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Kathy Walsh’s training career intertwines so thoroughly with Washington’s Longacres Race Course that many people think she hails from the Pacific
Northwest. Four times the leading trainer at Longacres, Walsh actually grew up in Northern California.
Now based in Southern California, where she trains a 25-horse stable that includes 2007 Del Mar Futurity (gr. I) and 2008 San Vicente (gr. II) and San Felipe (gr. II) Stakes winner Georgie Boy, Walsh took a circuitous route from the north end of the state to the south. Not only did she spend much of her career in Washington, she has trained strings at Canterbury Downs (now Canterbury Park) in Minnesota and at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.
“I went to New Orleans in 1967 with my father,” Walsh said. “I even went with him to Vancouver, Canada, when I was 10 years old.”
Given that her father, Jim, led trainers twice at Longacres, it’s not surprising Kathy followed his career path, much to her mother’s chagrin. However, Southern California legend Buster Millerick, who conditioned three-time Hollywood Gold Cup winner Native Diver, was perhaps even more responsible for Kathy choosing to become a trainer.
“Buster gave my dad his first broodmare,” Walsh said. “My dad grew up in Sonoma, Calif., and Buster was from Petaluma, right next door.”
Contemporaries, Millerick and Jim Walsh came of age in the early part of the 20th century, when people owned all sorts of horses instead of those that specialized in one sport.
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