EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – With two grandfathers who were trainers and a father who dabbled in it for a year while also owning horses, it was pretty obvious what Blake Kelly’s career path would be.

Except it really wasn’t that obvious.

“It’s kind of funny, because out of all of the grandchildren – I want to say there were around 20 of us – I was the only one who took it up as a profession,” said Kelly. “It was kind of surprising because we all loved horse racing.”

Kelly, who now trains a turf-heavy stable, will send out six horses over the upcoming two days of the all-turf Monmouth at Meadowlands meet. He has Macha Latte going in the first race on Friday and then Told (first race), Hall Monitor and The Great Oscar (second race), Wicked Finn (third race) and Baby Blocks (sixth race) on Saturday’s six-race card.

“It just kind of hit where my horses are ready and they fit at the Meadowlands,” said Kelly, who is based at Delaware Park and also winters at Palm Meadows in Florida. “It’s nice to have turf races for cheaper horses because a cheap turf horse is really hard to make money with.

“The Meadowlands is a good opportunity right now for what I have ready to run.”

Now 38, Kelly took out his training license in 2012, training almost exclusively for his family while also owning a pin hooking business. For almost 10 years it stayed that way, almost as an avocation.

From 2012 through 2022 he had just 12 wins from 201 starts, going 1 for 44 as recently as 2022.

But the past four years he has won 52 races from 350 starts, with a career-best 22 wins a year ago. This year he has 10 wins from 76 starts.

Moving his base from California to Kentucky, and then eventually to Delaware Park, was one of the keys to the turnaround. So was a decision five years ago to go public, he said.

“We started buying a lot of our own horses and also started building partnerships,” said Kelly. “I think that’s what really changed things for me. We started working more on partnerships and racing in the Mid-Atlantic region.”

Growing up in Florida, Kelly was constantly around horses and at the racetrack. His paternal grandfather, Nathan H. Kelly, won 88 races as a trainer before retiring in 1993. His maternal grandfather, Mario Zacco, won 63 races in a career that ended in 2013.

His father, meanwhile, won two of 19 races in his only year as a trainer in 2018.

None of that background influence translated into immediate success, however.

“I was really trying to find myself for a while,” Kelly said. “Did I want to just buy and sell horses? Did I want to become a trainer? When we moved in a different direction with the stable five years ago it changed everything.”

Last year was finally the breakthrough.

“I really thought we left a little bit on the table last year because of some bad breaks,” he said. “I had a lot more horses run last year. I’m off that pace this year because I am more focused on the five or six 2-year-olds that have not run yet. We have 16 yearlings coming up, too.

“So last year was a very good validation year and a lot of people were interested in giving me horses.”

To accommodate his turf-heavy stable, Kelly has started horses at 15 different tracks this year.

“We have to go where the horses fit,” he said.

Kelly already has a pair of seconds at the Monmouth at Meadowlands meet, with Total Bliss and The Great Oscar both getting place money on Sept. 25. Wicked Finn, who goes in Saturday’s third race, was claimed for $10,000 by Kelly and then finished second in the 2023 Red Bank Stakes at Monmouth Park.

On Saturday, he will also send out Golden Corsair, a maiden, in the Grade 3 Futurity Stakes at Belmont Park in search of his first success in a graded stakes race.

“I want to continue to build my stable and gain the respect of the racing community,” he said. “And, of course, I want to be running in bigger races.”