Trainer Kevin Eikleberry Captures 1,000th Career Win

Arizona-based trainer Kevin Eikleberry scored his 1,000th career victory March 12 when his 6-year-old gelding Nevadan, who he races with Robert Budoff, won the second race at Turf Paradise. The Phoenix racetrack has been the trainer's home track since 1980.

Eikleberry celebrated his first win as a trainer in 1979 at the former Centennial Racetrack in Littleton, Colo., with a filly named Broncomania who won in her maiden debut at 2. The filly went on to become his first black-type stakes winner in her next start and then added two more stakes wins to her undefeated season, which included the Centennial's Gold Rush Futurity against males. Since then, Eikleberry has made 6,585 starts with his trainees since 1979 that have won or placed in 2,778 races and earned $8,615,230. 

A third-generation horse trainer, Eikleberry grew up on a farm near Springfield, Colo., and made regular trips to Centennial, where his father and grandfather raced, according to a report from Turf Paradise prior to opening day of its fall meet last October.

"You always remember your first winner," Eikleberry said in the racetrack's report. "Racing was now in my blood."

The trainer moved to the equestrian community of Cave Creek in Arizona in 1993 where he established a ranch for breaking and training. 

Eikleberry's son Ry is a jockey who scored his own milestone late last year by getting his 2,000th win since launching his riding career in 2005.