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Mark Casse and other trainers at Woodbine Racetrack finally have a thoroughbred racing season to prepare for.
Woodbine Entertainment is full steam ahead with its plans to offer both harness and thoroughbred racing in 2020. Harness racing,suspended in March due to COVID-19 pandemic, is scheduled to resume June 5 at Woodbine Mohawk Park with Woodbine Racetrack’s thoroughbred campaign opening June 6.
Racing at both venues will be conducted without fans.
The pandemic forced Woodbine to postpone its scheduled April 18 start to the thoroughbred card.
“It (Woodbine) is very important to us,” Casse said. “We have many horses that we’ve targeted for this meet that haven’t done anything.
“But this is even more important for the owners and trainers who’ve been up there since December and haven’t been able to run. I’m much more concerned about those people because with this virus, many businesses have been put off for the last couple of months but technically horse racing has been off since December so it’s much greater in my opinion.”
Woodbine isn’t alone. As a result of the pandemic, thoroughbred racing in the U.S. was relegated to a handful of tracks, including Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla., Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., and Fairmount Park in Collinsville, Ill.
Racing at Santa Anita Park was scheduled to resume Friday without fans.
Woodbine put out its condition book on Saturday, detailing races for June 6 to June 21 with 16 races on the first card. The fourth day of racing — June 13 — will see the first stakes race of the season at the facility. The Star Shoot and Woodstock Stakes will run back-to-back as the first two races of the day, followed by the Welcome Back handicap.
Casse is one of North America’s top trainers. The 59-year-old native of Indianapolis has won both the Preakness and Belmont Stakes — the final two legs of the U.S. Triple Crown — as well as five Breeders’ Cup races.
Woodbine has also been good to Casse, who’s been named Canada’s top thoroughbred trainer an unprecedented 11 times. His horses have recorded two Queen’s Plate titles, two Woodbine Mile crowns and three Woodbine Oaks victories at the Toronto oval.
And Casse said Woodbine’s tapeta surface will make it easier on returning horses.
“The great news about Canada and Toronto is if they were faced with the same situation and the racing surface was dirt it would be much harder,” Casse said. “The good thing about tapeta is horses get over it so easily that their fitness level doesn’t have to be as great to run.
“It’s so much kinder on the horse and it enables you to run them sooner because it doesn’t demand as much. That’s a big, big plus.”
And so is being able to get more of the horses in his stable up and running.
“We’ve been able to run a few at Gulfstream but if the virus hadn’t hit we probably would’ve run another 75 horses,” Casse said. “So I have 75 horses that have continued to train but haven’t been able to run.
“For me, when we’re not running we’re losing money.”
And Casse cautioned that applies to all horse-racing operations.
“The way our operation works, what we get every day for the care of our horses doesn’t cover the expense,” he said. “We have to earn money.
“I’m not in any way, shape or form whining about it, but just for instance in April/May last year I think we won $3.5 million in purses. If we’re lucky in those two months this year, it’s been about $500,000.”
Casse also said the situation could always be worse.
“I feel for the poor restaurants,” he said. “So many people have been hurt and it’s no fault of their own.
“When people make dumb mistakes, you think, ‘You know what? You made your bed, you’re sleeping in it.’ In this case nobody did anything wrong.”
Casse said the pandemic has also impacted how he trains horses.
“Yeah a little bit.,” he said. “Normally we’d be on a heavier work schedule maybe every six or seven days.
“We went to 10-to-14 days but now we’ve started cranking them back up and we’re ready. We’re fortunate we have a training centre to do all that.”
But a drastically reduced racing schedule has provided a nice plus for Casse.
“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t enjoyed being able to stay at home with my wife, Tina, and son, Colby,” Casse said. “Colby is a pretty good baseball player and he’s got better because we practise a couple of hours a day.
“Normally at this time I’ll have been on a plane 12 times in the last six weeks. I was supposed to go to Dubai, that got cancelled. I had a trip to New Orleans, I would’ve made four, five trips to Kentucky and a couple of trips to Toronto. I’m getting much more time at home, which is very nice.”
Earlier this month, Casse was named for induction into the U.S. Racing Hall of Fame, fulfilling a prediction he made growing up to his father, Norman, who died in 2016.
“It’s probably the biggest honour I’ve ever achieved,” said Casse, who was inducted in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2016. “We’ve won many big races in many different places and been very fortunate but this says, ‘Hey, you’re one of the best in your field.’
“I think you always want to gain the respect of people in your field. It’s a tough game and nobody likes to give you much credit but when you go and see I have a horse running, I just want you to think you’ve got to beat him. That’s what I mean by respect.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 16, 2020.
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press