A likely and unlikely first: Lordstown woman works Kentucky Derby starting gate

Cassie Dempsey was a few days removed from her first Kentucky Derby and she still wasn’t sure which was louder.

The roar of the crowd of 147,000 when the horses broke from the starting gate or the din when the field of 20 rounded the turn for home.

Both were “overwhelming.”

“The feeling is something I didn’t think I could ever feel,” Dempsey said. “It was amazing and I can’t wait to go back next year.”

Dempsey, 31, wasn’t speaking as a fan, even though horses have been part of her family’s bloodline for generations.

A native of Rogers, Ohio, who now has a farm in Lordstown, Dempsey is believed to have made history on May 7, when she likely became the first woman assistant starter in the Derby. There are no official records, but Churchill Downs head starter Scott Jordan has held that position since 1995 and had never hired a female before Dempsey.

Since 2014, Dempsey has worked the gate at Mahoning Valley Race Course in Youngstown in the winter and at JACK Thistledown Racino in the summer. But she knows she wouldn’t have gotten the Derby job without the recommendation of her boss at Thistledown, starter Nick Corbisello.

Corbisello, 63, got his first gate job 49 years ago and has assisted at about 25 Derbies, his first with Spend a Buck in 1985. He’s known Jordan for 30 years, but said he has probably sent only “a half a dozen guys” to Louisville for the first Saturday in May.

Dempsey is different, Corbisello said.

“She’s not afraid, and she’s no girly girl. She’s as good and as tough as any guy I’ve got,” Corbisello told the Beacon Journal in a phone interview Wednesday. “She’s very capable of handling any horse. She can handle any situation. I think the world of her, as you can tell.

“She knows the horses, she knows the people and she cares. That’s a big word I use when I’m complimenting people. They care, no matter what they’re doing.”

Dempsey had never been to the Derby as a spectator and said working the gate had “been a dream since Day One.” But it never would have happened without Corbisello’s call to Jordan. She ended up closing the back tailgates for the race won by 80-1 shot Rich Strike. Afterward, she said Jordan promised her a spot in the gate for 2023.

“They were all impressed with her there. I got complimentary phone calls,” Corbisello said. “They called her, ‘My girl.’ I tell ‘em, ‘She’s like the daughter I never had.’”

Dempsey and her husband, Steve McLaughlin, made it a mini-vacation, driving to Louisville on Thursday, attending the Kentucky Oaks on Friday and returning home Sunday.

When race day arrived, Dempsey said she wasn’t nervous.

“I think I was more excited than nervous,” she told the Beacon Journal by phone Tuesday. “It is my job. Yes, it is a bigger playing field, but I would treat a $5,000 claimer just like I do a stakes horse, just like I do at Thistledown. I was very proud to be there and wanted to do a good job.”

Dempsey’s duties on that special Saturday were the culmination of a lifetime around horses.

She said her mother, Kelly Dempsey, rode until her last month of pregnancy with Cassie and got right back in the saddle after the baby was born.

“She would tell me stories about she would sit me backwards facing her [riding] down the trail and I would fall asleep on her chest,” Dempsey said. “I was basically born on a horse. They’re amazing animals and I couldn’t imagine not having horses in my life.”

Dempsey competes in barrel racing, while her husband trail rides and drives miniature horses and Shetlands. She was an exercise rider for a while but had to give up galloping thoroughbreds and the racetrack life she loved for a few years due to personal issues.

But she couldn’t stay away. So in 2014, she applied for a starting gate job at Mahoning Valley. Starter Rick Walker hired her at Thistledown in the summer of 2015. She also worked a few meets under Corbisello at Presque Isle in Erie, Pennsylvania, before coming back to Thistledown.

“When I was exercise riding, I was always excited to take a horse to the gate,” she said. “I absolutely can’t imagine doing anything else. I love this job.”

Now during Thistledown’s summer season, Dempsey commutes 54 miles each way five days a week, one of those a dark day when she runs the morning gate training for Corbisello.

During her time, there have been more doubters than Jordan.

“You do have to be physically strong. When I first started, I had a little bit of backlash that I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I can remember a couple people saying a woman doesn’t belong in the starting gate, this and that. I ignored them and I just had to prove myself.

“Once I have won them over, they’re completely different.”

Dempsey said there are other women working the gate, with one at Penn National in Grantville, Pennsylvania. Corbisello said there is a female assistant starter at Presque Isle, another in Tampa, and one working Maryland tracks.

On Derby Day, Dempsey wasn’t the only Ohio connection. Winning jockey Sonny Leon is a regular rider at Mahoning Valley, Belterra Park (the former River Downs) in Cincinnati and Thistledown.

“I’ve known Sonny for years. Sonny is an amazing rider,” Dempsey said. “I never doubted him. It was insane. It was fantastic for Ohio and it was fantastic for all the tracks in Ohio — Thistledown, Mahoning — because Sonny rides at all of ‘em.

“Sonny is one of the nicest, friendliest guys. I don’t think he has a mean bone in him. He’s just great to be around, always smiling. I’m very happy for him and I would be ecstatic for him if he got bigger opportunities.”

Dempsey dreams of bigger opportunities as well. With a Derby job under her belt, next on her bucket list is to become a head starter, possibly succeeding Corbisello.

Corbisello said that won’t be easy.

“She’s got an uphill climb there,” said Corbisello, who grew up in Salineville, Ohio and lives in Tampa. “I’m doing everything in my power for her to be the heir to the throne here. I’ve only got another year or two and I’m retiring. Even though the starter’s job is easy physically, it’s just too much that goes along with it.

“She’s done everything I’ve asked and she’ll tell you I’ve come through with everything I told her I would. Her biggest obstacle is to get eight, 10, 12 guys to work for a woman. At a lot of my guys’ age, if I was their age, if they told me I was going to work for a woman, I’d have laughed at ‘em. ‘Yeah, right, I’ll see you later.’

“I really think she has the support of the administration. But her biggest problem is my problem. I only have eight, nine people and I normally have 12. I know a lot of people everywhere, but nobody wants to do this job anymore.”

While that challenge unfolds, Dempsey has another goal in mind. That involves the final two legs of the Triple Crown — Saturday’s Preakness Stakes at Pimlico and the June 11 Belmont Stakes.

“I’m seriously hoping the starter from the Preakness and the Belmont will call me, but that’s just big dreams there,” she said. “I’m not going to be mad if they don’t. But if they do, I’m definitely going.”

Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Ohioan likely first woman to work Kentucky Derby starting gate