Page 39 - NMHBA Summer 2017

at an early age. He recalls that about the time he was five, he and Adela—three years older—would take care of his dad’s pony horses at Canada’s Assiniboia Downs.
“We had converted some old rail cars into stalls and that’s where the ponies would stay,’’ says Trejo. “Back then, I guess kids were a lot more independent because now you wouldn’t let a five-year- old go and take care of horses. But that was my sister’s and my responsibility. We’d clean the stalls, feed them and give them a bath. In return, we got to ride the ponies around the barn area. That was our pay.’’
Inevitably, Izzy got more and more involved on the backside. He was a groom during high school and his college years at the University of Arizona. He graduated in December 1995 with a degree in animal sciences with an emphasis in racetrack management.
At that point, Izzy was in no hurry to start looking at serious employment. And who could blame him. He was making good money parking cars four days a week, which meant he had plenty of spare time to spend with a fishing rod.
“I’d been out of school for six or seven months and hadn’t applied anywhere,’’ says Izzy. “I didn’t even think of getting a job. I was happy parking cars. I had a life of luxury for a guy out of college. I thought I was doing okay.’’
The life of luxury took a permanent hit when Izzy’s dad called him and said Chris Warren, the racing secretary at Delaware Park, wanted to talk to him.
Warren was a friend of the family who had worked at Turf Paradise and Canterbury Downs when Mile Trejo ran horses there.
Warren had an opening at Delaware Park for an entry clerk and offered Izzy the job. The schedule called for him to work six days a week for $100 a day. The $600 a week he’d be earning was the same amount he was making parking cars in just four days back in Phoenix.
“I was actually getting paid less,’’ says Izzy.
But, it was an opportunity Trejo figured he couldn’t pass up.
He bought a one-way ticket to Philadelphia and had $1,000 in his pocket when he left Phoenix. He started work at Delaware Park the next day.
“They put me up in a little tack room to live in until I could get my feet on the ground,’’ he says. “I was taking entries and working in the racing office. I thought I was the worst racing official in America.
I would make mistakes and had to go through all the growing pains of learning
a brand new world in an office. I came out
of the barn and here I am working in an office and having to really get polished.’’
Polished and proficient at something Izzy hadn’t been very good at growing up. “I have always been a very quiet person
and this job forced me to have to speak to people. I’d never had said much to say in my life and now you can’t shut me up. That job broke me out of my shell. It got me to communicate.’’
Still, Izzy wasn’t sure he’d be hired back for a second season at Delaware Park. He went home to Phoenix after the meet ended and when Delaware Park’s next season was about to open, he called to inquire about his job status.
Sure, they told him, he’d be welcomed back.
“I improved significantly,’’ says Izzy. “So much so they promoted me to stakes coordinator.’’
The promotion meant Trejo was in charge of all the big races at the track, including the Grade 1 Delaware Handicap, with an eventual purse of $1 million.
Among the horses who ran in the Delaware Handicap during Trejo’s time there was Bob Baffert’s outstanding mare Silver Bullet Day.
Trejo also worked as the stakes coordinator at Turf Paradise between Delaware seasons. He did that until 2002.
That year, he applied for and was hired as a steward at Charlestown in West Virginia. A case of a 99-to-1 long shot coming in, says Izzy.
“I had no experience as a steward,’’
he says. “I sent my resume to the West Virginia Racing Commission and they gave me an interview date in November.’’
Just before Christmas of 2002, Trejo got a call from the West Virginia Racing Commission. They wanted to know how soon he could go to work at Charlestown. He quit his job at Delaware Park and started as a steward at Charlestown on Jan. 1, 2003.
Trejo says throughout his career he has been blessed with good mentors. Danny Wright and Robert Lotts, stewards he worked alongside at Charlestown, are prime examples.
“There have always been people in places that brought me along and helped me be who I am today,’’ he says. “To this day, I have phone conversations with them (Wright and Lotts).’’
Trejo was a steward at Charlestown until 2007, then returned to Delaware Park as their racing secretary.
“I really didn’t want to leave West Virginia because I loved working there, but I felt this was a great opportunity to spread my wings a little more,’’ says Izzy.
It was a difficult two-year stay for Trejo at the track that had offered him his first job 12 years earlier. Races didn’t fill and eventually the track had to cut back on racing days.
“We were battling with Monmouth, Philadelphia Park and Laurel for the same horses,’’ says Izzy. “They were competing for the same horses and killing each other. It was a slow death. I wanted out.’’
Turf Paradise to the rescue. The Phoenix track needed a steward and Izzy had a chance to come home. He was there for four years. In 2011, he returned to his old job as a steward at Charlestown.
A blizzard in the winter of 2015-16 in West Virginia and his desire to be closer to Phoenix where his dad and 67-year-old mom Mary make their home were factors in Izzy’s decision to apply for the job of executive director of the New Mexico Racing Commission.
“Again, I was thinking 99-to-1,’’ says Izzy.
Trejo was one of the two finalists. He came to Albuquerque for an interview with interim executive director Dan Fick, the Racing Commission members, and two staff members, and was offered the job.
When he came to New Mexico, his longtime girlfriend Beth Witherspoon came with him. They met when Trejo was the stakes coordinator at Delaware Park and she was working with Equibase.
“We met over the phone,’’ says Izzy. “When I was the stakes coordinator at Delaware Park, I’d have to verify a lot of breeding and ownership information (with Equibase). It always seemed like she would pick up the phone. She was very helpful and nice.’’
Every year before leaving for Arizona, Izzy would take to lunch some of the individuals he worked with at Equibase in Lexington. Beth just happened to be in one of those groups and, “we continued to talk.’’
They’ve been together now for nearly 14 years.
Izzy at his first steward job in 2003 at Charlestown Race Track, here with jockey Pat Day, Chief Steward Danny Wright and Steward L. Robert Lotts.
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