Racehorse Training
Meet Our Trainer: Carl Doran
Carl has been training emerging elite thoroughbred racehorses in the Mid-Atlantic for over 12 years. Congratulations to our Carl on his 100th career win!
Unlike most trainers, Carl rides his own horses in training. He is a Graded Stakes Placed trainer who now has 100 victories and counting to go with over $3 million in career earnings. He is an expert at helping owners pick the right races for their horse’s current fitness. As a result, he’s averaged $4,200 or more earnings per start over his last three seasons. He has had ten or more wins and over $300,000 in yearly earnings in both 2018 and 2019. As of October, he placed in over 50% of his 2020 races.
Carl’s top-earning horses include Escrow Kid and Freudian Dilemma. Escrow Kid earned over $90,000 in three of four consecutive seasons. Another of his successes is Justa Sooch, who earned $158,000 from 2017 to 2019. For more on Carl Doran, check out his career stats on Equibase.
Patient Racehorse Training Leads to Confidence
We work with Carl because he has a track record of success and his approach matches our goals of responsible racehorse training. In gate training, for example, a horse walks through the gate, then gets used to being closed-in. When the horse is ready, it begins cantering out of the gate and speeds up gradually when it feels comfortable. As Carl says, “We do all these stages keeping in mind that we want the horse confident, happy, and healthy.” Eventually, the horse knows what it is capable of.
Once they are ready, Justa Farm racehorses train at the Fair Hill Training Facility. The facility is a 350-acre private training ground in Cecil County, Maryland, just 6 miles southeast of the Justa Farm stables. The facility has a one-mile all-weather dirt track, ⅞ mile Tapeta™ track, miles of cross-country terrain, turn-out paddocks, a professional gate crew, on-site veterinarians, and more. Carl Doran works out of Chevation II, one of eighteen barns on the Fair Hill grounds.
