DiMauro retires from training to become racing official

MIAMI – After spending nearly four decades training horses for a living, Steve DiMauro has called it quits to pursue a new career as a racing official.

DiMauro, 59, began training horses in 1978, shortly after spending one year in college and two more working in the barn and learning the ropes from his father, the Eclipse Award-winning horseman Steve A. DiMauro. The younger DiMauro won 1,084 races and purses totaling nearly $26 million in a career that started in New York. DiMauro moved to south Florida in 1984 and was based at Calder Race Course, currently known as Gulfstream Park West, while splitting his stable the past eight years between here and Monmouth Park.

“I received an offer from Tim Ritvo and P.J. Campo to work on the front side at Gulfstream Park,” said DiMauro. “I’d like to be a steward, and I’m training in that area right now during the Gulfstream Park West meet. I made the switch for multiple reasons, the most compelling being that I liked the idea that I could stay in one place year-round. The last eight years, I’d split my stable between Florida and New Jersey, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to keep horses in the barn and run a profitable operation. So, I decided to go to work for a company that looks like it’s growing and at the same time stay in the game I love and never want to leave.”

DiMauro had 27 horses under his care at the time of his retirement, a dozen here and 15 more in New Jersey.

“I went to stewards’ school, and I’m currently working on completing my accreditation,” said DiMauro. “I’ve been spending most of my time right now in the stewards’ office, both mornings and afternoons, trying to learn as much as I can, although I’m not certain exactly what my duties will be down the road.”

DiMauro said the highlight of his career was finishing third with Two Item Limit in the 2001 Breeders’ Cup Distaff.

“From a monetary standpoint, training a horse like Two Item Limit to win over $1 million was the highlight,” said DiMauro. “But there are several others not as financially significant that also stand out for me from a satisfaction standpoint, such as claiming a horse and moving it up the ladder or doing well with a good number of homebreds that I trained basically for my mother in New York earlier in my career.”