That trainer would be Mark E. Casse, born in 1961 in Indianapolis. From an early age he seemed destined for a future in horse racing; his father, Norman Casse, was involved in all aspects of the sport as a trainer, breeder, farm manager and co-founder of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.
Years later, when Mark Casse was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, he considered attending the 1973 Kentucky Derby with his father – and watching the legendary Secretariat dominate – as a fond memory and a pivotal moment in his youth.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Casse pursued a future in the racing industry and was just 18 years old when he saddled his first starter as a trainer at Florida Downs on March 1, 1979. Just over six weeks later, Casse scored a win at historic Keeneland, winning the April 14 opener on a hard-ridden veteran claimer named Joe’s Coming. Towards the end of the year Casse was competing in stakes racing with the filly Amalie, a former claimer who Casse transformed into the winner of the Indian Maid Handicap at Sportsman’s Park.
Still, the first two decades of Casse’s training career were relatively uneventful by his future standards. From 1979 to 1990 he averaged 31 wins per year and won a pair of meet titles at Turfway Park and Churchill Downs in the late 1980s. His biggest victory came with Raja’s Shark, a capable three-year-old who won the Grade 3 Jamaica Handicap at Belmont Park in 1984, and Casse even worked for a short time as a private trainer for the historic Calumet Farm.
Casse’s numbers dropped significantly in the 1990s, but that was only because he changed hats and started working primarily as the manager of Harry T. Mangurian Jr.’s Mockingbird Farm in Florida.
When Casse resumed his role as a full-fledged trainer in 1998, it didn’t take long for him to hit the sport’s highest level.
One of Casse’s early stars was Exciting Story, bred and owned by Mangurian. Exciting Story, winner of the Grade 3 Synford Stakes at Woodbine as a 2-year-old in 1999, was patiently handled by Casse, and after a generally unsuccessful 3-year-old season the colt flourished at 4, taking back-to-back wins in the Grade 3 Vigil Handicap and the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap.
By making Woodbine, Canada, his home base, Casse practically became a Canadian himself in the eyes of racing fans. That is certainly understandable; he was the leading trainer at Woodbine in 2002 and followed with ten more titles from 2007 through 2016. The big stakes wins came in droves – he won his first Canadian Triple Crown race in 2007 and has racked up eight more victories since then – and he received three consecutive Sovereign Awards as Canada’s outstanding trainer from 2006 through 2008.
It was around this time – towards the end of the 2000s – that Casse entered into a new partnership with famed polo player John Oxley, who had already achieved success in racing as owner of the 2001 Kentucky Derby winner Monarchos. With Oxley as a high-profile client, Casse began improving the quality of his stock, and the results were striking.
“I’ve been doing this for 35 years and I’ve never really had a wallet,” Casse told writer Deirdre B. Biles in a story for Bloodhorse.com. “Before, I always had to buy cheap horses and hope for the best. Now if I see a horse I like at auction, I have a good chance of buying it, and the horses I buy do well. The goal is to have a really good racing stable and try to compete in the best races.”
Well, those goals were quickly achieved. Graded stakes winners such as Prospective, Northern Passion, Stealcase, Uncaptured, Spring in the Air and Dixie Strike – all owned by Oxley – helped Casse to career best years in 2011 and 2012; another budding partnership with film producer Gary Barber resulted in Lexie Lou winning the 2014 Queen’s Plate Stakes en route to a Sovereign Award as Canada’s Horse of the Year.
These talented horses and others took Casse back and forth across North America, competing in the Kentucky Derby, the Breeders’ Cup and other legendary events from coast to coast. But it was Tepin who put Casse’s stable on the path to international fame, albeit in a roundabout way.
Originally, Bernstein’s daughter showed talent on dirt, winning the 2013 Grade 3 Delta Downs Princess Stakes.
But it wasn’t long before Casse rightly concluded that Tepin’s future lay on grass, and after a shortened (and winless) campaign in 2014, Casse’s patience and insight paid off when Tepin won five of her seven starts on grass in 2015, culminating in a dominant win against men in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile.
Casse scored a double in the Breeders’ Cup in 2015 and won the Grade 1 Juvenile Fillies Turf with Catch a Glimpse, Canada’s 2015 Horse of the Year. Those were the highlights of Casse’s best season to date, but the next two years were even better as Tepin made history at Royal Ascot, Catch a Glimpse continued her winning ways and new stars like Classic Empire and World Approval emerged as champions with career-defining wins in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and 2017 Breeders’ Cup Mile, respectively.
Casse’s work at Classic Empire epitomized his ability to train challenging horses. As a two-year-old, the Oxley colt struggled to break the starting gate and even lost his rider at the start of the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga. But after Casse fitted the colt with blinders and spent a lot of time schooling him, Classic Empire overcame his difficulties and won three Grade 1 races during his decorated career.
More than 45 years after he saddled his first starter, it’s safe to say Casse is enjoying the fruits of his labor. He has ranked among the top seven North American trainers by monetary revenue every year from 2011 to 2025, won a dozen races for both old and new clients, and has named at least one winner at every Breeders’ Cup from 2015 to 2018.
That Breeders’ Cup run came to an end in 2019 … but it was offset by Casse’s success on the Triple Crown route. He earned his first two wins in North America’s most storied racing series with War of Will in the Preakness Stakes and Sir Winston in the Belmont Stakes. Casse’s training job at War of Will reflects his skill at identifying a horse’s talent. The colt started his career on grass with some success, but flourished after switching to dirt in early 2019 for Kentucky Derby preparations. Casse then moved the classic winner back to grass, and in 2020 War of Will established himself as a top grass runner at age 4, winning the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile.
These achievements only added to Casse’s already established status as one of the sport’s very best trainers, and he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, NY in 2020.
John Oxley, for example, believes Casse is the main reason for his stable’s resurgent success over the past decade.
“There are so many components [to the success of my stable]” Oxley explained in the November 12, 2016 edition of Blood horse“but especially Mark Casse and his incredible team. He has built the best operation around, with top assistants and staff at all levels. He is the brains behind it all. And he is incredibly good at picking yearlings and 2-year-olds to buy.”
Honestly, you could trade “terribly good” for “great” and no one would argue with that. Casse won the Sovereign Award every year from 2011 to 2023 as Canada’s outstanding trainer, before being defeated by Kevin Attard in 2024, ending the incredible run of dominance. Casse added another Breeders’ Cup win in 2022 when Wonder Wheel won the NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.
Horse racing is a sport of uncertainties, but if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that Mark Casse will continue to saddle winner after winner for the foreseeable future.
Note: This story was originally published in 2019 and has been updated.
Fun facts
- Casse’s son, Norm Casse, worked as his father’s assistant before striking out on his own in 2018.
- Casse’s brother, Justin Casse, is also involved in the racing industry as a leading bloodstock agent.
- Through January 18, 2026, Mark Casse has won 4,131 races against 25,212 starters in North America, including 268 graded stakes races. His horses have earned a total of $272.8 million, the seventh highest total in North American racing history.
- Casse has trained five Eclipse Award-winning horses: Tepin, Classic Empire, World Approval, Shamrock Rose and Wonder Wheel. They also represent five of his six Breeders’ Cup winners, with Catch a Glimpse being the fifth. Nitrogen is a finalist for the Eclipse Award for champion 3-year-old filly of 2025.
- Casse has trained six Canadian Horses of the Year and has won the Sovereign Award as Canada’s outstanding trainer sixteen times, so it is not surprising that he was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2016.
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