Casse Enjoying Winning Meet at Del Mar
Trainer Mark Casse
There were a lot of positives for trainer Mark Casse about Saturday.
Ol’ Fashion Gal won the $150,000 Grade III Jimmy Durante Stakes which, paired with Friday’s score by Kaigun in the Seabiscuit Handicap, gave Casse back-to-back wins from stakes starters for his stable.
Then Lexie Lou ran a creditable second to California Chrome in the Hollywood Derby, enhancing the 3-year-old filly’s chances of being voted the Horse of the Year in Canada.
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“I was very proud of the way Lexie Lou ran,” Casse said Sunday morning. “I just wanted her to show that she belonged with horses of that caliber and she did that.”
Ol’ Fashion Gal and Lexie Lou came out of the races in good shape. Casse has four wins and four seconds from 17 starters during the Bing Crosby season and Conquest Typhoon to saddle in Sunday’s Grade III $150,000 Cecil B. DeMille Stakes.
Casse, a six-time Sovereign Award winner as Canada’s top trainer, said after the Seabiscuit: “I hear, or at least I used to hear all the time, ‘He only wins in Canada.’ One of the purposes in coming out here was to show we could compete.”
Casse, who has strings in several places east of the Mississippi, brought his family and 40 horses here to stay for the Del Mar summer meeting. He continued his West Coast presence at Santa Anita through the Breeders’ Cup, then came back down for the Bing Crosby Season.
“It’s been a wonderful experience for us,” Casse said. “As long as my owners let me, I think there’s a high percentage chance we’ll be back next year. Just looking at my horses today, there’s nowhere else in North America, with the weather and everything, that your horses look as good as they do here.”
