Debra Rombis all heart

Debra Rombis takes a visitor on a quick tour of her barn in the Woodbine Backstretch, pointing out her various horses by their gender and age.

“I’m running a senior’s home here,” Rombis said, with a laugh, alluding to the fact that there are a few older horses in her stable.

There are a few older horses, but many of them, including a couple of mares - eight-year-old Chromeplated Heart and seven-year-old Thatsitthatsall – are still doing quite well. In fact, Chromeplated Heart (Kantharos-Crysta’s Court) opened up her 2026 Woodbine campaign with a victory in an optional claiming race (for a purse of $114,600) on April 18. In four starts at Woodbine in 2026, Rombis’ entries have won twice and finished second in another.

“It’s rewarding and it gets you on the right track mentally,” said the veteran trainer of her early success this season. “It’s been a long winter and the winter is full of expenses, so I feel blessed to get that early in the year and hopefully it continues. The horses are all in good shape. They went in happy and they came out happy and that’s the main thing.”

In her career as a thoroughbred trainer, Rombis has recorded 324 victories in 3,329 starts (not including some victories under her former partner’s name) with 416 seconds and 396 thirds and total earnings of $5,746,280 US. Impressive numbers, even more so considering where the Toronto native came from and the life-threatening accident she suffered in 2006.

Born and raised in the tough Jane and Finch area in Toronto’s west end, Rombis was raised by a single mom in an 11^th floor apartment with virtually no connection to horse racing. Somehow, growing up in a very hard-scrabble, urban neighbourhood, Rombis developed a fascination with horses.

“When I was a kid, my mom used to buy me plastic horses. I was never interested in dolls, it was always horses,” she said. “I used to sit in school all day, drawing horses. And I would ride my bicycle up the road to Steeles Ave where there were farms and horseback riding.”

After graduating high school at 15, Rombis’ plan was to attend college and become a veterinarian. But before that, Rombis decided that she needed to get some experience working with horses. Fortunately, legendary Woodbine trainer Laurie Silvera gave her a job at the track on weekends while she was still attending school.

“They used to call me Smiley,” said Rombis. “I just loved it. I thought, ‘My God, I’m getting paid to do this?’ He put me on horses in the shedrow and that’s how it started. And I never left the track, even though my mom was not happy.”

Her mom, Christine, is certainly proud of her daughter now  – particularly given that Rombis has maintained her position as a successful trainer at Woodbine despite some major setbacks - and one horrific one in particular.

In 2006, while training at Fort Erie , Rombis was exercising her three-year-old homebred Windfleur when the spirited filly wheeled up, fell over and landed on top of her trainer.

“I wasn’t supposed to get on that horse that day but the exercise rider didn’t show up,” said Rombis. “And when she fell on top of me, she started scrambling to get up and I could hear all the bones cracking and I was like, ‘Oh God, I’m going to be paralyzed.’”

Rombis was rushed to a local hospital in Fort Erie and then transferred to another in Welland and finally to a bigger hospital in Hamilton, where the next day she underwent surgery.

“The surgeon said it was a miracle that I was alive because my pelvis went off like an atomic bomb,” she said. “It was shattered. Crushed. The tailbone was fractured. A couple of vertebrates were chipped and my neck had a couple of chips in it. But the pelvis was the worst.”

Rombis ended up having two plates and 13 screws surgically implanted into her pelvis.

“They basically said I was very lucky to be alive,” the personable conditioner said. “And after the surgery, (the doctor) said we couldn’t get you back together the way we wanted to because you bled out so much. I actually died on the operating table. I lost 80% of my blood. But the miracle part was there was no organ damage and where my pelvis was shattered was right around my main artery and it wasn’t touched. I was very blessed.”

Rombis spent three and a half months in the trauma ward and for months afterwards was confined to a wheelchair. The road back has been a long and painful one and to this day Rombis still deals with a number of painful issues related to her accident 20 years ago.

“I don’t have a lot of stability. I can’t lift anything heavy and that’s difficult for me because I’m very hands-on with my horses,” she said. “So, I have to be careful.”

That instability has led to a number of falls on the ice around the Woodbine backstretch in the cold weather, but also because she has nerve damage in her left leg and foot. Rombis also had a hip replacement as a result of the accident.

“I’m okay on my feet. I can’t run and sometimes I’ll stumble on it, but for the most part, I’m very lucky,” she said.

After the accident, Rombis was unable to exercise horses anymore. After splitting up with her husband and dispersing most of her stable, Rombis decided to pack up and head to West Virginia, where she stayed for close to 10 years.

“My accident was in 2006 and I pretty well lost everything by 2007 or 2008 and everything just spiralled,” said Rombis, who still gets emotional recalling those tough times. “I went down there with my truck and trailer and a couple of horses and 10 cents in my pocket and was crying (all the time). When I got down there, it was the winter time and there was ice everywhere and I’m on crutches and I’m thinking ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ I didn’t know anybody. I went down there all alone. But after about a year and a half, everything started picking up and then I started winning races and started making money.

“And after almost 10 years, I thought it was time to go home. I’m on my feet, I’ve done well and my family’s here,” she said.

Rombis has enjoyed some solid seasons at Woodbine and Fort Erie. In recent years, however, she has downsized her stable, partly because, physically, it’s difficult.

“I have good days and bad days and I’ve had a lot of bad days lately,” said Rombis, who consults with a hip and spine specialist to help deal with the pain and mobility problems. “My body is pretty broken.”

Rombis owns many of the horses that she trains, including Chromeplated Heart and Thatsitthatsal. Her stable is called DR Against the Wind, named after the Bob Seger song. Sitting inside her stable on a cold spring morning, Rombis said she is hopeful that the success she has enjoyed so far this season continues.

“I have goals every year and the last couple of years have been pretty good and I can hope that this year is just as good, if not better,” she said, while pointing out that every year it gets tougher and tougher to get up at 2:30 a.m. and go to work, given all her aches and pains.

“As long as my body will allow me, I’ll keep going,” she said. “Right now, I have 10 horses and that’s the perfect number really. And I’ve got great, great help. I’m so blessed.”

And you never know. Every quality trainer dreams of someday acquiring that one horse that turns out to be a superstar. With the Kentucky Derby just days away, that dream becomes even more pronounced.

“I think I speak for everybody on the backside on that,” she said. “That’s why we’re all here. For that one horse.”