Tres Delaforce scored her first win as a trainer Nov. 29 when Kite Falcon went gate-to-wire in the eighth race at Turfway Park, lighting up the toteboard at odds of 66-1. The 5-year-old gelding by Kokand was only Delaforce’s eighth starter.
“I knew he had it in him,” Delaforce said of Kite Falcon, who was transferred to her care in July after racing primarily in Florida. “He had some breathing problems--a lung infection that was hard to track down. It took a while to figure him out.”
Owned by Donna Miller, Kite Falcon's improbable victory in the $12,500-$10,500 claiming race was his first score since Sept. 10, 2006. He had lost 13 consecutive starts prior to the neck win. Bred in South Carolina by Camden Stud, Kite Falcon was unplaced in all 13 of those starts.
Ridden by Juan Molina Jr., who did not ride his other two scheduled mounts earlier on the card, Kite Falcon paid $134.20 to win. He was part of a trifecta that earned lucky bettors more than $12,000.
The daughter of a U.S. Air Force serviceman, Delaforce was born in Turkey and grew up in Germany, where she began galloping horses at age 12. “I grew up between a dressage barn on one side and a racetrack on the other and sneaked off to the barns every chance I got,” she said.
Delaforce moved to the United States permanently in 1990. She later graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law but returned to working with horses after just six months in practice. She moved to Kentucky in 2004.
Delaforce has held a variety of equine-related jobs, including rubbing horses for trainers Paul McGee and Tom Amoss, and retraining Thoroughbreds retired from racing. She took out her trainer’s license in April 2006 but entered her first runners just this year. She currently has two horses in training at a private farm near Louisville.
