galloping causes her muscles to "tie up." The small, sprightly mare, who looks more like a pet than a racehorse, has won 12 races in her long career, including a $30,000 allowance race on Feb.21 at Gulfstream.
She races most often at Gulfstream, Calder and Hialeah, where she is viewed as an underdog.
"Whenever I haul this horse down to Miami, they think she's a pony horse," Del Castillo said.
Del Castillo uses a chart to keep track of the 12 to 15 horses she trains. Assistant Eric Low, two exercise riders, and Del Castillo's children, Nando, 20, and Victoria, 17, help out at the ranch.
Most of the other horses Del Castillo trains run in claiming races at Tampa Bay Downs.
"First Prediction is the only big-league horse Iıve had," she said.