Illinois Trainer Brueggemann Dies at 75

Illinois-based trainer Roger Brueggemann died Dec. 14 after being hospitalized due to COVID-19, according to family and friends.

Brueggemann, 75, was born Sept. 6, 1945, in Leesville, La., and worked for 30 years as a mechanic before becoming a horse trainer in 1988, according to a biography on the Midwest Thoroughbreds website and Equineline trainer records. His career as a mechanic ended, coincidentally, because a horse rolled over on him and broke his hip.

In 1992 Brueggemann moved to Illinois, starting out first at Fairmount Park for several years before moving his stable to Chicago where he stayed. He won his first black-type stakes in 1999 at Hoosier Park with a 4-year-old colt he trained for Carl Dykema named One Man Tango. He would saddle his first black-type winner in Illinois at Hawthorne Racecourse that same year when Lil Bobbie Too won the Illinois Breeders' Debutante Stakes. Brueggemann would have his first year with more than $1 million in purses in 2006 and the following year earned his first training title at Hawthorne in the spring.

Brueggemann's training career spiked when he teamed up with Richard and Karen Papiese's Midwest Thoroughbreds in 2010 and later with a promising young jockey named Florent Geroux. Together they accomplished remarkable feats and made history.  

In 2014 Brueggemann saddled his first graded stakes winner with a gelded son of English Channel  and Midwest homebred named The Pizza Man, who scored with Geroux in the Stars and Stripes Stakes (G3T) at Arlington International Racecourse. That same year Brueggemann had another promising Midwest homebred named Work All Week, who won his first three races of the year—two of them in the Hot Springs Stakes at Oaklawn Park and the Iowa Sprint Handicap at Prairie Meadows. The gelded son of City Zip went on to give Midwest, Brueggemann, and Geroux their first Breeders' Cup World Championships win in the Xpressbet Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1).

The thrills were far from over. In 2015 The Pizza Man gave the performance of a lifetime in the Arlington Million XXXIII Stakes (G1T), winning by a neck over co-favorite Big Blue Kitten to become the first Illinois-bred horse to win Arlington's most prestigious race. The victory was emotional for the Chicago-based owners and trainer.

"I can't describe how happy I am. That was more emotional than the Breeders' Cup for us because of what it means. I know it's tough times right now in Illinois, so I hope we can help turn the tide," said Richard Papiese, principal of Midwest Thoroughbreds after the Arlington Million win.

The Pizza Man would go to become the only Illinois-bred to win both the Arlington Million and the Northern Dancer Turf Stakes Presented by HPIBet (G1T), which he did in 2016. The Pizza Man retired with 17 wins (four in graded stakes) out of 36 starts and earned more than $2.1 million. Both The Pizza Man and Work All Week were pensioned at Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement Farm near Georgetown, Ky., in August.

For his racing career, Brueggemann saddled 1,248 winners from 7,417 starters, giving him a 17% win rate. His horses captured more than $26.7 million in purses. Throughout the heady run from 2012-15 when Brueggemann's horses earned nearly $10.5 million in purses, Geroux's agent Doug Bredar said Brueggemann was steady and always a joy to be around.

"He was wonderful to deal with, really a jockey agent's dream," he recalled. "If I had to tell him we had another horse in a race and couldn't ride his, he was just always a good guy about it. When I was just getting going as an agent, I spent a lot of time in his barn talking about everything.

"He was so important in jump-starting Florent's career, and that win in Arlington Million—since I grew up in Chicago—was as special as any win. To see a small-time guy have the opportunity to train a Breeders' Cup winner and then an Arlington Million winner was nothing short of amazing. Now that's he gone, it breaks my heart."