LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Steve Capps did a fine job of mimicking the underdog tale of a fellow Lexington-based trainer when racing resumed Thursday evening at Churchill Downs following a five-day break in action. Capps sent out Hannah’s Haven to an 8 1/4-length romp in the fourth race, a $20,000 maiden-claiming sprint, marking just the second win for a 64-year-old trainer who has worked in a multitude of other racetrack capacities for much of his adult life. Capps had claimed the 3-year-old filly for $10,000 from a runner-up finish in a May 4 race at Churchill in the name of his wife, Rhonda. “This was like the race of a lifetime,” Capps said early Friday from the Thoroughbred training center. “I’m a one-horse stable. It felt like I won the Kentucky Derby. It was spectacular. My wife was in tears, she was so happy.” It was only last weekend that another Lexington trainer, Eric Reed, won the 148th Derby at Churchill with Rich Strike, inspiring millions who witnessed the 80-1 upset. The Thursday win for Capps was played out before a tiny fraction of the Derby audience, but all the same, both men have spent their entire careers far under the racing radar, working diligently just to knock out a living. :: Serious horseplayers use serious products. Get DRF's premium past performances, now free for the first time Capps, who attended the old Durrett High in Louisville as a teen, worked in his youth as a hotwalker for such old-timers as Thomas W. Kelley and Harry Trotsek, eventually making his way up to groom for Jack Van Berg and Bill Mott. He left the game for quite some time, working in the technology business while he and Rhonda raised their two now-grown children, but racing’s siren call ultimately pulled him back. In some of those years, he worked as a jockey agent and “fooled with some babies,” he said, while also buying and selling cheaper stock. In more recent times, he has been breaking, training, and selling those young horses while dabbling in training “with the horses I got stuck with,” he said. Now semi-retired, he was looking to claim a horse when Hannah’s Haven caught his eye. Capps said he had watched video of her prior races this winter at Turfway Park, “and I liked he way she moved,” he said. “Now that I’ve been around her, I can tell she’s got a great mind. Winning this race was like an affirmation of what I was seeing on tape and what I needed to do with her.” The only other win for Capps from 23 starts as a trainer came with Strollinontheriver in a September 2016 maiden-special at Belterra Park. He’s hoping Hannah’s Haven will add to his win total. :: Want the best bonus in racing? Get a $250 deposit match, $10 free bet, and free Formulator with DRF Bets. Code: WINNING “She won’t be in for a tag anytime soon,” he said. “I’ll either run her back for a starter-$10,000 or an allowance. I like her too much to lose her.” Mega-barns with a presence Chad Brown and Todd Pletcher both have full barns on the backstretch, and we’re not even in New York or South Florida. For the first time at Churchill in the spring – at least post-Derby – both trainers will be active throughout a meet that runs through July 4. Periodically through the years, Pletcher has left a string here during some spring meets while regrouping his best horses to New York, but not in recent times. Brown tried establishing a foothold here the last two years, but the pandemic followed by Churchill suspending turf racing for its 2021 September and fall meets mostly foiled that effort. Joshua Flores is serving as the Brown point man and Amelia Green is heading the Pletcher operation. Brown and Pletcher combined to win the Eclipse Award for outstanding trainer 11 times in a 16-year span (2004-19).