Classic Empire Showcases the Best of Team Casse

Outwardly, Norman Casse has mastered the art of acting like he's been there before. 

Even when they aren't hidden by sunglasses or shielded by one of his favorite ballcaps of the moment, his cool eyes rarely waver from the task at hand—not when he is leading over one of the well-regarded runners he has helped develop for his father's operation, and only barely so when one of their own succeeds in touting the breadth and depth of Casse Racing at the top level.

He still jokes about the time his dad, Canadian Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse, couldn't get through a victorious Breeders' Cup post-race interview on NBC without a choke of tears cutting off his voice. But while the younger Casse often leaves the obvious displays of sentiment for others to engage in, there are a few blatant tells that give away how much he is his father's son. 

There is the way they both study the frames of the charges in their shedrow, each looking for cues they will sit down and dissect in the office inside Churchill Downs' Barn 36 once the activities of the morning settle down. 

There is also the way they both shamelessly wear their hearts on their sleeve when discussing what the First Saturday in May stirs within them.

"I can honestly tell you that every single day of my life, I think about winning the Kentucky Derby. Ever since I fell in love with the sport, that's all I've ever thought about," said Norman, chief assistant to his father. "It could be random. I could be at the gym or sitting at a stoplight. But at some point every day, I think about winning the Kentucky Derby.

"A lot of people like to downplay it and say ... that it's meaningful but it's not the most important thing. To me it is. It is my driving force. It's what I get up for every day. I think everything else is like a tool to get better to potentially winning the Derby."

If Mark is guilty of letting the occasional bit of emotion catch in his throat as he contemplates all that John Oxley's Classic Empire embodies—and what the reigning juvenile champion could help realize May 6—it is because everything he has put in place the last three decades has manifested in the form of the whip-smart bay colt who has given his connections the distinction of having the morning-line favorite for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1). 

No racehorse becomes such without countless hands pulling forth its ability, and no equine talent crosses over from promising to exceptional without a collective cooperative. So while the world may know the Casse barn for their work in campaigning recently retired two-time champion turf female Tepin, Classic Empire may be the poster boy for both the infrastructure the elder Casse created and the resolve of the connections who say they want a Derby triumph above all prizes.

The Casses have been here before, but not nearly in the way they have situated themselves this season. Of the three prior starters Mark Casse has saddled in the 10-furlong classic, his best finish came in 2015, when 22-1 longshot Danzig Moon ran fifth to eventual Triple Crown winner American Pharoah  . 

From the time he notched his first official winner at Keeneland in April of 1979, Mark has been trying to make good on his boyhood goal of having one of his proteges triumph in the first leg of the Triple Crown. From the friendship he formed with his farm manager Mitch Downs 37 years ago, to the trust he has put in the hands of exercise rider Martin Rivera, to his strong-minded son who has helped take his North American operation to the next level—all of those and then some had to be called upon as Classic Empire evolved. From mercurial talent to star-crossed champion, the colt soared to his current standing as the most accomplished member of his generation heading into the most important race in his sport.

"Mr. Oxley said to me one day, 'Only you guys could do what was done,'" Mark said from his Churchill office, hours after watching Classic Empire turn in his final pre-Derby breeze. "We have a big advantage, in that we have the resources to do that. Not everybody could have done what we did with him and ... it's definitely been a big team effort. It's been full circle.

"I kind of feel like I'm the team owner. I brought the team together. That's what I do."

Classic Empire's issues this season have been documented with the detail of a flight's logbook. A loss in his seasonal debut in the Feb. 4 Lambholm South Holy Bull Stakes (G2) was followed by the discovery of foot abscess days later, which was then followed by a back issue and a couple frustrating instances when the colt refused to break off for his scheduled works. For a horse that Mark called the most impressive juvenile he ever laid hands on—a claim backed up by the fact that the colt won four of five 2-year-old starts, including victories in the Claiborne Breeders' Futurity (G1) and Sentient Jet Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1)—it was the kind of fall from grace from which many would-be Derby hopefuls don't come back from.

While many were quick to deem Classic Empire a head case, Mark knew the colt's blessing and curse was his ability to pick up on and react to the environment around him. For whatever reason, he just wasn't happy in the spacious surrounding of Palm Meadows Training Center. So in a last-ditch attempt to salvage the classic aspirations of arguably his most naturally talented runner, Mark made the decision to remind Classic Empire where he came from.

Downs was born and raised in the section of the Bluegrass that yielded the greatest boxer of all time and is home to the oft-proclaimed greatest two minutes in sports. And like so many natives of Louisville, he has engaged in the rite of passage that is attending the first leg of the Triple Crown "more times than I've got fingers and toes." 

With work shifting his base to Florida, more years than he can recall have now passed since he last set a foot inside Churchill Downs for the spectacle that takes place on the First Saturday in May. He has made a point of telling his longtime friend and boss that if ever wants him at his hip when the gates spring open for the Kentucky Derby, there is an unyielding condition attached. 

"I haven't been (to the Kentucky Derby) in a while and I always told Mark, I wouldn't come back unless I thought we could win," said Downs, general manager of Casse Training Center. 

Before Classic Empire was the multiple grade 1-winning force, he was the Pioneerof the Nile   colt out of Sambuca Classica—one of numerous babies Downs has broken for Casse Racing in the more than three decades he has known the operation's namesake. After arriving in Florida after Oxley laid out $475,000 for the youngster at the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale, Classic Empire carved out a reputation as one that learned his lessons without much effort, outworking virtually all of his brethren in his early moves.

"Once we started to breezing him, I got to telling Mark, 'You know what? This horse does everything right,'" Downs recalled. "Sometimes the good ones tend to separate themselves a little bit early on and he was one of the ones we always liked."

The colt Downs grew to know always conducted himself as a straightforward type. So when Classic Empire refused to break off for yet another workout March 19, Norman put the colt on a van to Winding Oaks Farm, where Downs and Rivera greeted him with familiarity. He was back in his old barn and reunited with the first rider who ever got on him. It was like old times, especially when he started looking like his former self during four timed moves that made a start in the April 15 Arkansas Derby (G1) possible.

"I don't know that we really did anything special. We brought him here and I think it was just the surroundings he was used to," Downs said. "He was almost in the same stall that he was in when he was here as a baby. We would take him out and someone would graze him for a while let him walk around, and just let him be a horse. I think he liked it and he started thriving on it."

"He literally had to go back home to where he originally started to get to where he is today," Norman said. "He had to go back to Winding Oaks, where we get all the babies started. The guy who got on him originally had to get on him. It's one of the things I'm most proud of—the fact that Mitch Downs and Martin played such a major role in getting him to this spot."

There aren't too many prep races that have been won in modern times by bringing a reigning champion off the farm with barely a handful of stiff works in them. Further enhancing Mark's notion that Classic Empire simply isn't like many of his peers in a positive sense, he did just that in the 1 1/8-mile Arkansas Derby, getting up in late stretch to prevail by half-length.

"I said to Dad right after the Arkansas Derby, if there was ever a horse who was a testament to the organization he has created, it's Classic Empire," Norman said. "Because without the people that he has—and not just the people but the different locations that he has in place—the horse wouldn't have made it to the Arkansas Derby and he wouldn't be the favorite for the Kentucky Derby."

With even Classic Empire's lesser form proving good enough to topple top-level company, the reality of what could be coming down the pike in the stretch of the Kentucky Derby began to work its way through the entire Casse staff. It's something Mark has been bracing fom since he determined at age 10 his career path would be trainer or bust.

It's something his eldest son didn't embrace until the magnitude of the race jolted him right into his passion.

When you grow up in the home of the Kentucky Derby and your father and both your grandfathers were all horsemen, it stands to reason a racing bug would kick in at some point. But when the sport being showcased at Churchill Downs is the same one that kept a parent away too often, it is understandable that it took Norman some years before he wanted anything to do with having his father's back personally and professionally.

After witnessing Smarty Jones   become a national darling with his victories in the first two legs of the Triple Crown in 2004, the younger Casse officially became obsessed with one day wanting to be that guy leading over the star of the Derby walkover. Since joining his father in 2006, it is no coincidence that Casse Racing has shed its old pigeon-hole of just being a dominant barn in Canada—where Mark Casse is a nine-time Sovereign Award winner for outstanding trainer—to becoming one of the leading outfits across North America.

"I think about what I thought I knew 15 years ago to what I know now, and it's amazing how much smarter I am now. And I'll say this, Norman has made me a lot smarter," Mark said. "The nice part of our relationship is we don't always agree, but we usually talk it out and it usually makes us better. He looks at it one way, I may look at it another way, and sometimes we meet in the middle. But he's definitely made us better."

The past few weeks have been a showcase of moments that validate all the hard decisions those that make up Team Casse had to stick by. Standing side by side in the Churchill stands under the early morning darkness April 28, father and son both uttered proclamations of relief and confidence as Classic Empire finished up his last major pre-Derby move in thoroughly professional fashion.

And as he paused to take a call while overseeing the latest group of youngsters at Casse's Florida facility, Downs ducked out of the windy conditions so that the verdict on whether this is the year he makes his grand return to the Derby can come through clearly to the other line.

"And I'll be there. Yes, I'll be there," he said. "I get in Oaks morning at 10 a.m."