"Carolyn Costigan comes through in the stretch" by Beverley Smith
TORONTO — Globe and Mail Update
Published on Sunday, Jun. 27, 2010 10:34PM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-sports/carolyn-costigan-comes-through-in-the-stretch/article1620974/

Carolyn Costigan has this air about her that she has little time to lose.

And apparently, she's not wasting a second.

At 28, the first female and probably youngest trainer to win the $500,000 Woodbine Oaks, Costigan has been a full-fledged conditioner for only about a year. A few weeks ago, she won the Oaks with her father's horse, Roan Inish, which battled hard to win by a head.

Roan Inish gave Costigan the first win of her training career last October. That win just happened to be in the Princess Elizabeth Stakes at Woodbine Racetrack, the most important race in Canada for two-year-old fillies. Costigan is hitting all the high spots first.

And she isn't stopping there. She's aiming her big filly for the $1-million Queen's Plate on July 4, and hang the doubters, who thought she couldn't train the filly up to the Oaks with a six-week break. Could she possibly have enough experience to pull that off? She did.

Costigan is the new wave of trainer: young, fresh, educated in the ways of the horse by the very best in the world, and very different from her peers. The stable, that includes five horses she trains for her father, Robert, has its own website: arravaleracing.com. It's named after Arravale, the fleet mare chosen horse of the year in Canada for the Costigan family in 2006.

Toronto Ont. June13_2010.Woodbine Racetrack.(L-R)groom Bob Appleby, Roan Inish and jockey David Moran, trainer Carolyn Costigan, owner Robert and Nora Costigan of Vancouver, lead Roan Inish into the winner's circle after capturing the Oaks. Michale Burns photo.

Very media savvy, Costigan writes a blog about her horses on the site and regularly tweets, spilling pearls about the latest condition of her new star, Roan Inish. A couple of other trainers at Woodbine have their own websites too, but this tweeting and blogging business is very new age for a trainer.

“I want to focus on getting new people into the sport,” Costigan said one morning on the Woodbine backstretch.

“People [owners] are looking to be with someone who has their best interests at heart and who will show them a good time. I'll share information about the team. It's all about the horse. People don't want to hear vague stories.”

Costigan also is trying to install a webcam in Roan Inish's stall so that fans – or prospective clients – can get a minute-by-minute look at her preparation for the Plate. Costigan is an open book.

“From a trainer's point of view, that's the total opposite of what anybody else would want,” said her father Robert, president of Arravale Racing Inc. (His daughter is the chief executive officer.)

“She feels that if you can get people involved and get access to that information, that they'll embrace it and want to know more about it.”

Costigan's aim is to add to her stable, to become a public trainer.

Ireland-born Costigan, who came to Canada at 3, was three years into an economics degree at Simon Fraser University, when she realized the financial world that her father had inhabited wasn't for her. She changed course, quickly.

Her life changed when she stumbled across an advertisement for the Darley Flying Start program, an international management training program specializing in breeding and racing, founded by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai.

Hundreds apply. Only about a dozen are accepted. To meet their stringent qualifications, Costigan started work at Windfields Farm in Oshawa, and then got a job at the Irish National Stud in Ireland.

She graduated from the Darley program in 2007, but realizing she needed more hands-on experience, began to look for work, zeroing in on trainers who did not have histories of positive drug tests. When people told her to avoid Irish trainer Jim Bolger, because he was so difficult to work for, that's the first place she headed.

“I wanted to learn how to train racehorses as efficiently and quickly as possible,” she said. “I'd be 28 when I started my career. I wanted to be effective with my time.”

She spent two years with Bolger, and now the man who rarely gives compliments said of Costigan: “Her care and management of horses' legs is excellent and she is never found wanting when it comes to dealing with the problems which involve long hours and dedication.”

Robert Costigan, native of Tipperary, Ireland, with love of horses bred in the bone, said he tried to talk his daughter out of her career choice several times. It did no good. Now, she's flying high, but “it has all been meticulously planned out for a number of years,” he said.

“She's worked extremely hard at it.”