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Hall-of-Fame baseball manager Leo Durocher said “nice guys finish last.”

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Trainer Mark Casse has proven Durocher wrong close to 4,000 times.

Casse, regarded among his peers as one of the most amiable people in horse racing, has won 3,849 races in his career. He is the all-time-leading trainer in Canada with 2,151 wins. He was inducted into the U.S. Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2020, and the Canadian Hall of Fame in 2016. Roger Attfield, Lucian Laurin and Horatio Luro are the only other trainers enshrined in both Halls of Fame.

Casse is at Del Mar racetrack with seven horses entered in the 14 Breeders’ Cup races this weekend on Friday and Saturday. His best chance may be with Dream On in the Juvenile Turf. Dream On, a Kentucky-bred son of Not This Time, is coming off a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Summer at Woodbine. He is surprisingly listed 20-1 on the morning line in the Juvenile Turf. The winner of the Summer, New Century, is 5-2 and the runner-up, Al Qudra, is 4-1.

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Dream On made a strong early move into a strong pace in the one-mile Summer and looked like the winner until he drifted out in the deep stretch. He was the only horse involved early that hung around late. Casse is expecting a big effort Friday from Dream On, who will be going around two turns for the first time but not cutting back in distance.

“He lost a bit of focus late,” said Casse of Dream On’s solid effort in the Summer. “I think he will love the sharper turns at Del Mar. Plus, the horses that beat him had a lot of experience and more importantly, he’s training as well as any of our horses here.”

Casse, 63, has spent his whole life in horse racing. His father, Norm Casse, was an owner, trainer and breeder for more than 40 years. Norm Casse was also co-founder and former chairman of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company in Florida.

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“When I was 10, 11, 12-years-old all I did was read the Racing Form,” he said. “Sunday was a bad day because there was no Racing Form.”

Casse has won six Breeders’ Cup races, the most recent with Wonder Wheel in the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. He ranks Tepin as the best horse he has trained. The daughter of Tepin banked over US$4.4 million and she beat the boys in the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Mile. She also won the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Ascot.

“Tepin’s win at Royal Ascot was one of the highlights of my career,” he said. “Especially now that we see how difficult it is for North American horses to go over there. Royal Ascot is like the Kentucky Derby on steroids.”

Casse has dominated horse racing in Canada for many years and has won the Sovereign Award as the leading trainer 16 times.

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A leading trainer at Churchill Downs, Casse came to Canada in the mid-1980s.

“When I first went there they ran from the middle of March to the middle of December, which I really liked,” he said. “I took about eight horses there, grass horses mostly, and I went up there and never came back. I think Woodbine is the best place to train horses in North America. They have it all. A training turf course, a training dirt track, and I love the synthetic surface there. ”

Casse has horses scattered all over North America. So far this year he’s won 197 races from 1,090 starters with earnings over US$15.6 million.

He spends most of his time with his wife Tina running a training centre and farm in Ocala, Fla., named the Casse Training Center.

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“I love Canada but I really like being at home with my family in Ocala as much as I can,” said Casse, who has seven children and several grandchildren. “The farm is where we get all the horses ready and then I decide where they are going to go.”

With 19 graded stakes wins in 2024, Casse has obviously made a lot of smart decisions in that regard this year.

FRIDAY SELECTIONS: FIRST RACE 11:35 A.M. FIRST BREEDERS’ CUP RACE: 2:45 P.M.

RACE 6: ECOR SIEG, who is part of a strong Japanese contingent, is undefeated in two starts and despite breaking a step slow, he set a track record in his last race. He is very fast and his trainer, Hideyuki Mori, said: “I expect him to lead the race.”

RACE 10: DREAM ON should get a nice trip from a forward position and the shorter stretch at Del Mar will work in his favour. Hard not to play him if he is anywhere near his morning-line odds.

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SATURDAY: FIRST RACE 10:05 A.M. FIRST BREEDERS’ CUP RACE: NOON.

RACE 8: FOREVER YOUNG has just one loss in his career, which came in the Kentucky Derby this year, and with a clean trip at Churchill Downs he would likely be undefeated. He looked good winning his latest in Japan while coming off a layoff and he appears to be primed for a big effort in the Classic.

RACE 11: PORTA FORTUNA is a three-year-old filly facing males, but she is on a roll with three straight Group 1 victories in Europe and she beat older females in her latest. She could be the one in a wide-open event.

Randy Goulding has been handicapping horses and writing for The Racing Form at Hastings Park for more than 30 years. His column will run every Friday throughout the racing season.

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