Finds success as racehorse trainer
By: Ken Weingartner
Anthony Nini was a frequent visitor to the winner’s circle during his lifetime. Thanks to the work of his daughter, Janice, his spirit lives on there.
Ms. Nini trains Thoroughbred racehorses, following in the footsteps of her late father, who was one of the leading breeders and owners in New Jersey. Mr. Nini, who with his wife, Joanne, owned Narrowbrook Farm on Windsor Road in Washington Township, died in September 1999 after a lengthy illness.
“The only thing I’m not happy about is that I miss Dad,” Ms. Nini said after training her horses at Monmouth Park on Saturday morning. “Every time I win a race I get emotional because he would’ve been happy. I think he was happy I took an interest in it.”
Ms. Nini has 10 horses stabled at Monmouth for the summer meet. She also has two horses at Philadelphia Park, two in Maryland and seven at Narrowbrook Farm.
Her interest in horses, obviously, stems from her father. As a child, Ms. Nini would get up at 4:30 a.m. to help feed the horses and clean stalls before going to school.
“I was in love with the farm,” said Ms. Nini, who grew up in Princeton. “I couldn’t wait to get out there. I kept saying to Dad that I wanted to be a trainer.”
Mr. Nini had other ideas, however. He wanted all his children to attend college, something no other generation of Ninis had done.
“They didn’t want us on the backstretch,” Ms. Nini said. “My parents’ families were from Italy. They were all farmers. They never forgot it was a tough life. They wanted something better for us.”
Ms. Nini went to college at Rutgers, which enabled her to remain near the horses and farm. She studied psychology and nursing, and after graduating got a job at Princeton Hospital.
She continued her education, getting a master’s degree in molecular biology and nearly completed work on a doctorate before returning to the farm in 1996.
Ms. Nini’s decision was based largely on a desire to make her father happy. In 1989, a case of food poisoning wiped out the entire breeding stock on his farm. Lawyers advised the family not to get more horses so as to get a more favorable settlement.
But as her father’s health became worse, Ms. Nini decided it was time to get back in the game.
“I decided to take a leave of absence, buy some more horses with him and train them at the farm,” Ms. Nini said. “In July of 1996 I passed my trainer’s exam and in September we moved four horses to the Meadowlands. I just wanted to train horses with my Dad and have some fun.”
Once again, her father had different ideas. He kept directing friends and clients to his daughter, who in a relatively short period of time built up a stable of nearly three dozen horses.
“That wasn’t what I had in mind,” Ms. Nini said with a laugh.
She is more comfortable with the size of her current operation. She and her husband, Dr. Fredrick Weinberg, own all the horses trained by Ms. Nini.
Coming from an academic background into the world of horseracing was an experience, Ms. Nini said.
“It was like walking into a whole different world,” she said. “They call them horses, but it’s not like on the farm. I had to learn the terminology. There’s a whole language at the racetrack. Coming from a university background, where everything is exact, it was mindboggling. You try not to use too much logic in a game that has a lot of luck to it.
“It was not just the horses, but the culture,” she added, referring to life at the track, where Spanish is the primary language spoken by grooms. “My background was so different.”
Helping her with the transition was her assistant trainer, Mario Serey. A native of Chile, he has worked with Ms. Nini for the last four years.
“Every time we get cranked up and ready to go, we’ve been successful,” Ms. Nini said. “I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve paid my dues. I know how to take care of horses and we’re at the next level now. Right now we’ve got high claimers and allowance horses. We’re trying to build our business a little at a time.”
Among Ms. Nini’s future plans are taking over Narrowbrook Farm, which currently is run by her mother. She hopes to move onto the farm when the Monmouth meet concludes in September.
“I’d like to take the farm and turn it into a training center,” Ms. Nini said. “I’ll get to go out my door, into the backyard and work.
“My Dad and I had a lot of the same dreams,” she added. “When he asked me to take over the farm, and I agreed, he had tears in his eyes. The memories are great, but they can crush you emotionally at the same time. I look at the farm and wonder how I can do it without him.
“But I think he’s very happy that I’m taking it over.”