COVER 1 - NMHBA SUMMER 2017 low res

at an early age. He recalls that about the
time he was five, he and Adela—three years
older—would take care of his dad’s pony
horses at Canada’s Assiniboia Downs.
“We had converted some old rail cars
into stalls and that’s where the ponies
would stay,’’ says Trejo. “Back then, I
guess kids were a lot more independent
because now you wouldn’t let a five-yearold
go and take care of horses. But that
was my sister’s and my responsibility. We’d
clean the stalls, feed them and give them a
bath. In return, we got to ride the ponies
around the barn area. That was our pay.’’
Inevitably, Izzy got more and more
involved on the backside. He was a groom
during high school and his college years at
the University of Arizona. He graduated
in December 1995 with a degree in animal
sciences with an emphasis in racetrack
management.
At that point, Izzy was in no hurry to
start looking at serious employment. And
who could blame him. He was making
good money parking cars four days a week,
which meant he had plenty of spare time to
spend with a fishing rod.
“I’d been out of school for six or seven
months and hadn’t applied anywhere,’’ says
Izzy. “I didn’t even think of getting a job.
I was happy parking cars. I had a life of
luxury for a guy out of college. I thought I
was doing okay.’’
The life of luxury took a permanent hit
when Izzy’s dad called him and said Chris
Warren, the racing secretary at Delaware
Park, wanted to talk to him.
Warren was a friend of the family
who had worked at Turf Paradise and
Canterbury Downs when Mile Trejo ran
horses there.
Warren had an opening at Delaware
Park for an entry clerk and offered Izzy the
job. The schedule called for him to work
six days a week for $100 a day. The $600 a
week he’d be earning was the same amount
he was making parking cars in just four
days back in Phoenix.
“I was actually getting paid less,’’ says
Izzy.
But, it was an opportunity Trejo figured
he couldn’t pass up.
He bought a one-way ticket to
Philadelphia and had $1,000 in his pocket
when he left Phoenix. He started work at
Delaware Park the next day.
“They put me up in a little tack room
to live in until I could get my feet on the
ground,’’ he says. “I was taking entries and
working in the racing office. I thought I
was the worst racing official in America.
I would make mistakes and had to go
through all the growing pains of learning
a brand new world in an office. I came out
of the barn and here I am working in an
office and having to really get polished.’’
Polished and proficient at something
Izzy hadn’t been very good at growing up.
“I have always been a very quiet person
and this job forced me to have to speak
to people. I’d never had said much to say
in my life and now you can’t shut me up.
That job broke me out of my shell. It got
me to communicate.’’
Still, Izzy wasn’t sure he’d be hired
back for a second season at Delaware Park.
He went home to Phoenix after the meet
ended and when Delaware Park’s next
season was about to open, he called to
inquire about his job status.
Sure, they told him, he’d be welcomed
back.
“I improved significantly,’’ says Izzy.
“So much so they promoted me to stakes
coordinator.’’
The promotion meant Trejo was in
charge of all the big races at the track,
including the Grade 1 Delaware Handicap,
with an eventual purse of $1 million.
Among the horses who ran in the
Delaware Handicap during Trejo’s time
there was Bob Baffert’s outstanding mare
Silver Bullet Day.
Trejo also worked as the stakes
coordinator at Turf Paradise between
Delaware seasons. He did that until 2002.
That year, he applied for and was
hired as a steward at Charlestown in West
Virginia. A case of a 99-to-1 long shot
coming in, says Izzy.
“I had no experience as a steward,’’
he says. “I sent my resume to the West
Virginia Racing Commission and they gave
me an interview date in November.’’
Just before Christmas of 2002, Trejo
got a call from the West Virginia Racing
Commission. They wanted to know how
soon he could go to work at Charlestown.
He quit his job at Delaware Park and
started as a steward at Charlestown on Jan.
1, 2003.
Trejo says throughout his career he has
been blessed with good mentors. Danny
Wright and Robert Lotts, stewards he
worked alongside at Charlestown, are
prime examples.
“There have always been people in
places that brought me along and helped
me be who I am today,’’ he says. “To this
day, I have phone conversations with them
(Wright and Lotts).’’
Trejo was a steward at Charlestown
until 2007, then returned to Delaware Park
as their racing secretary.
“I really didn’t want to leave West
Virginia because I loved working there, but
I felt this was a great opportunity to spread
my wings a little more,’’ says Izzy.
It was a difficult two-year stay for Trejo
at the track that had offered him his first
job 12 years earlier. Races didn’t fill and
eventually the track had to cut back on
racing days.
“We were battling with Monmouth,
Philadelphia Park and Laurel for the same
horses,’’ says Izzy. “They were competing
for the same horses and killing each other.
It was a slow death. I wanted out.’’
Turf Paradise to the rescue. The
Phoenix track needed a steward and Izzy
had a chance to come home. He was there
for four years. In 2011, he returned to his
old job as a steward at Charlestown.
A blizzard in the winter of 2015-16 in
West Virginia and his desire to be closer
to Phoenix where his dad and 67-year-old
mom Mary make their home were factors
in Izzy’s decision to apply for the job of
executive director of the New Mexico
Racing Commission.
“Again, I was thinking 99-to-1,’’ says
Izzy.
Trejo was one of the two finalists. He
came to Albuquerque for an interview with
interim executive director Dan Fick, the
Racing Commission members, and two
staff members, and was offered the job.
When he came to New Mexico, his
longtime girlfriend Beth Witherspoon came
with him. They met when Trejo was the
stakes coordinator at Delaware Park and
she was working with Equibase.
“We met over the phone,’’ says Izzy.
“When I was the stakes coordinator at
Delaware Park, I’d have to verify a lot of
breeding and ownership information (with
Equibase). It always seemed like she would
pick up the phone. She was very helpful
and nice.’’
Every year before leaving for Arizona,
Izzy would take to lunch some of the
individuals he worked with at Equibase in
Lexington. Beth just happened to be in
one of those groups and, “we continued to
talk.’’
They’ve been together now for nearly
14 years.
Izzy at his first steward job in 2003 at Charlestown
Race Track, here with jockey Pat Day, Chief Steward
Danny Wright and Steward L. Robert Lotts.
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