Itıs a Strictly Down-Home Operation
By Tom Ainslie
Daily Racing Form
Sunday March 24, 1992
In a 14-acre orange grove on the sandy shore of Eagle Lake, near Winter Haven, Fla. a nonconformist named Janet Del Castillo raises, schools and trains thoroughbreds in unusual ways.
Even when racing, her horses live at home, 60 miles from Tampa Bay Downs, 220 miles from the eastern Florida tracks. They van to the track on race day. That evening they come home to recuperate in grassy paddocks, swim in the lake and gallop every few days on the trails among the orange trees.
"It is important to treat horses as horses," says Del Castillo. "They need to romp on grass. They need each other's company. Individual confinement to racetrack stalls for 23 hours a day is unnatural."
She does not race 2-year-olds. She asks no horse for speed until he is almost 3. Her horses race on food and water, unmedicated.
These methods arouse skepticism, but her horses dispel it. They win their share. None has bowed a tendon or broken down in a race. They last for season after season. She never pays more than $2,500 for a yearling. But she has won stakes.
Her best buy was First Prediction, a 2-year-old filly that had been donated to a children's home where Janet was a volunteer worker. The tiny gray was by On to Glory, a half-brother to Ruffian, Icecapade and Buckfinder. In a six-year-career, she competed in more than 100 races, winning or placing in 13 stakes and earning $312,000.
The Del Castillo approach is novel but not new. Before racing was urbanized in enclosed stadiums, horses trained at home. Some harness races, quarter horses and thoroughbreds still do. What sets this woman apart is her sense of bounden duty to advance an idea that might benefit fellow horsefolk, the breed and racing itself.
To encourage experimentation by others she is writing an instruction manual called, "The Backyard Racehorse." She also conducts seminars. She recently regaled a two-day gathering of enthusiastic horsefolk at the New Jersey farm of a friend and follower, owner-trainer Ann Cain. She was interviewed there.
"Thousands of Americans already have horses on their own property," said Janet. "Not only thoroughbreds, but horses of all kinds- pleasure horses, cutting horses, draft horses, you name it. When these horse-lovers learn how gratifying it is to school and care for an actual racehorse, and how practical it is, we'll recruit new stable owners to our sport. Matter of fact, we already have."
Obviously, not everyone with a horse has enough acreage for serious conditioning. But many do, says Del Castillo, and others have access to useful trails, hills and bridle paths. If shipping back and forth between home and track is not feasible, horses properly schooled at home are welcome in the trackside stable of good trainers. And can return home for furloughs.
"Before its first start, a horse needs to be at the track a few times to become acclimated to the environment and accustomed to producing speed on a dirt oval," Del Castillo points out. "But, before and after those workouts and all the races that follow, home is the best place."
As the reader may have surmised, these ideas come from no shrinking violet. Janet Helene Mulgannon Del Castillo is a strapping, strong-minded individual who speaks her mind. She is 40-something, with three grown children and a divorce from the Colombian physician whose family name she retains.
She grew up in San Francisco, where her father was a Federal narcotics agent. She became horse-happy at an early age, walking and rubbing polo ponies. While an art major at San Francisco State, she opted for real life, joined the Peace Corps and spent two years of privation in a Colombian village. She nursed the sick, struggled to establish rudimentary sanitation and warmed to the dignity and generosity of the poor.
She returned home and married the young Colombian doctor whom she had assisted in the village. He revived her interest in horses when he decided (in all seriousness) that they should buy an inexpensive yearling and win the Kentucky Derby. When that failed, he dropped the project. But she was hooked and has had racehorses ever since.
All right now. What exactly are the advantages of "backyard" schooling and conditioning? And what does it take to develop winners who go to the track only to race?
"The purpose of training," says Janet Del Castillo, "is to fulfill a horse's potential without breaking him down. At home you give your horses the natural environment in which their bodies and spirits thrive. Frolicking and grazing with each other makes them more resilient, less hectic, less frightened.
"But the main factor is the severe disadvantage of trying to strengthen equine bone, muscle and attitude at a track. Conditioning is a cycle of stress-recovery-stress-recovery. At the track, the horse stressed by a hard race or workout is confined to a stall, sometimes with pain-killing medication, and walked under the shed a few minutes a day until asked once again to strain himself at high speed. That program, combined with the frequent after-effect of medication, can hasten the onset of physical problems. But a horse conditioned at home recovers naturally from routine trauma, free to walk and jog his way through the discomfort.
"Another major advantage is economic. The expense of shipping to and from the track is far less than the cost of keeping a horse in training there. And then there is the joy of having your horse around and knowing that no other arrangement could be more constructive."
As to the know-how, she describes it as love for horses plus common sense. The main technique is gradually increased exertion that begins around age 2. At her own place, Del Castillo has cut a trail that winds up and down grades, with many sharp turns. She gallops young horses slowly for three miles every three or four day, monitoring their reactions. After a year, as the third birthday approaches, they are happy, rugged animals, ready for speed.