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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

Janet Del Castillo - Author (Backyard Racehorse),Trainer, Farm Owner

From delivering babies by candlelight at the age of nineteen, while serving in the Peace Corps, to galloping through orange groves training her racehorses, Janet has led a life full of excitement and challenge. She was touched so deeply by President Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country, she dropped out of San Francisco State University and went to serve her country in Columbia, South America.  She was the only American in a small rural village. One of her jobs was to inoculate neighboring villagers against an outbreak of smallpox which she did, traveling by dugout canoe. A divorce forced her to confront the realities of making a living in the real world. She was left with the responsibility of raising three teenage children, a barn full of racehorses and a farm to manage. With the help of her children, she galloped her horse into condition in the orange groves and swam them in the lake. Then, when they were ready and to the amazement and amusement of trainers, owners and journalists, she packed up her horses and took them to the track to race. When opportunity and preparedness come together, miracles happen and one did for Janet. She purchased a “throw away” horse that was donated to a children’s home. As a favor to the home, she took the filly (First Prediction) and trained her into becoming a major stakes winner in Florida, earning over $300,000. Her success dispelled the myth that all racehorses must live at the track and be trained there. Hers come off the farm...a horse’s natural environment and are hauled to the track the night before the race or the day of the race. Under this training program, her horses run with no medication and remain sound.  First Prediction ran 100 races, placing or winning in 50% of them. Her off beat training program does not consist of simply keeping the racehorses on the farm. It blends practical experience with common sense and is designed to enhance the endurance, strength and physical maturity horses need to withstand the breakneck speeds of racing.  She believes that a horse was meant to be a horse and not stuck in a stall 23 hours a day and exercised one hour, and that fit, healthy horses do not need to be medicated. Del Castillo has given seminars and speeches at many tracks around the country. And, she has written the well known book, “Backyard Race Horse”, a training manual for people who want to train horses on their farms and backyards. The book is now in its 4th printing and more than 24,000 copies have been sold. She has also produced a pilot for a television series,  Backyard Race Horse, which is being pitched to many major networks. Whether you have a thoroughbred, quarter horse, pain, Arabian or appaloosa, or you show and jump, Janet’s book can help you discover how get a well-conditioned horse and results that are low cost. If you want to take them to the track, all the better.  Horses just love to run.