2025.12.03 Oaklawn Racing Updates

Racing Updates
Compiled by Robert Yates

Contact: Chris Ho Vice President of Marketing

Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025

Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen will be chasing another milestone when Oaklawn’s 64-day split season begins Dec. 12.

Asmussen enters 2025-2026 with a record 993 career Oaklawn victories. Asmussen, North America’s all-time winningest trainer, has already reached 1,000 career victories at four tracks. Asmussen has 1,666 victories at Lone Star Park, 1,361 at Remington Park, 1,170 at Fair Grounds and 1,032 at Sam Houston Race Park, according to Equibase, racing’s official data gathering organization.

“Me and another milestone – love them,” Asmussen said Tuesday morning. “I’m seven away? Knowing how I start out, that ought to be about February.”

Asmussen owns every major Oaklawn training record, including career purse earnings ($63.9 million), career stakes victories (123), single-season purse earnings ($6,685,459 in 2023-2024), and single-season stakes victories (11 in 2023-2024). Asmussen equaled the late Cole Norman’s single-season Oaklawn record for victories (71) in 2023-2024.

Asmussen won 46 races last season at Oaklawn en route to his record-extending 14th meet title. Asmussen was also Oaklawn’s leading trainer in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2021-2022.

Asmussen became the first trainer to reach 10,000 career North American victories when he saddled Bet He’s Ready to win the fifth race Feb. 20, 2023, at Oaklawn. Asmussen’s first Oaklawn victory was on Feb. 9, 1996.

Asmussen has 11,057 career North American victories, according to Equibase.

Stevens Makes a House Call

Gary Stevens, the retired Hall of Fame jockey turned jockey agent, said he has purchased a home near Oaklawn previously owned by the late Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas and his wife, Laurie.

“Laurie wanted me to have it,” Stevens said. “She said she had some other offers and she said: ‘You need to be in that house.’ She made it happen.”

Stevens said the house is more than 80 years old, adding it’s “very homey, very warm.” Lukas had made Oaklawn his winter base since 2007, eventually purchasing a home in Hot Springs. He died June 28 at the age of 89.

Close friends, Lukas put Stevens on his first Oaklawn winner as a jockey, Tank’s Prospect, in the 1985 G1-Arkansas Derby.

“We flew in on his jet, landed here in Hot Springs, and dropped me off early in the morning, 7:30, 8 o’clock, right on Central, right in front of the grandstand,” said Stevens, then a rising star in Southern California. “I thought, ‘holy cow!’ The track’s sitting right on the main street. I’d never seen anything like it. We got out of this Lincoln Town Car and opened up the trunk. Wayne handed me my tack bag, and he said, ‘Do you like traveling like this?’ I said: ‘I love it.’ He said: ‘If you win today, get used to it.’”

Lukas and Stevens teamed for numerous other major victories, including the 1988 Kentucky Derby (Winning Colors), 1995 Kentucky Derby (Thunder Gulch), 1995 Belmont Stakes (Thunder Gulch), and the 2013 Preakness (Oxbow).

Stevens, as an agent, was an early morning fixture at the Royal Glint barn, Lukas’ longtime Oaklawn home. Lukas was Oaklawn’s leading trainer in 1987 and 2011 and is its eighth-winningest trainer in history with 384 victories.

“They’ll never be another one like him,” Stevens said. “He changed the game. He was the first one to start flying horses around. Everybody thought he was nuts having this satellite training, multiple horses at multiple racetracks. He wasn’t afraid to fly in and out. Now, everybody does it.”

Stevens said he will represent newcomer Eswan Flores, Travis Wales and apprentice Amanda Poston during Oaklawn’s 64-day split season that begins Dec. 12.

Finish Lines

Entries will be accepted and post positions drawn Friday for Oaklawn’s Dec. 12 opening-day program. The 64-day split season ends May 2. Oaklawn’s Holiday racing season is Dec. 12-Jan. 4. The Classic racing season is Jan. 30-May 2. … Nominations closed Monday for Oaklawn’s first three stakes races in 2025-2026 – $150,000 Advent for 2-year-olds at 5 ½ furlongs Dec. 12, $150,000 Ring the Bell for 3-year-olds and up at 6 furlongs Dec. 13 and the inaugural $135,000 Astral Spa Overnight for 2-year-old fillies at 6 furlongs Dec. 14. An Oaklawn record 62 stakes races are scheduled to be run in 2025-2026. The Advent closed with 25 nominations. The Ring the Bell and Astral Spa closed with 38 and 25 nominations, respectively. … Millionaire multiple Oaklawn stakes winner Skelly is pointing for the Ring the Bell, Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen said Tuesday morning. Skelly will be bidding for a record-tying seventh career Oaklawn stakes victory and a record-extending 11th consecutive Oaklawn victory overall. … Florida-based Grade 1 winners Sandman (Arkansas Derby) and La Cara (Ashland and Acorn) and Grade 3 winner Vixen (Herecomesthebride) are tentatively scheduled to arrive Friday morning, according to Caden Arthur, who oversees dual Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse’s Oaklawn division. Casse said last month that La Cara is targeting the $250,000 G3-Bayakoa Stakes for older fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles Feb. 7 at Oaklawn. The major spring objective for Sandman, Casse said, is the $1.25 million G2-Oaklawn Handicap for older horses at 1 1/8 miles April 18. … Recent trainer arrivals in advance of the 2025-2026 meeting include newcomers Chris Davis, Heather Irion and Adam Kitchingman. … Agent Julio Espinoza said he will represent jockey Rafael Bejarano at the 2025-2026 meeting. Bejarano had previously been represented at Oaklawn by Cody Caudill, with Espinoza taking the jockey’s book when he returned to Kentucky. Bejarano, who recently returned from injury, was Oaklawn’s third-leading jockey last season with 54 victories. Bejarano has wintered the last three seasons at Oaklawn, recording 144 victories. Bejarano ranks 46th in North American history with 4,593 career victories, according to Equibase, racing’s official data gathering organization. Caudill will represent Keith Asmussen and newcomer Evin Roman in 2025-2026 at Oaklawn.