On the 13-race Belmont Park program of June 10, 2023, a total of 65 trainers were represented by runners. Five of them were women. One of them won the Belmont Stakes (G1).
Her name is Jena Antonucci, and in the days following the Belmont victory of Arcangelo she has been the gift that keeps on giving. Thoroughbred racing, thirsting for a good news hook, is giving itself a super-sized pat on the back for Antonucci's achievement in becoming the first woman to train the winner of the Belmont, and beyond that any winner of a Triple Crown event at all.
But in a United States population split close to 50-50 between his and hers, is that really a landmark moment of which the sport should be inordinately proud?
Training Thoroughbreds is not easy. The profession requires a network of attributes, not the least of them an inherent empathy with the animals being asked to perform for the profit and pleasure of the people who brought them into this world.
A trainer must be able to manage a small to medium-sized, labor-intensive business. They must be able to tolerate bureaucratic oversight and efficiently delegate the more distracting tasks. People who confuse losing a race with failure are not good candidates for the job.
The best trainers are both open-minded and self-confident, and know the difference. People skills vary, but being a good judge of character in others can avoid many problems. Also, a decent memory is necessary, because just about everything that has happened to racehorses will happen again.
The list goes on. There are no height or weight requirements. Citizenship is not an issue, although it helps not to have a record. Physical strength is meaningless. A sense of humor is mandatory. But at no point is there anything in the job description that would preclude a candidate based on their gender.
The story of Antonucci and Arcangelo feeds cleanly into a thin but compelling narrative dating to 1938, when Mary Hirsch, 25, saddled Thanksgiving to win the Travers Stakes. Bryan Field, in his lengthy New York Times coverage of the day, failed to mention the name of the winning trainer. The chart of the race listed her as "M. Hirsch," leading casual readers to think Thanksgiving was still being trained by Max Hirsch, Mary's father, who handled the colt as a 2-year-old.
Compared to the Belmont or the Travers, the Breeders' Cup is a young event, its history sprinkled with women training winners. Jenine Sahadi cracked the code in 1996 to take the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) with Lit de Justice, then, for those not paying attention, she did it again with Elmhurst in 1997. Carla Gaines and Maria Borell also won runnings of the Sprint, while Kathy Ritvo stood atop the profession in 2013 after winning the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) with Mucho Macho Man .
Laura de Seroux trained Azeri to be 2002 Horse of the Year, a Breeders' Cup winner, and multiple division champ. Linda Rice trained female sprint champion La Verdad. And the reason Jena Antonucci was able to make Triple Crown history in the Belmont—other than her impeccable handling of Arcangelo—is because Shelly Riley missed by one lousy length of winning the 1992 Kentucky Derby (G1) when her Casual Lies finished second.
The above makes for an impressive list and great reading. Then again, if you can name them all there are never enough. The stranglehold of the patriarchy on participation at the highest levels of U.S. Thoroughbred racing is as tight today as it was when Mary Hirsch was initially turned down for a license by The Jockey Club. Today, licenses are readily available to qualified women who want to train. Access to investment and opportunity is a whole different matter.
Over the decades, this reporter has appreciated the training profession as embodied by an array of fascinating individuals, men and women alike. Some of them even sacrificed their health and well being through intimate contact with their sometimes unpredictable Thoroughbreds. Not the least of those was Del Carroll, who was killed in a fall one morning at Keeneland from a racehorse named Sportin' Life.
John Nerud and Jeff Lukas suffered serious head injuries during training. One recovered fully, the other did not. Ron McAnally broke a hip and a rib when he was knocked down one morning at Del Mar by a runaway. Charlie Whittingham, Richard Mandella, John Shirreffs, D. Wayne Lukas, Blake Heap, Art Sherman—these are just a few familiar names who were banged around and busted up, but none of them blamed the horse.
Then there was Martine Bellocq, at one time the trainer of a small stable at San Luis Rey Downs in Southern California. She never had more than a couple dozen starters in a season, and wins were few and far between. But there was no one more interesting to talk with about her passion for the animals. It was clear she would do anything for them—and then she did.
On the afternoon of Dec. 7, 2017, as a wildfire raced from barn to barn at San Luis Rey Downs, scattering people and horses in all directions, Bellocq rushed into a burning stall in an attempt to rescue the unraced 2-year-old Wild Bill Hickory, one of the half dozen Thoroughbreds in her care. Her husband, Pierre Bellocq Jr., watched in horror as Martine took far too long in an attempt to coax the terrified colt to safety. Wild Bill Hickory was lost, and by the time her husband could carry her away, Bellocq had suffered severe internal damage from smoke inhalation and third-degree burns over more than half her body.
She spent the ensuing years in and out of hospitals enduring skin grafts, agonizing therapies, and the amputation of her left foot. Progress has been slow and painful. The Bellocqs moved back to their native France last year, returning occasionally to Southern California to visit family. But mostly they continue to deal with the aftermath of Martine's valiant, reflexive act in her role as a Thoroughbred trainer.
"We are doing OK," Martine wrote in a text this week. "We are here in the south of France near Grasse, 20 minutes north of Cannes."
"Doing OK" is what Bellocq, now 67, would say no matter what. Her tough, Gallic spirit was shaken by the fire and her injuries, but never broken. Anyway, she's got her hands full with Pierre—eldest son of the famed cartoonist Peb—who recently suffered a minor stroke. They have been married 48 years.
"He's OK," she noted. "Just got scared a little bit. We'll stay here until November and then come back to California for a while."
Martine was asked if she watched the triumph of Jena Antonucci in the Belmont Stakes.
"Yes, that was great," Martine wrote. "But for me, horse racing is finished. I just enjoy looking at the big races now."
History has threads, some frayed, some tied neatly after dangling for years. As young French expats, the Bellocqs met during the winter of 1974 in Aiken, South Carolina. At the time, she was working for future Hall of Famer T.J. Kelly, and Pierre was working for Buddy Hirsch, the older brother of Mary Hirsch. Did Martine and Mary ever meet?
"It's possible," Bellocq wrote. "That was a long time ago."
On the 13-race Belmont Park program of June 10, 2023, a total of 65 trainers were represented by runners. Five of them were women. One of them won the Belmont Stakes.
