Trainer splitting time between Florida and New Jersey
BY MONMOUTH PARK PRESS OFFICE (Edited)
OCEANPORT, N.J.—After a nearly six-year hiatus, Terri Pompay is back at Monmouth Park winning races again, just as she used to when she was a summer fixture at the Jersey Shore from the time she became a full-time trainer in 1995 until 2017.
The biggest difference now is how she splits her time, occasionally coming North to oversee her stable at Monmouth Park while also keeping track of things at the 240-acre farm in Ocala, Florida, that she has with her husband, Barry Berkelhammer.
For now, it’s working. Pompay’s 30-horse stable has won eight races at the Monmouth Park meet, which has her in a tie for ninth in the trainer standings after just 37 starters. It’s the most wins she has had at Monmouth since 2016 with the potential of more to come: She has three horses entered on Saturday’s card.
“It’s kind of a combination of things,” Pompay said of her Monmouth Park success. “I don’t have top horses. I just have regular horses. But they love it here and they have really blossomed since we’ve been here and they are training well.
“Sometimes things just click and some years they don’t.”
Pompay, who grew up in Saratoga Springs, New York, opted to remain in Florida year-round from 2018 through 2023 before returning to Monmouth a year ago.
It was, she said, “time to make a little change again.”
She has been able to split her time again the past two years because of the trust she has in long-time assistant Geraldo Corona Perez.
“He’s like my son. I have a really good crew, otherwise I couldn’t do this,” she said. “I have a great team.
“I was hands on twenty-four/seven for quite a few years. But over the years life changes. Geraldo has really stepped up for me. He lives at the barn.”
The farm in Florida, which features a five-furlong turf track, three-quarter-mile training track, European turf gallop, a four-stall padded starting gate and handles breeding, training, early training and sales.
It also has another unique feature: It houses Pompay’s collection of 120 monkeys in a “barn” that features heat and air conditioning.
“I started with one as a pet,” Pompay said. “Most of them are small, which they call finger monkeys. They make good pets for people. I’ve tried pretty much every type of exotic small animal but I stick more to the primates. They’re smart.
“It’s kind of like being a horse trainer. They all have their separate stalls.”
Considering the wide range of life experiences Pompay has had, collecting exotic monkeys fits right in.
A graduate of Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, she would gallop horses and show horses in the summers while off from school. That caught the attention of the producers of a made-for-TV moved entitled “My Old Man,” who hired her as stunt double for Kristy McNichol. She was 19 at the time.
“It was basically just riding and galloping,” she said. “I looked like her a bit then and I was the size of a jockey and knew the horses, so I did it.
“I basically paid the first year of college with the money.”
Pompay later served as a district manager for a pharmaceutical company, eventually gravitating to being a jockey, where she had one win from nine mounts.
“The jockey thing was fun but I knew it wasn’t going to be a career for me, even though I had been riding horses my whole life,” she said.
She had started galloping horses at 16 for trainer John Russell before becoming an assistant to the late trainer Ron Taylor prior to going out on her own.
That led to eventually training for powerhouse Klavavich Stables, for whom she won the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes with Florida-bred Currency Swap in 2011.
“I do think about getting another one like him. Of course, that’s what every trainer wants,” said Pompay, who has 617 career wins. “That’s what makes you go out and buy 2-year-olds.
“We have a few babies that haven’t started. They’re almost ready. It takes a while with them. There are always hiccups along the way.”
Pompay, who has 13 wins overall this year from 78 starters, could be on her way to her best summer at Monmouth Park since 2011 when she won 17 races at the Jersey Shore. Her best year at Monmouth was 2009 when she won 20 races.
Overall, her best year was 2002, when she won 35 races.
“Hopefully, we can keep things going,” she said. “We feel comfortable when we get a horse in that they will run well. We’re fortunate that things have been clicking so far.”
Return to the August 5 issue of Wire to Wire
