Patient Celine Chase brings rider’s verve to end of life

It was the height of the Depression, an unlikely horse named Seabiscuit was giving Americans hope that the underdog could win, and Minnesota farm girl Celine Broadfoot was having the time of her life traveling up and down the West Coast as a trainer and sometimes jockey.

Women weren’t an official part of horse racing history until the 1960s, but during the hurly burly of the Depression, girls like Celine could get a mount from time to time, participate in novelty “Powder Puff” derbies and work with the horses.

“We could race as good as the men,” recalled Broadfoot, now Celine Chase, from her Redwood City home, where she is under care of Mission Hospice. “I also exercised and trained horses. A trainer will tell you how fast he wants ahorse to run. I was pretty nearly always on it. They used to call me the girl with the stopwatch in her head.”

Although she grew up with horses, there were no race tracks in Minnesota. A visit to relatives in Idaho led to her meeting a group of young women who made their livings at the West Coast tracks or as stunt girls in the movies. Photos of the time show Celine in masterful control of powerful thoroughbreds on the practice track.

But that life came to a jarring stop when the United States entered World War II and restrictions closed many of the tracks. Celine eventually married Richard Chase, an Air Force veteran who became a mechanic at United Airlines. By the time they moved to the Peninsula, daughter Barbara had been born. She remembers fruitlessly pestering her parents for a horse, but Celine rarely rode.

“I had a daughter to raise so I didn’t go back with any of that,” she said. Later, Celine became passionate about plants, joined garden clubs and for many years managed plant displays at the San Mateo County Fair.  She also became a national officer in the Gesneriad (a species of plants that includes African violets) Society.

Today, the independent spirit that took Celine into a once unusual career sustains her through her final years. She was 98 in June and, after three hospitalizations for heart failure, knows she doesn’t have a lot of time left.

“Yeah, I know I’m going to die,” she says. “Everybody is going to die sometime. I was actually relieved when I found out what I had.”

Mission Hospice nurses, social workers and other staff enable daughter Barbara to care for her mother in the home she has occupied for 50 years, surrounded by her own possessions, including the scrapbooks and mementoes of her racing career.

“I don’t want to die in the hospital, I’d rather die here,” Celine says. “I don’t know how it could be any better than this.”