Broberg's well-oiled machine keeps churning out wins

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Karl Broberg leads all trainers in wins in North America this year and sits atop the meet standings at his home track of Lone Star Park, Evangeline Downs, and Prairie Meadows. Running his stable involves a lot of moving parts, but the 47-year-old Chicago native keeps things tight.

Broberg essentially organizes his machine of a stable with two three-ring binders and Daily Racing Form past performances. One binder carries lifetime past performances of each of the horses in his care, updated on a continual basis because the barn lives and breathes the claiming game. A second binder includes handwritten lists of the stable’s entries for a given day, printed copies of condition books for multiple tracks, and the litany of paperwork that goes with running any stable.

“We try not to miss anything, whether it be with the horse and what we feel he needs, or in the condition book,” said Broberg.

Broberg has not missed much. He’s been North America’s leading trainer in wins the past four years, and since saddling his first winner as a trainer in November 2009 at Retama Park, he’s won 2,745 races from 11,073 starts through Thursday and has stable earnings of more than $41 million. He’s driven to keep his seat atop the standings in North America, and has 314 winners this year through Thursday.

“We’re up in wins and earnings compared to last year; about the same in the number of starts,” Broberg said. “We’re really down on numbers. We keep our barn running all the time. This game continues to get harder because there’s fewer and fewer horses to claim from the declining foal crops, and there’s seemingly fewer owners in the business, especially the ones that are willing, or able, to bring young horses to your barn.”

Broberg is turning his attention to adding more 2-year-olds to the stable, and last Sunday he won Lone Star’s richest offering for juveniles, the $107,000 colts and geldings division of the Texas Thoroughbred Futurity, with Wakefield for longtime client Jerry Namy.

While Broberg calls himself “a sucker for the old horses,” he adds that he’s always looking for young horses and that owners M and M Racing and Russell Welch have provided him with some this year.

Another component of the Broberg machine is firing at the entry box often. He’s known to wheel horses back on short rest – in a week to nine days – and his success with that angle has helped keep him atop the standings.

“We do some things that people in this industry feel are unorthodox, and one is my willingness to enter horses back much quicker than others would do,” he said. “First of all, it’s on a case-by-case basis. It doesn’t work for a lot of horses, but with some horses it does, and I’ve had more and more clients get on board with it where in the past they were reluctant. But I felt compelled to do it with as many of the horses that I owned as possible just to show people that a horse doesn’t need to run just once every three weeks. Running on short rest has been a part of our sport – for people who follow the history of it – for years and years.

“From a percentage standpoint, one of the best thing we do is horses coming off of a freshening. Once you do have them fresh – when a horse is right – there is no problem going right back to the well.”

Broberg also has divisions of his horses at Canterbury and Louisiana Downs. He said his stable benefits from the dedication of his assistants, Abel Ramirez, Artemio Ramirez, Kevin Martin, Clemente Montoya, and Darwin Quevedo.

“We realize we cannot rest on our laurels,” Broberg said. “The second you become complacent you’re in trouble in this industry. The second you’re satisfied with what you have, the next thing you know you’re going to get swallowed up.”