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Asmussen Breaks Baird’s Record, Becomes North America’s Winningest Trainer

Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen broke the North American record for wins by a trainer, passing Dale Baird's record of 9,445 with Stellar Tap's win Saturday in the fifth race at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. With that win, Asmussen stands at 9,446 wins over his thirty-five-year career.

The son of trainers Keith and Marilyn Asmussen, the Hall of Famer started his career as a jockey at age 16, switching to training after growing too large for riding professionally. As a trainer, he won his first race with Victory's Halo at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico in 1986, getting his first stakes race victory with Scout Command in the Bessemer Stakes at the Birmingham Race Course the following year. Asmussen's first Grade 1 win came in 1999 with Dreams Gallore in the Mother Goose at Belmont Park.

The trainer steadily grew his stable over the first decade of his career, logging his first 100-win season in 1995. In 2009, Asmussen posted the single-season win record of 650, also winning the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer that year. With a stable that spans multiple racetracks, the Texas native has won races at all levels, from Saratoga to Lone Star Park to Ellis Park and beyond.

In addition to the record as North America's all-time winningest trainer, Asmussen has won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer twice (2008, 2009); two of the three Triple Crown classics, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes; and six Breeders' Cup races, including two wins in the Breeders' Cup Classic. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2016.

“How fitting to do this with a 2-year-old owned by the Winchells and who came through Mom and Dad's farm in Laredo and on Whitney Day? I was definitely blessed,” Asmussen said after the race. “To be surrounded by people you love and who love you, and you have a common goal, it's impossible to put into words what horse racing means to me and my whole family and to all the employees. They're family and they know so and are treated as such.”

“I'm very proud of where I came from and don't ever want to forget it. It makes you who you are. I love to be able to share this with my parents,” the Hall of Fame trainer told the NYRA Press Office.

With this record-breaking win, Asmussen moves into the top spot all-time, ahead of Dale Baird, who passed away in 2007. The first trainer to win 7,000, then 8,000, and finally 9,000 wins, Baird's 9,445 victories came primarily at Mountaineer Park in West Virginia, where the trainer owned a farm. Behind Baird, third all-time, is Jerry Hollendorfer with 7,694 wins.

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Digital Software Gives Chad Brown 2,000th Career Win

Trainer Chad Brown registered his 2,000th career win in Friday's 10th-race finale at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., when Digital Software netted a victory by a head under jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. for owner Klaravich Stables in a 1 1/16-mile maiden claiming contest over the inner turf course.

Brown has won four Eclipse Awards as Outstanding Trainer and has compiled 15 Breeders' Cup victories in addition to Cloud Computing winning the 2017 Preakness. Brown has also won the Saratoga training title three times [2016, 2018-19].

A 42-year-old native of Mechanicville, N.Y., Brown was a 2001 graduate of Cornell University who worked for two Hall of Fame trainers, Shug McGaughey and Robert Frankel, before starting his own public stable in November 2007.

He recorded his 1,000th career victory at Saratoga in 2016. His 2,000th win came with a horse owned by Seth Klarman's Klaravich Stables, one of his principal owners.

“We were rooting for the maiden 40 horse [Digital Software] like he was Bricks and Mortar at the Breeders' Cup just now,” Brown said. “I was actually saying that to Irad [Ortiz, Jr.] out on the track and he smiled and said, 'I rode him like he was him.'

“I'm very appreciative and reflecting on all the people that contributed to this, but most of them are still working and some are not on site. So many people go into this, and you heard a lot of that at the Hall of Fame today from the inductees. It's all the way down to milestones like this, there's a lot of people that play a role in it from family to mentors and when you reach these milestones, I take a moment to reflect and appreciate all the people that made this happen.

“I'm running the ship and calling the shots, but I can't do it without all my wonderful co-workers, all the great horses and all the people that taught you along the way. There are so many things that go into it. I play one role – it's an important role – but far from the only role. It's a great thing to experience and hopefully it will sink in and my team can really appreciate it and move forward to try and get the next goal.”

“It is so great that we can be part of Chad's achievement of 2,000 wins,” said Klarman. “It's obvious that he's extraordinarily talented. This is so great and I am happy for him. He's fantastic. He's a gifted horseman and he is also a great friend.”

“I ride a lot for Chad and I have had a lot of success with him,” said Ortiz. “He's one of those guys who is always there for me and he's helped me a lot. I wish him all the best success and that he can continue having success. I respect him a lot and I enjoy everything he's done so far.”

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Asmussen Equals Baird’s All-Time Record With Win No. 9,445

Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen tied the late Dale Baird as North America's winningest thoroughbred trainer as long-time client Mike McCarty's 4-year-old colt Shanghai's Dream captured the sixth race Friday at Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky.

The victory was the 9,445th (out of 45,905 starts) for Asmussen in a career that officially began with a ninth-place finish by Track Ambassador in a $2,100 maiden race at Ruidoso Downs on June 5, 1986.

Earlier in the afternoon, Asmussen won Saratoga's fourth race as Jalen Journey romped by 8 1/2 lengths. Jalen Journey and Shanghai's Dream were the only two horses the barn ran Friday. They have three in at Ellis Park on Saturday, along with six at Saratoga, two at Louisiana Downs and three at Monmouth Park.

Asmussen watched the Ellis Park simulcast from Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York, surrounded by his family and a media gaggle, as Shanghai's Dream rallied from last of five under Rafael Bejarano for the landmark-matching triumph to beat 43-1 shot Orient Magic by three-quarters of a length.

Steve Asmussen watched the historic win from Saratoga

“That's how I feel about it, it was meant to be,” Asmussen, a four-time Ellis Park leading trainer, said by phone. “Unbelievably significant win to me and the family. To be able to share the lead-up, getting close, all of the unbelievable support I've had and the well wishes, to be able to get to 9,445 — which we've strived for quite some time — to be surrounded by family, what could be better?

“We had a winner in the fourth race at Saratoga to get one away. And then obviously the only other horse today ties the record, and we have several chances tomorrow to stand alone, so to speak.”

Including at Ellis Park.

Shanghai's Dream gets the job done under Rafael Bejarano, giving Steve Asmussen career win No. 9,445

Asmussen is running second-choice Archidust in Saturday's Ellis finale, the $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Turf Sprint and Stillchargingmaria in the $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Dueling Grounds Oaks as Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Weekend kicks off. He also has a horse running in a non-stakes race on the undercard.

“We have two good chances in the stakes, so we'll see what we can do,” Asmussen said.

On Sunday, the last of his five Ellis entrants is Henley's Joy in the $125,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Turf Cup.

Darren Fleming, who is overseeing Asmussen's Ellis operation this summer, has worked for the trainer since 1994. He says his long-time boss and friend — Asmussen named one of his sons Darren for Fleming — is just making good on a vow made even before then.

“We were talking at lunch and he said he wanted to be the best,” said Fleming, who was working in the Louisiana Downs racing office at the time, before he began working for Asmussen. “He was going to be the best and win the most ever.”

And Fleming thought?

“Hmm. Me, too,” he said with a laugh. “We were kids back then. But he had that goal, and he usually got done what he said he was going to get done… I don't think he's changed much. He was exactly the same when he was young. Like everything mattered, was regimented, wanted it done this way. He had the same ideas back then. I think he honed them a lot and improved a lot.”

Asmussen remembers that conversation in the early 1990s, saying, “Darren told his wife, 'He'll do it or he'll die trying.' I didn't know if that was a compliment or not.”

Fleming reflects that it was probably around 5,000 wins that he started thinking Asmussen could surpass Baird. “When the numbers got up there, and you thought it was attainable,” he said. “Then every year it got closer.”

After the race, Fleming said: “It's nice that it happened in Kentucky. I mean, he's done a lot of good here and it's been good to him.”

What did Asmussen say when they spoke by phone immediately after the race? “He said, 'Now I can go to Disneyland,'” Fleming reported.

Longtime assistant Darren Fleming holds the sign commemorating Steve Asmussen's record-tying win

Asmussen said it was fitting that his long-time assistant saddled the horse that matched the mark, given how much he relies on key assistants such as Fleming and Scott Blasi.

“The significance of it is that we do this collectively, and we do it as hard as we can at every level,” said Asmussen, the all-time winningest trainer at Churchill Downs. “I think that is extremely important. For anybody to think it's easy to win races at lesser places ought to try it – jump right in. Growing up running horses in south Texas, starting out in New Mexico at mixed meets, I honestly believe that being tied with Dale Baird and reaching 9,445 is so significant to me because I realize how hard it is to win any horse race.

“We'll celebrate this as a family for quite some time. It's a wonderful feeling to achieve this, and to be surrounded by people that love you.”

Turf writer Jennie Rees interviewed Asmussen when he was 11 wins shy of Dale Baird. Watch below:

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Mountaineer ‘Always Going To Be Home’ For Track’s All-Time Leader Deshawn Parker

Jockey Deshawn Parker has returned to Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort in West Virginia in recent years to ride a horse or two, but the track's all-time leading jockey was a bit surprised when he was named to ride in eight of nine races on the Aug. 7 West Virginia Derby program.

“My agent told me we had horses going in, but this was a surprise,” said Parker, who is listed to ride Bourbon Thunder in the $500,000 Grade 3 Derby and Bourbon Calling in the $200,000 Grade 3 West Virginia Governor's Stakes, with mounts in four other stakes and two overnight events.

Parker, who raised his family in East Liverpool, Ohio, not far across the river from Mountaineer, and still has his home there, decided in late 2013 to leave the West Virginia track and branch out to Texas, Indiana and Kentucky. At the height of his Mountaineer success, Parker often would have mounts in all nine or 10 races, five nights a week.

Statistics provided by Brisnet.com show Parker has won an amazing 4,785 races from 28,221 starts at Mountaineer alone, and 5,886 overall. He leads all categories, which include stakes victories and earnings.

Parker, whose mounts have earned $75.7 million, first started riding for trainer John Semer at Mountaineer, and eventually landed in the barn of Dale Baird, the track's all-time leading trainer, and as of Aug. 4 Thoroughbred racing's all-time leading trainer with 9,445 wins. That set the stage for multiple years of more than 300 wins for Parker, who in 2011 won 400 races.

With Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen just a handful of wins away from eclipsing the late Baird's record, Parker reflected on his success with Baird at Mountaineer.

“It's going to break my heart,” Parker said. “People would say Dale was very hard to approach, but I know that once you got to know Dale, he was great. He would even ask me to go on trips with him to buy horses. I felt honored he wanted me to go with him. And remember, Dale only had one string of horses that would go back and forth between the track and his farm.”

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Parker earlier this year received the prestigious George Woolf Memorial Award, which recognizes riders whose careers and personal character garner esteem for the individual and Thoroughbred racing. He was joined at Santa Anita Park in California by Luis M. Quinones, another Mountaineer veteran and riding champion who won the award in 2020 but whose ceremony was postponed because of COVID-19 restrictions.

“It worked out perfectly,” Parker said of the delay. “We both ended up at Santa Anita together. It was a great weekend.”

And he's happy to be spending this weekend with family and friends in his own back yard.

“Mountaineer is always going to be home,” Parker said. “I love the track and love the people. When the (purse) money started getting less and less, I made a choice between having to ride so many races and win so many races, or ride less and make more money.

“To this day people ask me how I could have stayed there that long. Well, I love it, and I don't have a bad thing to say about it. There are great people there, including the fans. Mountaineer boosted my career to where I never thought it could be.”

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