Lifelong racetracker Danner begins career as trainer

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Kelsey Danner bounced between barns and press boxes as a young girl. When it came time to choose a career on the racetrack, well, it was a walkover.

“I always liked the horse side of things,” Danner said. “They’re easy. People can be hard.”

More than 15 years since she began galloping horses at her hometown track, Churchill Downs, Danner will make her debut as a trainer when saddling Nan’s Pierce Arrow for the sixth race Saturday at Ellis Park in western Kentucky.

Danner, 31, has uncommon experience for a so-called rookie, having worked closely with a variety of high-profile trainers, including five years as an assistant to Wayne Catalano during a particularly productive span for “Cat Man.”

Danner currently has five horses at a private farm in Lexington, Ky., where she spent the past few months training at Keeneland. She hopes to soon move her stable to Churchill.

Danner is the only child of Mark Danner, a trainer since 1991, and Kelly Danner, the longtime Churchill horsemen’s liaison who worked in media relations when Kelsey was a tot. Both parents have relatives whose roots in various racing-related jobs have spanned decades, so Kelsey was never far from a racetrack.

Nan’s Pierce Arrow is owned by Nancy Pierce, a Hot Springs, Ark., resident who is a longtime client of Mark Danner. The 5-year-old gelding will try to improve on his 2-for-27 record in a $16,000 “never won three” claiming mile Saturday.

“The horse was claimed back in Iowa this summer so I could take him,” Kelsey Danner said.

Although she galloped for such trainers as D. Wayne Lukas, Carl Nafzger, Ian Wilkes, and Rusty Arnold, it was her years (2011-16) under Catalano that gave Danner the confidence to ultimately go out on her own.

“He gave me a lot of room to grow,” she said. “I was pretty independent with him, and obviously I learned a lot along the way.”

Danner said she is “a little nervous but excited” about getting her training career under way.

“She’s a good horsewoman,” Catalano said. “She comes from a good horse family. She’s very conscientious, and she’s good on a horse’s back. I wish her all the best.”

“I fell in love with horses when I was very young,” Danner said. “It’s all I ever wanted to do.”