Elevator Gail: A History

Elevator Gail known as Gigi is a 1995 bay Thoroughbred mare. I purchased her in late Spring 2011. This is not the beginning of her story though, just the beginning of where I came into the picture. When I met Gigi she had already had a fairly successful racing career, had been a momma four times, and had been retrained for a new career.

I found an ad for a "Cute and Confident Hunter Mare" on a horse classifieds website for good price within my budget. I called up the owner and arranged to meet Gigi. My parents and I drove two hours to Cherry Valley, California after I got off work on a Friday. By the time we arrived it was dark and Gigi's owners had to turn on construction flood lights for me to ride her in their arena. I was told Gigi was "off the track." She had been retired from racing to become a broodmare sometime around 2001. After looking up her race records I found out she was raced for many years and earned over $100,000 in purse money. Though she only won four times during her track career, she was what the track people call "in the money" a lot. In other words she would place second or third consistently.

I rode her in the dark, did some lead changes, and jumped some fences. Gigi turned out to be a good little mare. Standing only 15.3 hh it was hard to imagine her having such a long race career. She does have some champions in her blood including the great Mr. Prospector who was the sire to many champions.

Her previous owners said that they had owned her for six years. When they first got her she was to be retrained for jumping and dressage. They called her Gigi because of the way she would hop over fences like the skunk Pepe le Pew, from Looney Toons, hopped through flower beds. They wanted to give her a french name, a la Pepe le Pew, and her barn name became Gigi. Though Gigi had been put into training, she kept gaining weight and her old owner said they had the vet out to check on her. Turns out Gigi was pregnant and about to drop her foal! About two weeks later she gave birth to a little bay filly who was named SheWonTheWest but was called EchoInTheElevator by her old owners. They wanted to register the filly with the latter name but it was too many letters for the Jockey Club registry. Her owners said SheWonTheWest went on to be a successful Eventer.

Gigi also got her registered name in a unique way. There used to be a lady named Gail who ran the Turf Club elevators at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park racetracks. This lady was known as Elevator Gail. Sometime around 1995 a trainer promised the original Elevator Gail he would name a racehorse after her. Gigi was the lucky filly, named and registered Elevator Gail with the Jockey Club Registry. By looking up Elevator Gail in the Jockey Club registry I found her pedigree, race records, and foaling information. I learned that SheWonTheWest was not her first filly. Gigi had been a dam to four foals total. Two colts and two fillies.

And thus began my relationship with Gigi also known as Elevator Gail.

This photo was taken the first week I had Gigi at our first barn in Anaheim, CA