Stortz finds time to enjoy first training win amid busy schedule

Marcia Stortz is still enjoying the afterglow of her first training victory with Blazing Mojave on April 19. Blazing Mojave was only the second runner she had started. He held off All Magic by a head in a six-furlong, $12,500 maiden claimer.

The 37-year-old former jockey won her first race as a rider with her seventh mount, Gifted Athlete, with a rail-hugging ride in 2003.

“It’s an elated feeling. It’s much longer lasting as a trainer than as a rider because you’re right back out riding again,” said Stortz, who is still waiting to enter her third starter. “As a rider, it worked out just as [trainer Reina Gonzalez] described. This one was close. All Magic was coming on.”

Stortz’s riding career was cut short by knee injuries, and she was an elementary school teacher for seven years, teaching third and fifth grades, before starting her training career.

“Horses have always been my passion,” she said. “I’m not really sure why. It’s just so magical with horses.”

Stortz is able to exercise the six horses in her barn. She also exercises horses for other trainers.

“It’s tough,” she said of her routine. “I’m exhausted most of the time now. I work five or six horses, clean stalls, and gallop some of our own. I live in Tracy, and it’s a long commute. I’m exhausted, but it’s worth it.”

Having been a jockey helps her as a trainer. She talks with her riders but usually leaves the strategy to the jockey, who has a feel for her horse as well as the how the rest of the field is going. She said she is sympathetic when things happen that her rider has no control over, but she said she is unsympathetic when her rider isn’t alert and gets her horse in trouble.