Steve Asmussen

Steven Mark Asmussen (born November 18, 1965) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. The leading trainer in North America by wins, he is a two-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2016. His horses have won the Breeders' Cup Classic, Preakness Stakes, Belmont Stakes, Travers Stakes, Breeders' Cup Distaff, Kentucky Oaks and Dubai World Cup.

Asmussen was born in Gettysburg, South Dakota, then moved to Laredo, Texas at age two. His father, Keith, is a retired jockey and his mother Marilyn is a trainer who became the first woman to win a major quarter horse race with Vespero in the 1978 Kansas Futurity. They now operate El Primero Training Center and the Asmussen Horse Center, a breeding and sales operation, both in Laredo. The family was close-knit; Asmussen's grandmother, Helen M. Asmussen, died at the age of eighty-three, on Mother's Day, 2007. Asmussen attended her funeral instead of going to the post position draw for the Preakness Stakes that he later won with Curlin.

Steve Asmussen's older brother, Cash Asmussen, currently a trainer himself, is a retired Eclipse Award-winning jockey with championships in Europe as well.

Asmussen began riding as a jockey at age sixteen, competing for two years at racetracks in New Mexico, California, and New York until his height and weight ended his riding career. "No one would believe me if I didn’t have the pictures to prove it," he said later, having grown to over six feet. "My parents were 5'5" and 5'2". I don't know what happened." Steve Asmussen rode 63 winners between 1982 and 1984, then turned to training after he became too heavy to ride.

Asmussen graduated from United High School in Laredo in 1985. He and his wife, Julie Marie Asmussen, have three sons.

Asmussen's sons, Keith and Erik are also jockeys.

Asmussen won his first race as a trainer in 1986 at Ruidoso Downs. In 1987, he won his first stakes race with Scout Command in the Bessemer Stakes at Birmingham Race Course. His first graded stakes win did not come until 1996 when he took the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs with Valid Expectations. In 1999, he recorded his first Grade I win in the Mother Goose with Dreams Gallore.

Some of Asmussen's top horses came about as a result of his partnership with the late Jess Jackson, a wine entrepreneur who was also a horse owner and breeder; Jackson's racing operation was Stonestreet Stables. The pair campaigned Curlin and Rachel Alexandra. Another major client is Winchell Thoroughbreds, who own champions Untapable and Gun Runner.