Rob Atras - the 'up and coming' NY based trainer in profile

Words - Bill Heller

Trainer Rob Atras wasn’t born into racing; he was into racing before he was born. His mother didn’t let her pregnancy at the time prevent her from visiting the winner’s circle after her horse won a race at Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg. 

“She has the win picture,” Rob laughed. “She said, `You were in my stomach when the picture was taken.’ When I was old enough, I went around the track with her. I was probably five or six. ”

Three decades later, Rob is a rising star in New York—a young conditioner steeped in old school horsemanship with an uncanny knack of claiming horses. He was good enough to finish tied for seventh with Brad Cox in the 2021 Saratoga Meet, when he won his first Gr. 1 stakes, the Coaching Club American Oaks, with Maracuja. At the current Belmont Park Summer Meet, he is tied for sixth with David Donk. Rob’s earnings grew from $1.8 million in 2019 to $2 million in 2020 and $3.9 million in 2021. He’s already topped $2 million in the first six months of this year. Rob, who is 37 years old, ranked 37th nationally in earnings last year and is 37th this year through the end of June.

He is strengthened by his wife/assistant trainer/best friend Brittney, who is proud of Rob’s horsemanship. Asked why he is successful, she said, “I think because he treats each horse individually. It’s so true—how they train, how their legs are wrapped. Rob is very hands-on. He’s always feeling their legs. He’s really good at reading a condition book. Rob is very realistic about the horses we have and where they need to race to be successful.”

Rob’s equine education began with his mother, Tanis, who owned a couple of horses while working at a bank. When she retired, she had all the time she wanted with horses. “She grew up always riding,” Rob said. “She owned a couple of horses with trainer Jack Robertson. We were very close to his farm. She would help him out. I was too young at first. I’d be in the track kitchen reading the Form. I had a pretty good background from my mom.”

She couldn’t be prouder of her only child, and she saw his love of horses as a child. “That was his passion,” she said. “To be that successful at the New York tracks, we’re very proud of him. He puts his heart and soul into it. He’s done that his whole life. He loves it. He’s got a great wife, and they’re a great team.”

Rob’s father, Jim, was an undercover investigator for the Royal Canadian Mountain Police for 30 years in the province of Manitoba. “Sometimes he was gone for a week,” Rob said. “He wasn’t really involved in horses, but he’s been really supportive of me.”

Still. “We never miss a race,” his mother said. “It’s so exciting for us. We love watching him.”

Rob’s journey from Portage la Prairie in Manitoba to New York had plenty of interesting stops.

He worked summers for Jack Robertson when he was 16 and 17. Asked what he learned from him, Rob replied, “All the fundamentals—taking care of the horses, the legs, keeping track of the horses.”

After he graduated from high school, he took a job in a steel factory. “I left the job, and with everything I made, I bought a horse,” Rob said. “With no plan. I went to the University of Manitoba for a year and a half.”

Then he bolted back to the track for life.

Rob began working for trainer Bert Blake. “He’s a legend up in Canada, and he had a small stable,” Rob said. “He asked me if I could work for him. I had two horses. He said I could keep them. I trained a little on my own. Bert let me do that. I worked up to assistant trainer. It was really cool.”

His next job was even cooler. He got an offer to come to Kentucky and work for trainer Rebecca Maker, whose top horse at the time was It’s No Joke, a multiple stakes winner who earned $685,612. He was eighth in the Gr. 1 Clark at Churchill Downs, but Rob still has a good memory of the race. “I was standing next to Todd Pletcher; I emailed my mom and told her, `You’ll never believe who I was standing next to.’ After Churchill Downs, Rob worked for Maker at the Fair Grounds.

“It really opened my eyes—how big the racing world is,” Rob said. “I was so green. I was a sponge and took in everything. I wanted to be there and learn as much as I could. I was 22.” 

He returned to Canada and cobbled together a stable of 15 to 20 horses. His first winner was a $5,000 claimer, Forgotten Battle, September 3, 2010, at Assiniboia Downs. Like many other trainers at Assiniboia, he wintered in Turf Paradise in Phoenix. That’s where he had the good fortune of meeting trainer Robertino Diodoro in 2014. “He sent me a couple horses to run in Canada,” Rob said. “I think I was finishing my fourth or fifth year training on my own.”

Diodoro offered him a job. “I didn’t have a ton of horses in my barn; as much as I loved Turf Paradise, it was a struggle financially. I felt like I was spinning my tires a little bit. I wasn’t really moving up. He asked me to go to Oaklawn Park. That meant giving up my horses and clients. I was going from trainer to assistant trainer, but it didn’t take long for me to decide. I’m going to take this opportunity and see where it goes.”

He has never regretted that decision. “I got along very well with Robertino; you feel like you’re working with him, not for him. We developed a friendship.”

Rob would eventually handle Robertino’s horses in New York before striking out on his own in the toughest circuit in the country. “He talked to a few people, and I wound up with six horses.” Rob said. Now he has 50.

He began on his own in the 2018–2019 winter, a calculated gamble, racing at Aqueduct while many of New York’s top outfits shipped to Florida for the winter. He knocked his opportunity out of the park, winning five races in his first nine starts.

In New York, he found a baseball team to root for, the love of his life and a goat.

“When I came to New York, I started watching the Yankees,” he said. “They had Aaron Judge. I went to a couple games.” Judge is currently leading the majors in home runs, and Rob wears a Yankees cap almost all the time.

Brittney, like her husband, was introduced to horses at a young age. “Both of my parents are horse people,” Brittney said. “My father (Larry Dixon) was a trainer and had a training center in Virginia; my mom is a vet. I grew up with horses.”

She got the opportunity of a lifetime in Godolphin’s Flying Start program, traveling all over the world. “It was amazing,” she said. “I met a lot of contacts and got to see the greatest horses in the world.”

Unsure of what she wanted to pursue in horse racing, she took a job working for Fasig-Tipton after she graduated from the University of Georgia, then worked for Bridlewood Farm. 

Her mom was a vet at Belmont Park, administering Lasix shots. Brittney decided to tag along with her and then do the same with veterinarian Dr. Michael Galvin. On her first morning with him, she met Rob.

Galvin and Brittney stopped by Rob’s barn. “I was still working for Robertino at the time,” Rob said. “Dr. Galvin asked him how one of my horses did in his race. I said, 'No good!’ Then Galvin introduced Brittney. “I said, `Hi,’ and that was it,” Rob said. “I was still pissed off about the race.”

Brittney took that experience favorably. “He had no interest in talking to me; that made me more interested.”

Fate, karma or coincidence happened the next day when Rob and a friend went to Trotters, a bar and restaurant in Franklin Square. Brittney was living with her mother, and they decided to go there as well. They sat next to Rob and his pal. “We talked for two hours,” Brittney said. 

While she was leaving, though, she slipped and fell down. “I slipped; I wasn’t drunk,” she said. “I was super embarrassed.”

She felt she had to tell Rob that, so she stopped by his barn the next morning. Then she invited Rob to join her and her mother for dinner. “We have been together ever since,” she said. “He’s literally the most kind, thoughtful person I know.” They married in September 2018.

Gilbert the goat

Then there’s the goat, Gilbert, possibly the greatest goat of all time. Or maybe the greatest Gilbert of all time. “I had never had a goat,” Rob said. “We had a wild horse, a Tapit colt, Tappin Vegas, who was very tough to manage. Someone said, `Why don’t you get a goat? They’re supposed to calm down horses.’ I asked around.” 

Rob bought three-month-old Gilbert. He was not an instant success. “The goat was wild—running all over the place, jumping up and down,” Rob said. “We tied him down between two horses’ stables.”

Gilbert wanted nothing to do with the problem horse he was supposed to calm down, Tappin Vegas. The horse in the other stall was Becker’s Galaxy, an older gelding. “He fell in love with Becker’s Galaxy,” Rob said. “Whenever Becker’s Galaxy would leave his stall, Gilbert would cry out. But Gilbert’s calmed down. Now he listens to his name like a cat or a dog.”

Does he come when he’s called? “Sometimes,” Rob said.

Rob is much better at training horses than goats. 

One of Rob’s happiest clients is Sandy Goldfarb, a long-time successful owner who had temporarily left the game. “I was with Diodoro,” Sandy said. “Then I was out of the game for five years.”

He credits Rob and Brittney for getting him back into the game. “They’re really amazing—the most down-to-earth people, and the care they give their horses is unbelievable,” Sandy said. “I just really believe in Rob, his talent, his ability. He’s done an incredible job. I have eight to 15 horses with him now. They get claimed left and right.”

Two horses they claimed gave Rob instant credibility in New York. “We claimed American Power in Saratoga for $40,000 (on July 29, 2020),” Rob said. All American Power did was win four straight, including the $145,500 Gr. 3 Toboggan Handicap, January 30, 2021, at Aqueduct. It was Rob’s first graded stakes victory.

Sandy and partners had similar success with Mr Phil—a $32,000 claim on  February 27—this year who won three straight allowance races before taking on sprint superstar Jackie’s Warrior and finishing fifth in the Gr. 2 True North Handicap, June 10.

In between those two successful claims, Rob’s Maracuja gave him his first Gr. 1 stakes, taking the Coaching Club American Oaks by running down Malathaat to win by a head last July 24. “We came in as an underdog,” Rob said. “We were hoping for second, but we would have settled for third. It was quite a thrilling race, an oddly-run race.”

Indeed.  

Maracuja (2) Coaching Club American Oaks 2021 - Atras’ first Gr.1 winner

“I would never have expected my first Gr. 1 to be at Saratoga,” Rob said.

Brittney still gets emotional talking about it nearly a year later: “Literally, I think I’m going to cry. I get serious goosebumps. It was so amazing and so beautiful. I am still not sure she won it.”

She did. And the common denominator for those two successful claims and the Gr. 1 stakes winner was the care they received from Rob and Brittney.

“You learn to train a $3,000 claimer as a stakes horse,” Rob said. “In feeding him, taking care of him. We just believe in that. The people I learned from were very good trainers. Everything matters: the type of feed, the hay in the stall, every little item. They’re going to be happy if they’re healthy.”

In terms of making claims, Rob said, “Obviously, the horse’s form is the first thing you look at. I like to look at a horse’s conditions. What level is next for this horse? I like to look at the back class. When I worked with Jack Robertson, that’s one thing he would do. A lot of times, he’d bring horses up from the states, who were off form. A lot would go on to be stakes horses up here (at Assiniboia).”

At Assiniboia, Rob was the leading percentage trainer in 2014. Now he’s in the Top Ten at Saratoga and Belmont. “It’s something I never really expected.” Rob said. “It’s a pretty cool feeling. When I was a youngster, I was watching New York racing and seeing all these great trainers. Then you get here as a trainer. It’s a different world. It really keeps you focused all the time. I don’t like to get ahead of myself. I think about this week. Never get complacent because you’re running against the best. It’s very tough, but very rewarding.”