Age isn’t an issue

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Trainer Kristin Mulhall is barely old enough to drink a mint julep. She looks more like one of the Olsen twins than the youngest trainer to enter the Kentucky Derby. Her horse is a one-eyed gray. A win by Imperialism would stun racing in tomorrow’s 130th Derby, but the 21-year-old Mulhall already has proved to be a shocker.

The Derby is largely the playground of gray-haired trainers who chase the roses for decades. The late “Sunshine Boys,” Woody Stephens and Charlie Whittingham, used to call fellow trainer D. Wayne Lukas a young punk when Lukas arrived at Churchill Downs in his 40s. Mulhall would have been young enough to be their granddaughter.

The daughter of a trainer and goddaughter of an Arab prince, Mulhall grew up around California backstretches. She began riding at 2 and owned showhorses at 10 before becoming a champion rider at 14. An Olympic equestrian team slot was probable until an arm injury sidelined her at 16. Mulhall galloped thoroughbreds for her father while recovering and never stopped.

After two years working on the backside, she started training at 19. Now she has become the youngest Derby trainer by three years over James Rowe Sr., who entered Hindoo in 1881. Mulhall is an old soul. She may look like a college student, but Mulhall is an old school trainer who prefers the solitude of the barns. She skipped the Derby’s week-long parties to remain near Imperialism. There are no prospective beaus nearby. She hasn’t bought a fancy Derby hat and doesn’t drink alcohol. “I feel like I’ve been here forever,” she said. “I was raised in it. I don’t know anything else. I don’t feel 21, like I’m just coming into it. Most of my friends are twice my age.”

Whittingham would have liked Mulhall. So would Stephens. Her contemporaries seem happy for her success. After all, how could they not like the fresh-faced newcomer who gallops her own horses? “I think it’s fabulous,” said trainer Nick Zito, who is seeking his Derby third victory with favorite The Cliff’s Edge and long-shot Birdstone. Mulhall isn’t intimidated by the hoopla at the Derby, where throngs of morning visitors have flooded the backstretch.

She has attended three Derbys, watching 2002 winner War Emblem from a suite with her father, Richard Mulhall, and Prince Almed bin Salman as the owners urged on their runaway winner. Mulhall knew then she wanted to become a trainer. “When War Emblem won that, I decided I wanted to train and set my goals to making it here,” she said. “I never dreamed I would be here now. I was thinking 10 years. I would have felt [intimidated] if I had never been here on Derby week because I’ve watched people change their training methods at the last minute, which wasn’t good.” Salman and Richard Mulhall were college classmates.

While Mulhall’s father didn’t want her leaving showhorses, her godfather proved more encouraging. Salman sold Kristin Mulhall two horses to help start her stable before dying two months later.

After two years, Mulhall’s 42-horse stable at Hollywood Park includes four stakes winners. Imperialism was an inexpensive prospect with a sunken right eye. He was rejuvenated after Mulhall adapted a blinker to keep the colt from being spooked by the shadowy figures created by his near blindness. The colt won the San Felipe and San Vincente stakes at Santa Anita Park before finishing third in the Santa Anita Derby on April3. “We weren’t thinking Derby,” Mulhall said. “He turned out to be more than we expected.”

So has Mulhall. She has become the darling of frequent women visitors, who offer encouragement along with photo requests. Mulhall joins Song of the Sword trainer Jennifer Pederson as the 11th and 12th female Derby trainers. Kristin’s father now is her biggest supporter. “I think he would kill me if I wanted to go back to show horses,” she said, jokingly.