Each issue, we’ll take your questions for Caton Bredar, Horse Player NOW analyst, Night School co-host and noted reporter for HRTV. HOW DID YOU GET INTO HORSE RACING? Having worked in the racing public eye, so to speak, for nearly the past 25 years I get asked a lot of questions. Fortunately, I love to talk with racing fans as much as I love horses and racing! By far and away, the most common question I'm asked is how I got into the sport, and I wish I had something more elaborate, but I was, essentially, born into horse racing – Thoroughbred as well as Standardbred. At the time I was born, my father, Ray Metzler, was training a few horses at the Chicago area tracks and his new wife, Cathie Atkinson Metzler, was the daughter of Hall of Fame jockey-turned-senior state steward Ted Atkinson (aka "The Slasher"), and also the daughter of Martha Shank Atkinson, whose family was deeply involved in
harness racing. My grandmother's father built and ran several racetracks in Ohio, and her mother was from a prominent harness racing family in Russia and the US. Along the same lines, the secondmost frequently asked question is where my name comes from: that prominent racing family was the Caton family; hence the name. By the time I was three, my Dad was working as Farm Manager for the largest racing and breeding farm in Illinois, Rogers Red Top Farm in Libertyville, and later he operated one of the largest horse transport companies in the Midwest, Carey Horse Vans.
Pose your questions each week in Night School – or by emailing askcaton@horseplayernow.com! 26