Gaudet Carries on Family Tradition

[Wandering Eyes]

The racing industry mourned when Edmond “Eddie” Gaudet passed away in January 2018. But his legacy more than lives on in daughter Lacey, 30, a talented young trainer in her own right.

Based at Laurel Park in Maryland, Lacey currently has about 30 horses in her stable. Her mother, Linda Gaudet, now works as her assistant trainer.

“I don’t know how I would ever do it without her help,” the younger Gauden said, adding, “We had an incredible year with claims, especially the ones we claimed out of Saratoga.”

Thus far in 2019, her stable tallied just under $960,000 in earnings after amassing over $1.5 million in 2018. And 2020 is already shaping up to be another great year.

Gaudet and her younger sister, TVG analyst Gabby, grew up on their parents’ Schelford North Farm in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Though her parents have since sold most of their property, Lacey still calls the farm–conveniently close to Laurel Park–home.

Gaudet felt an early connection to horses. Linda recalled fondly, “She’s always been mature, I have to tell you that…She’s always had a commanding presence. She came by this through osmosis with her dad and myself and was raised in the barn and raised on a farm. And she loved it from an early age, was riding by the time she was seven or eight.”

From a young age, she’d follow in her parents in the early mornings at the barns.

“To be honest, I didn’t fare well in school,” Gaudet said. “I kind of got picked on a little bit, didn’t fit in, really just wanted to be around the horses, so my parents started homeschooling me after fourth grade.”

Eddie Gaudet had a number of his horses at Bowie Training Center before it shuttered in 2015.

“We had a public stable,” Lacey Gaudent recalled. “My dad never really had too many owners. My parents always trained for themselves,” besides a few private clients. She added, “He always had between 30 and 40 in Maryland and then during the summer–at that point, you’re looking at 15, 17 years ago–there was no summer racing in Maryland.”

The Gaudets followed their horses in the summers to Delaware and New Jersey’s Monmouth Park. During those summers, Lacey said, “My mom would stay home, take care of the farm…, so I would go gallop and be assistant for my dad during the summer meet.”

Lacey indeed took to riding all horses like a duck to water. Graduating from high school at 16, she competed in pony races during her early teenage years, then moved onto the Virginia and Maryland hunt circuits. She had aims of becoming a jockey, but needed to begin galloping horses first. So her dad worked to modify state law that previously only stated minors couldn’t obtain galloping licenses until age 16. Thus, aged 15, Lacey was able to gallop horses for her a parent/guardian.

She recalled, “Between 15 and 18, I galloped horses for my dad while trying to get ready to be a jockey.”

Eventually, growth spurts brought Lacey’s jockey dreams came to a close.

“I did try to ride races, but at the time, that was one of the main reasons,” she said. “A lot of young kids, especially Americans, around here were taller, were heavier than some of the riders that [had] come from different countries.”

Lacey added, “I was tall from 13 on, so we always knew that it was going to be a very short timeframe that we had to work with.”

Once she outgrew the possibility of being a jockey, Lacey took her experience working on the backstretch to the next logical conclusion: becoming a trainer.

“I contacted Helen Pitts and took an assistant training job with her in Florida in 2007 and I worked for her at Gulfstream for the winter,” she recalled.

The fit was natural: also a Maryland native, Pitts hails from a racing family.

“She was a woman trainer; it was the year after she had Curlin and had sold Curlin, so there were a lot of factors that went in to Helen,” Gaudet said.

Pitts took Gaudet under her wing both personally and professionally.

Gaudet appreciated that Pitts employed many women.

“I learned so much from them–how it worked, how they spoke with people, how they held their own in definitely a male-dominated sport and business,” she explained. “And just everybody does do things differently with their operation.”

At the time, Pitts also had a lot of talented stock in her barn. Gaudet remembered, “She had a lot of young horses at the time and it was interesting to see her how she developed young horses, got them to the races.”

An older but quite talented occupant of Pitts’s barn was multiple Grade I winner Einstein, whom Gaudet watched blossom. The quality of Pitts’s horses differed from what Gaudet had previously worked with.

“My dad had a lot of claimers and that was primarily what we had in the barn,” she said. “It was very incredible to see what kind of goes into a good horse.”

When Eddie suffered an aneurysm and underwent a triple bypass, Lacey came home to regroup with her family. Once her dad was on the mend, she branched out again, heading to Belmont Park to work for Tom Albertrani for several months. She appreciated the quality of Albertrani’s stock, which included runners from the Darley and Eugene Melnyk operations. In particular, she noted how she learned “how much time and energy and manpower goes into running horses…of that expense and caliber.”

Gaudet’s next stop was Saratoga, where she worked under trainer Allen Iwinski. She recalled, “Saratoga was my fantastic. I enjoyed working for Allen. I think Allen was a big father figure to me, and it being my first year out on my own.”

Although Iwinski was a friend of her father’s, he didn’t go easy on Gaudet.

“Alan, he was tough on me,” she said. “He was firm with me, I learned so much from him, and it wasn’t what I planned on venturing out to.”

Running a smaller stable than Albertrani’s, Iwinski employed an aggressive approach to the claiming ranks. From him, Gaudet said she learned how to gallop tougher horses in the morning and to know when a runner is at peak fitness.

After her time with Iwinski, Gaudet headed home, as her father’s health began to flag again. As a result, she began to take on some of his training duties.

“The next couple summers, instead of me going with my dad, it was me going on my own to Monmouth or to Delaware,” she remembered. “Eventually, she had to broach a difficult topic: assuming her father’s operation full-time.

She noted, “My father had always said, ‘When I retire, they’re going to go in your name.'”

While Linda trained a few horses in her name for some months, Lacey claimed a few horses on her own and began building relationships with clients. Eventually, she and Gabby came to their mother and presented her with a plan to merge their operations and run the horses in Lacey’s name.

Linda remembered, “So probably about four years ago…she said, ‘You know, Mom, we should combine the stables.'”

Lacey recalled suggesting, “‘Look, Mom, we work too hard. We’re very smart. You did it with my father for a long time and I really do think…this is something I want to pursue and want to do, but each of us having four or five horses…just going through the motions is not what we want to do, what I want to do.'”

After discussing their options as a stable and a family, the Gaudets decided that Linda would return to her previous role as assistant trainer. With a cousin to help care for Eddie, they also decided to claim a few horses, run them, and reevaluate everything after six months. Young and hungry, Lacey was excited to travel, meet new owners, and pursue clients. The new venture proved to be a savvy one.

“In six months’ time, we were well on our way to more wins than we had since my dad retired and it just started snowballing from there,” said Lacey.

After the first six months, the Gaudets set a new goal: to claim more runners and even buy a few horses at the sales.

“We’ve been so lucky in the last couple of years,” Lacey said enthusiastically.

Gaudet appreciates how hard her team works for their success. Everyone pitches in, from watching sets to checking mounts.

She said, “We talk much throughout the day, throughout the morning, brainstorming…”

Her mother enthused, “I am very, very proud of her; she does a good job.”

Among her barn favorites is Matt Schera’s Mesotherm (Trappe Shot), who won last winter at Laurel and her special pride is John Jones (Smarty Jones), a three-time stakes winner at Laurel. After claiming him for $25,000, Gaudet wheeled the gelding back for a 40-1 upset in the 2016 Mister Diz S.

In that race, John Jones defeated the mighty Ben’s Cat.

Gaudet recalled thinking, “Holy smokes, we just beat Ben’s Cat, who was the heavy favorite in the race and was in very good form that year.”

After that race, John Jones then went on a three-race win streak, and with over a half-million dollars in the coffers to date, the gelding recorded his most recent victory at Colonial Downs in August.

Gaudet mused, “He will always hold a special place in my heart.”

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