By Bill Finley
It was a memorable day for trainer Norm Casse yesterday at Churchill Downs. Too bad he wasn't there to experience it.
Casse, who only recently went out on his own after serving as a long-time assistant to his father, Mark, won for the first time in his young career as Tiznoble (Tiznow) captured the third race at Churchill Downs Thursday (video). It was the ninth career starter for his barn. Casse sent out his first horse Feb. 7 at Gulfstream.
Instead of being at the track, Casse was vacationing with his family in the Bahamas. He said he watched the race on his computer through his Twinspires.com account.
“This was a trip that we had planned eight, nine months ago,” he said. “Just a nice thing to do with the family. Then I started looking at the condition book for Churchill and I started thinking that I wasn't going to be there when I won my first race. This horse had been training well and I had a lot of confidence going into the race. It's unfortunate that I wasn't there to experience it, but this win is a testament to my staff, including my assistant Sarah Campion. I'm also very happy that [owner] Joe Minor was a part of this. He's been a long-time supporter of my dad and I'm glad he showed confidence in me.”
Tiznoble was making his first start since being claimed for $32,000 on Feb. 2 at Aqueduct. He ran for a $25,000 tag yesterday and was claimed.
“That's going to happen to us,” said Casse, who has 24 horses under his care. “We have some claiming horses and we plan to be aggressive with them.. If we think the spot is right, we're not going to shy away.”
Though going 0 for 8 to begin a career and taking three months to win a race is hardly alarming, Casse admitted he understood he was under the microscope. Having been the top assistant to such a successful trainer, his every move was being watched and he knew that if a losing streak started to build people would be asking questions.
“I knew people were watching,” he said. “If I had gone 0 for 20 or 0 for 30, people would have said he needs his dad. I wanted to win some races early on. Thankfully, most of our horses had been running well. Now that we got the first win behind us we can move forward and get on a roll.”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
