Finger Lakes trainer is very much following in the family footsteps – despite a mother’s misgivings. Interview by Jon Lees
USA: After seven years working as assistant trainer at one of Finger Lakes’ dominant barns, Dana Saul branched out on her own last year.
From a string of just four horses she registered four wins, seven seconds and a third from 18 starts, impressive stats at a track where the racing garners little to no publicity.
Finger Lakes, a short drive north of New York city, is a picturesque region of upstate New York where weekenders head to visit the 11 lakes. It’s renowned as a wine-growing area but you will struggle to find mention of the racecourse and casino on the official tourism guide. Which is a shame, according to Saul.
*Finger Lakes is beautiful,” she says. “We have a lot of different ways to train, a pool, a Eurociser, a half-mile track. It’s country. We are in between Albany and Buffalo; it’s a real quiet, family track.”
This is where Saul, 36, grew up, the daughter of former jockey Dennis Saul – who rode nearly 2,000 winners – and trainer Beth Miller-Saul, who has sent out 237 winners in a 25-year career.
A third-generation horsewoman, Saul has followed her family into the sport at Finger Lakes, which now hosts its first mother-and-daughter trainers.
“My grandfather trained horses, my mom currently trains horses, my father was a jockey until he retired and my fiance is a jockey,” she explains. “There are many cousins and uncles who also rode, so the track has been my life since I was born.
“My mom didn’t want the racetrack life for me,” she goes on. “She wanted me to go to college so I tried college. My father and her supported me to fulfil my dream of showing horses.
“At one point I was top ten in the country at hunter jumping, but I couldn’t stay away from the racetrack. I got a job, helped them out and it stuck. I couldn’t go back to school.”
Saul learned the job both from her parents and Breeders’ Cup-winning trainer Jeremiah Englehart, whose family have dominated the trainer standings at Finger Lakes for 20 years.
As she shares a barn with Englehart, she still helps out. It means long hours for Saul who, as well as training in the mornings, ponies on racedays, even when her own horses are running.
Help is available from boyfriend, jockey Jose Baez, and their 13-year-old daughter Lexia Baez, who has racing ambitions of her own.
“I started training last spring,” says Saul. “I felt it was time. It was something I really wanted to do but I wanted to make sure I could do it correctly and that I had learned enough.
“My owner is Phoenix Sport Horses, Ashley Lilley. She has a very big facility transitioning off-track Thoroughbreds and we met that way. She bought a couple of racehorses and asked me to train them so it’s kind of an all-girl team.
“We started off with four horses,” she adds. “We have an older gelding, he won two, and a filly I bought at the end of the year, won her maiden special weight and I claimed a filly from the bottom levels and she won an allowance race right off the claim. I had a season I never really expected.”
With Lilley, Saul shares an interest in rehoming and retraining ex-racehorses. She spends the dark months between November and April ensuring there is a life for them after the racetrack.
“I have placed around 3-400 off-track Thoroughbreds into new homes and transitioned around 20 myself,” she explains. “When they retire I place and help about six or seven trainers, including my parents, try to find the right homes.
“Ashley Lilley takes about ten to 15 and does the same thing. We also have a wonderful program called Finger Lakes Finest who will help me list horses. They have a big following – they put your contacts down and allow people to come backside to look at them.
“We were the first track to have an onsite adoption barn,” she adds. “We have a ‘ride around the track’ morning. People ship their horses in and they close down the track in the morning and they can ride their own horses around the track. We have a really solid rehoming scheme.”
From small beginnings Saul hopes 2023 will yield more success. Her goals are modest but hopefully achievable – and she is also keen to be an example of the sport's better side.
“I feel racing gets a lot of bad publicity,” she says. “I would like it to be around for my daughter because her heart is in it. She wants to be a jockey like her father so I am trying to keep it going by doing as many interviews and social media as I can and to show racing in a positive light. A lot of people don’t know what it entails to get horses ready for a minute of racing.”
The Finger Lakes meet opens on April 24 and, with her string up to ten, Saul hopes to have the first horses ready to run two weeks later.
“It’s very exciting,” she says. “My horses have had a really good winter off. They look really good and have started training really well. It’s a new year and it’s always exciting.
“I love the spring. Fresh beginnings. I’m really hoping for consistency. As long as I keep going like I did last year, that’s the main goal.”
Finger Lakes is the home of a race called the New York Derby but Saul has her sights on another of the track’s stakes races.
“My father rode a filly named Jack Betta Be Rite,” she explains. “We have a small stake, the Jack Betta Be Rite Stakes, so it’s on my bucket list to have a runner in that.”
• Visit the Finger Lakes website
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