Broberg becomes third trainer to win 500 races in a calendar year

Trainer Karl Broberg became just the third trainer following Steve Asmussen and Scott Lake to win 500 races in a calendar year.

Broberg’s 500th of 2018 was a no-doubter: Summer Lovin won the second race Thursday at Fair Grounds by 16 lengths.

Broberg has more than a 100-win lead on Asmussen in North American trainer standings by wins this year. Asmussen still wins scores of races but has scaled back his operation since hitting staggering annual totals of 621 wins in 2008 and 650 in 2009, the latter a season’s record.

Broberg in an extended interview two winters ago said he had plans to pull back from his frenetic rate of entering while focusing on higher-level stock, but instead hit a career high in wins this year. Broberg won 420 races in 2015, dipped to 367 in 2016, and after a 412-win 2017 struck the 500 mark this year thanks to a spectacular 27 percent strike rate from 1,800 starters as of Thursday night.

Broberg, who recently turned 48, is a native of Chicago who took over the Texas-based operation of trainer John Locke (whom Broberg as an owner employed at the time) during 2009. He won 197 races in 2010 and has been among the national leaders every year since, operating a rapid-fire claiming operation based mainly in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, but which has expanded to Iowa and Minnesota in recent seasons.