Tough business just right for woman horse trainer
Jackson resident heads
to Low Meadow Farm

FARRAH MAFFAI Stacy McMullin, Jackson, trains Peg Rushton on Low Meadow Farm in Upper Freehold on Monday.

in U.F. at 4 a.m.

By jane meggitt

Correspondent

It’s hard to believe Stacy McMullin has been a racehorse trainer for 17 years. She doesn’t look old enough to have had any job that long, but she said she started out very young. Today she trains out of George and Diane Dittmar’s beautiful Low Meadow Farm in Upper Freehold. She’s been based there for the past 10 years and has been training the Dittmars’ horses for four years.

FARRAH MAFFAI Stacy McMullin readies Peg Rushton for a workout at Low Meadow Farm in Upper Freehold.

She currently has a string of 18 racehorses she gallops and looks after for both the Dittmars and other owners. The Jackson resident has nothing but praise for the facility. "It’s nice to work for the Dittmars," she said.

McMullin first started riding racehorses at age 11 at the Congo Jones School of Horsemanship in Lincroft. When the regular exercise rider didn’t show up, the fifth-grader was easily persuaded to take on the task. She eventually became a jockey and rode a few races, but an injury made her decide to go into horse training.

McMullin said that when she started out, women trainers and jockeys were less common at the racetrack. "A woman has to work harder. They like to say it’s a man’s business," she said. "They are more accepting now [of women]. Before, there was a handful of women, now there’s a lot."

She estimates that about 25 percent of thoroughbred horse trainers are female. McMullin runs her horses at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, the Meadowlands, and Philadelphia and Delaware parks. Unlike many area trainers, she does not take her horses to Florida in the winter.

McMullin wakes up even earlier than the roosters that populate Low Meadow. She’s out of the house by 4 a.m., headed for the track. She gallops the eight horses she has stabled there, and by 10:30 a.m. is heading back to Upper Freehold.

When she arrives at the farm, she has another 10 horses to ride. There are also broodmares and babies to look after. Although there are several grooms employed by the farm, the horses’ welfare is her responsibility, she said. Her day ends about 5 p.m. Of course, if one of her horses is racing, she must return to the track.

"It’s a tough business," said McMullin. "You have to be dedicated and love horses. The hours are tough — forget family functions or holidays. The horses have to be cared for, even on Christmas."

McMullin has become a mentor to young women eager to break into the racing game, but many find it too demanding, she said. She said she has asked girls to come to the barn at 5 or 6 a.m. to gallop racehorses, but some couldn’t manage to get there that early on a weekend due to a late night out.

One who did get there on time was Lauren Vannozzi, now a jockey at Philadelphia Park. She started out at Low Meadow as a groom and decided she wanted to be a jockey.

"She was dedicated," recalled McMullin. "She didn’t go out on weekends or date."

Though dedicated individuals may still succeed in it, the racing industry is facing an unsure future in New Jersey.

Recently, Gov. James E. McGreevey canceled the racing purse supplement in the wake of his budget cuts.

But good news came when the state, racetrack operators and thoroughbred and standardbred horsemen agreed on the number of racing days and the extent of phone and off-track betting allowable, after long negotiations. The N.J. Racing Commission was expected to approve the changes on May 16.

Monmouth Park opened early this year, on May 11, and will race on the second and third weekends of the month before resuming its normal schedule on May 25.

Thoroughbreds will have 141 days, consisting of 78 days at Monmouth Park, from May 11 to Sept. 1, and 63 days at the Meadowlands, starting Labor Day and ending on Nov. 23. There will be 168 days of harness racing at the Meadowlands.

The Meadowlands is the highest grossing pari-mutuel facility in North America, according to Harness Racing Communication News.

In McMullin’s opinion, "I can’t see why it shouldn’t be equal, that the thoroughbreds get what the standardbreds get. We get as much betting as they do. Why should they get more days?"

Thoroughbred racing and breeding have been in decline in New Jersey over the past decade, and McMullin said that phone and off-track betting will help reverse this slide, along with slot machines. She said slots helped at Delaware Park, where she has raced.

"The purses are through the roof [since slots]. You get the horsemen to race their horses where they have the purses," she said.

McMullin, who has 11 horses of her own, finds homes for former racehorses. A true animal lover, she keeps track of all her former charges. She said many have gone on to second careers as pleasure horses, hunters and jumpers, and eventers Some of them have done very well in the show ring. McMullin never regrets the choices she has made.

"I just love the business," she said. "I love the horses, and it’s nice to have a farm like this to train on."