Robert Croteau's first weeks on the job as general manager at Fair Hill Training Center have included their share of challenges as winter weather threatened more than once to disrupt activity at the Maryland facility, but the vagaries of the February forecast failed to dampen his enthusiasm for his new position.
“It's been great,” Croteau, a native of Massachusetts, said of his first weeks on the job. “It's the best job ever.”
For Croteau, who succeeded longtime Fair Hill general manager Sally Goswell Feb. 1, the position is the culmination of a lifetime of working with horses. His father trained Thoroughbreds on the New England Thoroughbred Circuit at tracks like Suffolk Downs, Rockingham Park, Lincoln Downs, Narragansett Park and Green Mountain Park. Occasional forays to the seasonal fair circuit of North Hampton, Great Barrington, Berkshire Fair, as well as Brockton and Marshfield Fair added variety and a certain character to their sporting life.
Adding in an uncle who trained show horses and fox hunters north of Boston in Hamilton, Massachusetts, a career working with horses seemed almost a foregone conclusion, but Croteau admitted it wasn't always such a clear-cut decision.
“I was conflicted about it because it doesn't lead to a model of family life,” Croteau said of a life in the racing industry. “I had a stay-at-home mom, and my brother, and a sister and myself. Dad was on the road a lot of the time.
“Up north [in Hamilton], it was more of a family affair,” he continued. “We would all work in the barn and then we'd get on the green horses take them out fox hunting, and go cross country and basically do that sort of thing. We would give some lessons and show some prospects, buy and sell a few, that kind of stuff. So, it was more of a horse country life.”
Still, Croteau was tempted by a life outside of the horse world and he attended Boston University with an eye towards what might be considered a more traditional career path.
“I went to school as an English major with a minor in theology, and I really was enamored with the idea of teaching or writing, but it just didn't work out,” he said. “I just kept getting drawn back into the horses. I always ended up migrating back towards my core, my roots, I guess you could say. Going to school in town in Boston, it's a lovely city, I loved it, but there's nothing like being with horses out in the country.”
Croteau followed his passion for horses and never looked back. He took out his trainer's license and had a small string of horses for a decade or so before moving south and on to stints working for legendary trainers Mickey Walsh and Jonathan Sheppard.
“It was quite clear to me that, while the industry was contracting up north, the region on the upswing was due south and was more established in the Mid-Atlantic,” he said.
Of working with Walsh and Sheppard, a pair of Hall of Fame trainers, Croteau said, “I learned quite a bit, mostly about how to work really hard. I learned the kind of lifestyle it takes to turn out good horses–the day in and day out of farmwork and being conscious of the agricultural mindset that makes you a better horseman.”
His time with Walsh and Sheppard also taught Croteau to look at horses in a more holistic method.
“Both Jonathan and Mickey introduced me to something I hadn't experienced while training at a typical oval/racetrack, the practice of turning everything out before they were trained,” he said. “It didn't make any difference whether the horse was a jumper or a flat horse. When they were at the farm, they all went out, whether it was five minutes, 50 minutes or longer. Their point of view was that it got all the twisty bits out of them, and that they focused a bit better on their job afterwards. Clearly, it did that and more.”
Irish War Cry training at Fair Hill in 2017 | Sarah Andrew
That education met its perfect match at the Fair Hill Training Center. Founded in 1983 and situated on a bucolic 350 acres in northern Maryland with 18 privately owned barns, as well as dirt and Tapeta tracks, the training center epitomizes that holistic approach to horsemanship and it is a key part of Croteau's new position.
“Obviously being here at Fair Hill resonates with all those things,” Croteau said. “Here you can hack out through the Department of National Resource Land. You can turn them out, graze them whenever you want. I guess you could say in a rural setting like this, you can let the horses get back to being horses. I mean, being here is so good for all involved. Being able to train a horse with such versatility offers immense flexibility.”
Croteau's journey has taken him to Iron Spring Farm, a sport-horse operation where he worked with stallions, young horses and competition horses, and to the equine therapy company Cool Systems Game Ready where he became international sales director. Most recently, he spent 11 years working in equine nutrition as an account manager for the Pennsylvania-based Stoltzfus Feed and Supply.
“I've been fortunate to be able make the decision to change things up when I've accomplished the promise made when I entered a position,” Croteau said. “It was always my goal to raise any operation to a certain height, as well as purposely do the best for the horses and their connections.”
Of his newest challenge at Fair Hill, Croteau said, “What I want to accomplish here is basically to accomplish that elevation, to see if, in my own particular small way, I can just help get things smoother. Sally and Mike Goswell created something special here and it's an honor to be involved in something so very special.”
Croteau sees opportunity in the challenges facing the racing industry and thinks Fair Hill, and places like, it have an important place in the industry's landscape.
“I see potential in some of the changes in the Thoroughbred industry,” he said. “You get a chance to engage with people, you can talk to them and you can find out the most important thing, which is what do they think?”
Back in his college days, Croteau chose horses over academics and years on, he clearly has no regrets.
“I would be useless in whatever I tried in my life if I didn't have a horse attached to it somehow,” he said. “This is not really hard work for me. It's my life more than it is a career. I look back at what I've done and the industry has been really good to me.”
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