It didn’t take long for trainer Caitln Keil to get her first victory. But the thing is, it felt like a long time.

Her wait – just four races – came to an end Saturday, when Fainor’s Filets rallied to run down longtime leader Kapadokya to win Laurel Park’s second race, a $12,500 claimer for three-year-old fillies, by a length and change.

“I mean, the pressure is always on you the first time around, you know, waiting for that first one to kind of prove yourself,” Keil said. “That just felt really good to get that first one off my chest and get on the board.”

Fainor’s Filets was claimed for $12,500 out of the race by another recent first-time winner, trainer Troy Singh, thus cutting the size of Keil’s barn in half. 

Keil claimed Fainor’s Filets from Brittany Russell for $12,500 January 7. She had finished third and fourth in two starts against tougher company before being dropped back down to that level.

Under jockey Jeiron Barbosa, Fainor’s Filets was never far back in fourth in the early going, came four wide entering the lane, and reeled in the leader in the last 70 yards for the win. She paid $9.00 to win as the second choice. Fainor’s Filets, a three-year-old Preservationist filly, now has three wins from nine starts for earnings of $77,270.

Keil, 27, grew up in northern Baltimore County and has been around racing most of her life. Her father, Steven, also trains, having kicked off his career in 1997. The two have been working together in racing for quite some time.

“My dad and I got my first horse when I was 15,” Keil remembered. “We had a couple little racehorses that we trained off the farm and shipped to Pimlico once a week and did work-and-goes but then got out of it for a little bit.”

Steven Keil was the trainer of record then and made just five starts between 2016 and 2022. In ‘22, though, he made eight starts and registered his first win since 2014 when the homebred Aliferous broke his maiden with a 55-1 upset.

“Katie just basically wouldn’t let me leave [the business],” Steve Keil said of his daughter in 2022. “She said, ‘Come on, we gotta get some horses.’ So we went and bred a couple of our old mares we raced.”

The seven-year-old Aliferous – the name means “having wings” – was one of the horses that came from those breedings, and he now resides in Caitlin’s barn.

“We still do collaborate, so I was going to keep everything in his name since he kind of got me here,” Caitlin said of her father. But as part of the process of getting her own barn started, they made the decision for Caitlin to train Aliferous.

“I took Aliferous because he’s my homebred,” she said, making her hands into a small circle. “I’ve known him since he was this big, and he holds a special place to me.”

In addition to training her small string, Keil said she freelance gallops for “four or five trainers” at Pimlico. One of those, Brandon McFarlane, the trainer of two-time stakes winner Miss Harriett, was on hand to celebrate Keil’s maiden score.

“I ride for him, and we collaborate on this filly a little bit,” Keil said of McFarlane. “I’m not ever going to be so headstrong to think that you can’t take advice or listen to other people. You take what you like and throw out what you don’t.”

Keil ends the day of her first win down a horse, but the winner’s share of the $22,600 purse, plus the $12,500 claim amount, will fill up the coffers a bit if she decides to dip back into the claimbox.

“We’re looking to add to the barn, for sure,” she said. “I’ve got a couple of two-year-olds that my dad bought in Kentucky this past year, so they’ll be coming in the summertime. So the barn’s growing.”

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