Contessa comes out of retirement to work for Bell Gable Stable

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Gary Contessa, who last year said he “had enough” of training horses and announced his retirement after 35 years, officially comes out of retirement Friday when he starts Trustyourinstinct in Aqueduct’s eighth race, a $40,000 claimer for New York-breds at six furlongs.

It will be Contessa’s first starter since last March 21 at Tampa Bay Downs.

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Contessa, who has won 2,364 races since 1985, announced last December that in 2021 he was going to begin training privately for Nick and Delora Beaver’s Bell Gable Stable. Though he will ultimately be based at Delaware Park, Trustyourinstinct has been at Belmont for the last few weeks.

Contessa initially went to work for Bell Gable last spring, overseeing the stable’s breeding operation and racing operation, which had horses with a handful of trainers. Contessa said Nick Beaver asked what it would take for him to return to training.

“I said I want to be a salaried employee of yours,” Contessa said. “He said, ‘No problem.’ ”

Contessa said his duties will go beyond training. He will assist in the breeding operation, “evaluate the weanlings, the yearlings, do work for him at sales,” Contessa said.

“It’s been a wonderful experience so far,” Contessa said. “He’s one in a million.”

Contessa said that Beaver told him, “If a horse gets an injury, stop on him. If a horse can’t compete, give him to someone to make a riding horse but have that person sign a contract that if anything goes wrong to give him back to us.”

Contessa said he expects this year to be “a little bit slow” as he helps build the stable with young horses.

“We will have claimers and stuff, but we’ll be losing them and replace them with weanlings and yearlings and build that stable with more and more quality year after year,” he said.

Trustyourinstinct was beaten as a 1-10 favorite in a four-horse field in his last start Feb. 4 at Laurel Park. Contessa is adding blinkers to his equipment Friday.

“He’s a bit of a hanger,” he said. “He might be a hanger with blinkers on, too, but I figured it’s something I have to try.”

Contessa said he would not be at Aqueduct on Friday as he will just be coming back from the sales in Florida and setting things up at Delaware Park, whose backside just opened this week.