The new year began with a bang for Woodbine’s leading trainer MARK CASSE, who won three races at Gulfstream on January 1, 2026, another added-money race at Oaklawn, and will start some 20 horses this weekend.
Meanwhile, Woodbine’s fastest-rising trainer DEVON GITTENS, who landed fifth in the standings in 2025 with 38 wins (up from nine in 2024), started his first three horses at Aqueduct racetrack during that New York’s track’s final season.
You may already be aware that 2025 was a record-setting year for Mark Casse and his North American-wide stable. Look at these numbers for every year since his barn first won over 100 races:
The Casse stable set personal records in every one of those categories. The 237 wins during the year was two more than the barn’s previous top mark of 235 from 2016.
Casse is currently 8 for 16 at the Oaklawn Park meeting in Hot Springs, Arkansas and he won he inaugural running of the $135,000 Oaklawn Sports Overnight Stakes on Jan. 1 with Michael Eiserman’s Nerazurri ($7.80), who went wire-to-wire under jockey Cristian Torres.
Nerazurri’s victory gave Casse his third stakes win of the Oaklawn season.
At Gulfstream, Casse won the first and last race with offspring of Vekoma owned by D.J. STABLE and a middle race with Live Oak Plantation’s Souper Attentive. The last race winner was ALPYLAND, who took the Dania Beach Stables. Casse won last year’s Dania Beach with Mi Bago, also by Veloma.
Of note, Casse starts an Ontario-bred three-year-old at Gulfstream on Saturday, BELIEVEIN (race 1), who had a super workout in company with ALPYLAND recently. Believein is a son of Blame – Tiptoe by Tiz Wonderful and the bay was bred by Colin Davis’ Apricot Valley Thoroughbreds. Owners Gary Barber and Baccari Bloodstock bought Believein for $45,000 at the 2024 Keeneland September yearling sale.
At Oaklawn on Saturday, Casse sends out his Woodbine debut winner SILENT TACTIC, who was second in the Grade 3 Grey Stakes, and stakes winner STRATEGIC RISK in the Smarty Jones Stakes.
DEVON GITTENS had a third-place finish from his first three starters at Aqueduct on Thursday, although two of those starters were in the same race. Serenading Kitten finished third in race 5. Gittens has four entries through the next two cards at Aqueduct.
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