Headley Continues Family Tradition

by J.M. Severni 
Karen Headley, the daughter of conditioner Bruce Headley, has been training on her own for less than a year, but from a small string of 10 horses could already have a star in the making. San Onofre, bred by Bruce Headley and by the multiple graded stakes winner Surf Cat, who was trained by the legendary horseman, earned his third straight win for the younger Headley in a Santa Anita allowance Jan. 20. 
“He’s a Cal-bred horse,” Karen Headley said of the gelding. “He’s been running in fast times and he’s definitely a graded-stakes potential horse.” Headley, a familiar face on the Southern California circuit, has been working for her father since 1986 and said she was always destined for a life on the track. 
“I guess I’ve been bred to do this,” Headley admitted. “My mother [Aase] grew up in Berkeley and lived outside of Golden Gate. As a young girl, she used to write articles about horse racing and my father has been in it since he was 16, so I was bred top and bottom to do this.” 
Headley, who currently boasts a career record of four wins from 10 starts, always planned on following in her father’s footsteps. 
“Since second grade, I’ve always known what I wanted to be because I’ve always ridden,” Headley continued. “I don’t even remember learning how to ride. We had this little postage-stamp farm and I would ride horses in the back and every weekend, with obviously much more lax laws, from the time I was five, I would ride back and forth with all of the racehorses. By the time I was able to start galloping, I had already broken babies in the back with my dad. I started galloping at 16 and I would pony horses in the afternoon for him in the summer. I had always been around him and around horses.” 
The family’s relationship to horses allowed Headley to become an accomplished horsewoman in her own right. 
“I just learned everything from the ground up,” Headley said of her years of experience. “I can groom a horse, I can pony a horse, I can break a horse, I can work a horse at the time I want, I can gallop a horse.” 
“[My father] made me do everything,” the conditioner said of her early years on the track. “Plus, the payment was cheap–free labor,” she said with a laugh. “I still got paid to learn, but I was making lower than minimum wage.” 
With a career goal in mind from such an early age, Headley was able to successfully map out a plan. 
“Since I knew what I wanted to do, instead of going to college, I took a couple of years and I moved up to San Francisco,” Headley said. “I was kind of burnt out a little bit, I needed to go be free, but still do something that I knew. My father gave me a couple of horses to train and I worked with Leonard Shoemaker. So, not only did I get to have my college years up in San Francisco during the boom, but I got to have three fun horses to train that ran really well up there.” 
The 44-year-old Headley credits her knowledge and success to her father, with whom she continues to share an office. The accomplished horseman has been responsible for champion sprinter Kona Gold, as well as Grade I winners Bertrando, Got Koko and Street Boss, just to name a few, during his six decades of training. 
“I love that I’ve been around so many good horses that I’ve got to ride from breaking them in the backyard and being the first one on their back to riding them. From ‘86 on, I’ve had a piece of all my father’s good horses,” Headley said. “And his bad ones, too,” she added with a chuckle. 
Headley credits her accomplishments to not only what her father taught her, but how her father taught her to approach horse racing. 
“The beauty of my father is he learned from different people and he’s embedded that in my brain,” Headley said of her father’s influence on her training. “Not only do I learn from him, but I have it programed in my brain to look around and see the other trainers and watch what they do or what they don’t do. He taught me that, if you win a race to look back and see what you did right and if you lose a race–and that’s the biggest thing–go back and see why you lost, so you can learn how to get to the winner’s circle.” 
Bruce and Aase Headley continue to play an important role in their daughter’s personal and professional life. 
“Every morning when I wake up, I always want to make my mother and my father proud,” Headley said. “Everything I do, every decision that I make is well thought out. My dad taught me to keep it simple and do what’s right by the horse and the horse will always try their hardest for you.”