Gomez’s Childhood Dreams Now Make Perfect Horse Sense

When Jaime Gomez was growing up in Tala Jalisco, Mexico, the best part of his day was when the school bell rang and he could race home, meet his father, Bauvilio, and go to the ranch where Bauvilio trained quarter horses.

“School let out at 2 and by 3 I had my hands on a horse and I was next to my dad,” Jaime says. “It was the part of the day I dreamed about.”

Jaime is the trainer now and Saturday night, Bauvilio, 85, will be in the stands at Los Alamitos Race Course to watch two of the horses his son trains--Pecos Chicks and Make It Anywhere--run in the Los Alamitos Million Futurity.

Jaime Gomez, 49, is the most successful Latino quarter horse trainer at Los Alamitos and one of the top three in the country. He has thick fingers that seem to make horses soften. His voice is deep and even. There is not a hint of urgency when he whispers to an animal.

You hardly ever see Gomez without a big, fat cigar in his mouth, a Montecristo or a Macanudo.

“Never Cuban cigars,” Gomez says. “Not in my country.”

My country.

Gomez speaks with pride of the U.S. citizenship he gained less than a decade ago.

He was one of 11 children--six boys, five girls--who shared a four-room home in Tala Jalisco. When he was 15, he came to the U.S.

“I snuck into the country,” Gomez says. “My father didn’t want me to come but I came with my brother. I felt I needed to if I wanted to be in the horse business. And that’s what I wanted.”

Gomez stayed with cousins, aunts, uncles. He worked on farms, he worked on local ranches. He didn’t speak English but that didn’t stop him from communicating with the horses. His touch was gentle, his love of the animals apparent.

“I wasn’t happy unless I was around the horses,” Gomez says. “My dad, he wasn’t happy with me for a while but eventually he understood. If I stayed in Mexico I wouldn’t be what I am today. I wouldn’t be watching two horses I trained in a million-dollar race. When I stop and think about this, I cannot believe it. I am super happy. Super happy.”

When he was 19, Gomez married Maria, a girl he had met at a party. He was working at Los Alamitos by then, mucking stalls, walking horses, doing whatever hard, unpopular job there was.

Jaime and Maria have six children. One is a teacher, one a beautician. Another is a student at UC Riverside. The youngest, Leonardo, is 6 and likes to hurry home from school so he can be with his father and the horses.

Gomez can’t walk 10 steps at Los Alamitos without someone wanting to say hello or good luck. He has trained 52 winners this year, the sixth consecutive year he has trained at least 40 first-place finishers. He is fourth in the trainer standings and has not finished out of the top 10 in the last five years.

In 1996, Gomez trained the Los Al Million winner, Corona Cartel. It was, he says, “a super proud moment for me. I might have cried. To think I could accomplish such a thing made me super happy.”

There were tough times. Gomez and Maria struggled for years, living on minimum wage and in cramped mobile homes. But it was the path Gomez had chosen. He never regretted coming to Southern California and never doubted that he would be given a chance to become a trainer.

“Sometimes people tell me I am a role model for other Mexicans and that makes me feel good about what I have done,” Gomez says. “I don’t think I am any different than a lot of other people here. If you work hard, you can be successful.”

Gomez has a long list of people he credits with helping him. Bob Baffert, who trained quarter horses before becoming one of the nation’s leading thoroughbred trainers, gave Gomez an assistant trainer’s job. Carlos Lopez, who preceded Gomez as a top Latino trainer, took the quiet Gomez under his wing. Dr. James Streelman and Denny Boer, owners of the Dutch Masters III stable, have entrusted Gomez with many of their horses, one of them Pecos Chicks.

When he was 15 and new to the U.S., Gomez used to wonder what would happen to him.

“I didn’t know much about anything except horses and I didn’t know if I could ever find my way around,” he says.

Now he has a bit of land and a nice home in Murrieta. His children are thriving, his wife is his best friend. And his father understands why Gomez left home and the side of the man who raised him.

“It was so I could do better,” Gomez says. “My father will be the proudest man at Los Alamitos Saturday night. And that makes me super proud. And super happy.”