Trainer Bret Calhoun, perennially ranked among the top 20
trainers in North America, was hands-on in his
barn at Monmouth on Saturday morning and will be a familiar sight on the
backside from here on.
“I just got in. I’ll be here for the rest of the summer.
I’ll make this my base now and travel from here,” said Calhoun after five more
of his horses got off the van and settled into their stalls. “I’ve never based
my operation at Monmouth before but now it makes the most sense.”
For the past few years, Calhoun has run his summer operation
from Delaware Park and kept a division of more than 50 horses at Churchill
Downs, so after the spring meet in Louisville closed at the end of June, he had
to send his charges to other tracks in order to run.
“It was a logistical nightmare,” said Calhoun. “The
management here is great and very cooperative. There are a lot of options here
with so many tracks located within only a couple of hours. Ideally, I would
like to run every horse out of the stall, but it doesn’t always work out that
way.”
Until Calhoun’s arrival, assistant Tom Morgan was in charge
of the division here and the barn had one win, two seconds and one third from
seven starts. After 5 more horses arrive on Monday there will be a total of 30 under
the shedrow.
Through June 29, Calhoun was the 17th ranked trainer in North America with 91 wins
from 381 starts and $2,929,263 in earnings.