COVER 1 - NMHBA SUMMER 2017 low res

Izzy Trejo
“A 99-To-1 Shot” Lands a Tough Job
by Pete Herrera
“Izzy’’ Trejo was living the easy life.
A stress-free, pay-as-you go, can it get any
better than this sort of gig.
It was the spring of 1995 and Trejo
had a job parking cars at social events and
other happenings at upscale locations in
the Phoenix area. He was making $600 a
week—all cash money he points out—and
only had to work four days a week to earn it.
The only glitch was that Trejo had a
couple of months earlier earned a degree
from the University of Arizona’s racetrack
program and the diploma was figuratively
sitting in his back pocket.
So when the racing secretary at
Delaware Park offered him a job, Izzy’s
conscience came into the picture.
“I thought, my parents spent all this
money on college and here I am parking
cars,’’ says Trejo. “I figured I better take
this opportunity.’’
And that’s how Ismael “Izzy’’ Trejo’s
career in horse racing management got
started. A career that 15 months ago
brought him to New Mexico as the current
executive director of the New Mexico
Racing Commission.
Trejo’s time in New Mexico remains a
work in progress. His is a job that brings
a daily diet of challenges and changes,
optimism one day, setbacks the next. Part
of his mission is to chase “cheaters’’ out
of the state and make New Mexico horse
racing a product bettors in other states are
willing to gamble on.
In no way, says Trejo, did he know the
scope of what he was getting into when he
arrived in New Mexico in March of 2016.
But more on that later.
Career decisions can be influenced by
a lot of things, not the least of which are
family and familiar territory—the sense of
having been there, done that.
So it was with Izzy Trejo.
By the time he was five years old, he and
his older sister Adela were spending a lot
of time on the backside alongside their dad
Milo Trejo. There’s no underestimating the
influence his dad had on Izzy.
“I owe a lot of my success to the work
ethic that my father instilled in me working
in his barn,’’ says Trejo.
Milo Trejo trained racehorses for more
than 40 years at tracks in New Mexico,
Arizona, the Midwest and Canada. For
him, the road to the races started with a
trip from his home in Mexico to South
Texas to help his dad pick strawberries.
Milo Trejo was a young boy (12 or
13) at the time. His family had a ranch
and land in the mountains around their
hometown of Zimapan-Hidalgo. It was an
agriculture-based, self-reliant existence that
included cows, pigs, goats, corn crops and
farm horses.
Because Milo Trejo could read and
write, his father brought him along on one
of his annual trips to pick strawberries in
Texas.
“Being around South Texas eventually
led to his being around horses and
ranches,’’ says Izzy.
Izzy at 5 years of age in his cowboy suit.
In time it led to a job grooming horses
for match races in West Texas. His ability
to both groom horses and break babies
eventually got him to Sunland Park and
Turf Paradise in Phoenix, where he worked
with trainer Richard Hazelton, a virtual
icon in the business.
Hazelton - often referred to as “King
Richard’’ - did the Chicago to Phoenix
circuit and by the time he retired in 2011,
had won 4,745 races.
Among the horses that Milo Trejo
groomed and exercised during his
time with Hazelton was Zip Pocket, a
sensational sprinter who at one time held
multiple world records.
“They would train all winter in Phoenix
and have fresh horses when they got to
Chicago,’’ says Izzy. “Arlington Park was
the upper echelon of tracks in the Midwest
back then but the horses from Phoenix
held their own.’’
Milo Trejo began training
Thoroughbreds soon after The Downs
at Santa Fe opened in the early ‘70s and
scored immediate success.
Izzy says although he doesn’t have the
stats to back it up, his father told him he
won 11 races from the first 15 horses he
ran at Santa Fe.
“All of a sudden people started bringing
him horses and he built his stable up,’’ says
Izzy. “From there it was a lot of hard work
and a pretty successful career.’’
Many of Milo’s victories came in
partnership with the late jockey Walter
Ramos. The two became a formidable
duo at Santa Fe, the State Fair meet in
Albuquerque, and at Canterbury Downs
outside Minneapolis.
Izzy was born in 1971 and a winner’s
circle picture taken at Santa Fe shows
Ramos aboard the winning horse with the
then infant Izzy in his arms.
Milo Trejo, who will be 76 this month
(July), retired from training last September.
Izzy’s exposure to horse racing began
36 New Mexico Horse Breeder