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Carl Nafzger - an old-school trainer with traditional values

By Frances J Karon
First Published: 14 April 2010 - Issue Number: 16

Carl and Wanda Nafzger stand trackside with Ian Wilkes, monitoring the horses training under the white saddlecloths with a red border. That some of these are marked with a plain “N” and others a “W” comprised of two boomerangs is irrelevant.

 

 It may be four years since Australian Wilkes officially took over as trainer for the bulk of Nafzger’s stable, but little has changed around their barn, where Wilkes has, for a while, been the more hands-on of the two. By Frances J. Karon

 

Among these close friends, the mood is light, easy. There’s a lot of teasing, but there’s also a solid groundwork of mutual respect and admiration that enables them to thrive in the climate they’ve created. And Nafzger is more relaxed than ever these days. “I’m at a stage now,” he says, “that I’m learning faster than I’ve learned in a long time, and I’m enjoying what I’m doing because I’m at a place removed – I’m at a place now I can only learn and enjoy and…

I like that. I like being able to work with Ian and I like the deal that I don’t have to fight for stalls anymore.”

The thought of even this Hall of Famer – he was enshrined in both the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame and the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2008, and in the Professional Bull Riders’ Ring of Honor in 2007 – having to “fight” for stall space is surprising. But Wanda points out, “There’s nothing complacent about being a trainer.”

The blanket statement about complacency wouldn’t apply to all trainers at this level of success, but it’s true that there’s nothing complacent about Carl Nafzger. They don’t make ‘em much like him anymore. Among fellow trainers, no one is more loved than Nafzger. Nick Zito pulls over in his SUV to say, as only he can, “When I grow up I want to be just like him!” Nafzger shoots back, “Don’t believe a word he says!”

A filly from the Nafzger/Wilkes barn gallops by and Nafzger clocks her time in his head. “She looked like she did the half in forty-nine. Forty-eight and change?” he asks Bob, who works for Nafzger and Wilkes. “She was traveling well.” Bob checks his watch and answers 1:01 and one for five-eighths. Nafzger nods. “You only use a clock for one thing, to make sure the horse is not lying. That’s why I was checking with Bob, because she looked like she actually worked about :50 and change, and yet I knew when she covered the ground quicker that she went faster.

“The day Ian worked Unbridled before the [1990] Breeders’ Cup I told him, ‘Let him do a half mile. Don’t ask him but let him do what he wants to do,’ and I sat there and watched, cussing and throwing my watch down. I was mad, screaming at Ian. Here we are at the Breeders’ Cup, and he’s going to take care of him, going down there in :52 or :51? Then I looked down at my watch and it was like forty-nine and one. I went, ‘Oooooh!’ He was so sharp that he was doing nothing, just floating over the ground. So you use a clock to check your eye.” Unbridled was sharp indeed – his victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic sealed champion three-year-old honors and an Eclipse Award for Nafzger as leading trainer.

Nafzger’s eye is very practiced, and one wouldn’t expect it to need more calibration than an occasional visit to the optometrist. He also relies on good ins...

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