Favorite Son Kentucky-based trainer Dale Romans defines success on his own terms “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” — Woody Allen If Woody has it right, Dale Romans couldn’t miss being a success as a Thoroughbred trainer. He’s been showing up at Barn 4 on the backside of Churchill Downs since he was 9 months old, brought there by his dad, Jerry, who also was a trainer. The racetrack was, before anything, a playground for Dale and an older brother as they grew up, roaming the barns and racetrack when their dad would leave the track for a second job. “We’d be there all day till feed time in the afternoon, and we just loved it,” he said. Eventually, the boys went to work in their dad’s barn— Dale as a groom, his brother as an exercise rider. “I was 14 and grooming and running horses in races. I don’t think my father understood child labor laws,” Romans, a Louisville native, said with a laugh. “The horse stuff I learned more from trial and error, being there all the time.” This is an epic understatement, given the 52-yearold’s tenure at Churchill Downs. “Being there” brought him into contact with a groom, Willis “Chico” Malone, who one day came to the rescue of Romans’ father as he was struggling with a difficult horse in the shedrow at old Miles Park in Louisville’s West End. From that chance encounter, Chico became a mentor to the elder Romans and a “grand-mentor,” of sorts, to Dale. Romans recounted with obvious fondness Chico going to Churchill Downs to see him in the days before his first Kentucky Derby starter ran in 2006. Romans said, “He came to tell me, ‘You have to teach a horse to run a mile and a quarter. It’s not natural for them’—make sure I train that horse hard.” 52
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“As you climb the ladder of success, be sure it’s leaning against the right building.” — H. Jackson Brown Jr. Romans learned from his dad as well, but it had less to do with racing horses than the business connected to it. “I never saw him take a penny he didn’t have coming in,” Romans said. “He had a lot of flaws, but he was very honest. “He taught me the racing world is a very small one. Don’t cheat people. You get one black eye, and you might never get back … He always told me success can be measured in a lot of ways; it’s not always in winning big races. It’s how long you last and were you able to feed your family.” Romans assesses his career not in terms of major wins, purse earnings, accolades or awards but in modest goals that are, in many ways, more meaningful. “I won my first race 31 years ago, so I’ve lasted,” he said. “My kids are grown, so I’ve fed my family.” Romans said the principal thing he learned from his father about horses was conformation: whether a horse’s body—based on its proportions, bone structure and musculature—is optimal for racing. “He could never afford pedigree with the budgets he was buying on, so he’d always try to find a diamond in the rough without a royal pedigree and make it into a good horse,” he said. Traveling with his dad to horse sales, Romans learned the “four or five things a horse has to have”: correctly shaped back leg, the neck “tying into the chest” the right way, and a good shoulder, forearm and hip. “It’s hard to teach because there’s ratios between everything.” His father apparently was a good teacher as evidenced by a start for Romans that, albeit small, kept him on the racetrack for good.
