Trainer Steve Asmussen
BORN: 11/18/65, Gettysburg, SD
RESIDES: Arlington, TX
FAMILY: Julie, wife; Keith James, Darren Scott and Eric, sons
Coming off a national championship in 2008, Steve Asmussen missed by one winner of a third Oaklawn Park training crown a year later.
The Texan saddled 23 winners from 154 starters here in 2009. He finished second to Allen Milligan, who posted 24 wins from 165. Steve Hobby and Jorge Lara tied for third, each having 18. D. Wayne Lukas round out the top five with 16.
Asmussen had another fantastic year in 2009 as he swept the national trainers’ title in wins. He passed his previous single-season wins record of 622 on December 6, marking the third time in the last six years that he has set that training record.
Steve posted the 5,000th win of his training career on September 11, 2009, becoming only the fifth trainer to reach the astonishing landmark.
Turf history buffs point out that the Texan had scored number 4,000 with J.J.’s Bud in the third race at Oaklawn on February 17, 2008.
He won the Eclipse Award for outstanding trainer in 2008 and reigned the top U.S. trainer by number of wins in 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2008.
In 2009, Asmussen won 21 graded stakes, seven of them of the Grade I variety. He added four Grade II events and 10 Grade III.
Among Asmussen’s Oaklawn totals in 2009 was Texas Birdsong, winner of the $50,000 Rainbow, March 29. Asmussen, 44, operates out of the family training center in Laredo, TX.
In 2009 his stable was headed by Rachel Alexandra. The latter, developed by Hal Wiggins, was sold in April last year and her new owners turned her over to Asmussen to train.
Racing first for Wiggins, then Asmussen, Rachel Alexandra, won all eight of her 2009 races, including five Grade I stakes. On three occasions she beat males.
At times, Asmussen will have 200 horses training either at tracks, or on the training center – El Primero.
The El Primero Training Center is home to the Asmussen family, as talented a group as one will find in horse racing. Steve’s mother and father Marilyn and Keith are both trainers. Steve’s brother, Cash, rode in France 19 years and was a world class jockey.
All are involved in the operation of El Primero as are Cash’s wife Cheryl and Steve’s wife Julie. Cash and Cheryl have both trained at Oaklawn.
As a part of his banner 2008 season, Steve won his second consecutive Oaklawn training crown. At the Spa, he sent forth 33 winners from 165 starters as his horses earned $1,334,645.
He had captured the Spa’s 2007 title with 36 wins and wound up taking the national crown with 487.
Steve broke his own record for most wins in a year on Sunday, November 16, 2008 when Prophesy won the first race at Remington Park to bring his annual count to 556, beating a record he set in 2004.
Another big event in 2008 was winning the $6 million Dubai World Cup with Curlin, reigning Horse of the Year.
Curlin made history himself when capturing his second Jockey Club Gold Cup on September 27. With the $450,000 winner’s check, the colt surpassed Cigar’s North American earnings record to become the richest North American-based thoroughbred in history, bringing his bankroll to $10,346,800. He increased that total with his Breeders’ Cup fourth.
Asmussen battled Scott Lake much of 2007, finally gaining the overall title 487 to 485. For the year, his horses earned $23,797,138 as compared to Lake’s $9,724,556.
Not content to just send out Curlin to win the 71st running of the $1,000,000 Arkansas Derby on closing day of the 2007 Oaklawn racing season, the Texan won five races on the day. Included were the two $100,000 events on the derby undercard – Takedown in the Northern Spur and Cream Only in the Instant Racing Breeders’ Cup.
Curlin won his race by a 10 ½ lengths, a record for the winning margin in the Arkansas Derby, a fixture that began at Oaklawn in 1936.
Asmussen became the first trainer to win three events on a single Racing Festival of the South a program.
All this came after Cole Norman had won the last six Spa training crowns. Earlier, Norman, beset with medical and personal problems, had turned his horses over to an assistant for the meeting.
Asmussen had finished second to Cole Norman in the 2006 overall meeting standings, winning 35 races as his barn accounted for $982,828 in purses.
Over the years, Steve has also won training titles at Lone Star Park, Keeneland, Fair Grounds, Churchill Downs, Remington, Sam Houston, Ellis Park and Retama.
In 2002 he led the nation with 407 winners including Private Emblem in the then $500,000 Arkansas Derby. Today, this Derby is $1,000,000 in value and is a Grade I.
In 2004, Steve came on the national racing scene with a flourish, shattering Jack Van Berg’s 1976 record of 496 wins in a single season when he posted 555.
Asmussen won the 2005 national training title with 474 winners from 2,227 starts.
“I have real good help,” he assured.
His top assistant is Scott Blasi.
At one time in recent months, Steve had stables in New York, Texas, Kentucky, Woodbine, Chicago and Louisiana. He has won 10 training titles in 11 years at Lone Star.
Another memorable Asmussen runner of late has been the flashy Kodiak Kowboy. Such Asmussen trainees as Pyro, Appealing Zophie, Gaff, Inca King, Rated Fiesty, Rolling Sea and Zanjero; all winners of graded stakes.
Earlier, in addition to Valid Expectations and Private Emblem, there have been Lady Tak, Summerly, Real Dandy, Bwana Charlie, Effectual, Lunarpal, Chace City and Private Vow.
In other years Asmussen trained such familiar runners at Oaklawn as Snuck In and Windward Passage, winners of the Rebel Stakes; Valid Expectations, hero of the Mountain Valley; Valid Bonnet the Honeybee and Little Sister, heroine of the Carousel Breeders’ Cup.
n 2006 he saddled More Moonlight to take the American Beauty and Spring Fever, Capeside Lady the Bayakoa, Platinum Princess the Carousel and Admiral’s Arch the Northern Spur.
“I had some big thrills with Curlin,” said Asmussen. “A pre-Curlin thrill came several years ago on closing day at Lone Star. That was in 2003 when our barn had seven winners to wrap up the training title.”
Asmussen, who got his first trainer’s license in 1986, already has such a lengthy list of stakes winners, it is hard to name them. However, he fondly remembers winning the Acorn Stakes at Belmont with Dreams Galore. That was his first grade one triumph.