NEW ORLEANS – Lord knows how many times Steve Asmussen has driven the 500 miles separating Fair Grounds Racecourse and Oaklawn Park. Every winter, back and forth, back and forth, between his strings at the two tracks. The miles add up – hundreds of thousands – a man who has spent a lifetime consumed with horses still fiercely driven by work. Another number: 58. On Monday, with Asmussen back in New Orleans after driving from Oaklawn, that was the number of entries Asmussen had pending over the next six days – and there still were horses to be entered for races during that span. “That’s normal for us. We ran 23 on Saturday,” Asmussen said. :: KENTUCKY DERBY 2026: Top contenders, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more Asmussen turned 60 in November. His 331 winners during 2025 marked the second-highest total in North America. Shocking. No one since 2019 had trained more winners in a calendar year than Asmussen, and Asmussen hadn’t trained so few winners since 2016. Is Steve Asmussen finally pumping the brakes on the most durably expansive horse training operation ever? Not so much. His stable as of this week was on pace for 422 victories this year, a vast number, if nowhere near Asmussen’s peak. He won 650 in 2009, and between 2008-10 Asmussen sent out a remarkable 1,776 winners. Asmussen himself still marvels at that pace. “I knew after that year, 650 was the limit. That ran the wheels off a lot of trucks,” he said. A number Asmsussen most values professionally: 11,172. That’s career winners as of March 17. No trainer in the Northern Hemisphere has ever run out so many. The number zero first emerged in human activity about 5,000 years ago. An essential concept within the mathematical realm, zero outside math is mere absence. And this is the time of year that reminds racing people about the zero Asmussen lugs into each spring. A Hall of Fame trainer, Asmussen is widely acknowledged as one of the sport’s great horsemen, a spookily intelligent person. Twenty-eight runners in the Kentucky Derby, zero winners. No other trainer has started more than a dozen without a win. But it’s hard! Hard even getting a horse there. Only nine active trainers have 10 or more Derby starters. Participation assures nothing. Derby-or-bust D. Wayne Lukas went 4 for 51. Todd Pletcher has 65 Derby starters, two winners. Thing is, any number more than zero alters the entire picture. “The difference between never and one is life changing,” Asmussen said. One. That is the number of plausible Kentucky Derby hopes Asmussen trains as of this week. Chip Honcho runs Saturday in the Louisiana Derby, and the way he runs will shine a light on his Derby status – contender or pretender. Other than Chip Honcho, Asmussen’s fastest 2-year-olds of 2025 have panned out as milers at most: Obliteration, Stradale, Soldier N Diplomat. Knock It Off debuted in January and is a fast 2 for 2, but he also doesn’t want to route. Noble Affair notched a sharp second-out maiden score Jan. 24 at Fair Grounds, earning a flashy 93 Beyer Speed Figure. He’s back working again, but a grabbed quarter cost Noble Affair a start in the Gotham Stakes last month. That leaves Chip Honcho – Asmussen’s sole hope to turn his Derby zero into a one. “I only need one to win it,” Asmussen points out. No superstar, Chip Honcho, but a good colt getting better. His runner-up debut finish last fall came in the same Keeneland maiden race where Fountain of Youth winner and leading Derby hope Commandment finished fourth. A Connect colt purchased as a yearling for $210,000, Chip Honcho campaigns for Leland Ackerley Racing, James Sherwood, Jode Shupe, and John Cilia. The owners and their trainer watched Nov. 20 as Chip Honcho scored a solid second-start maiden win, going wire to wire at Churchill in one-turn mile. In December, Chip Honcho won the Gun Runner here at Fair Grounds. Pretty ugly win, that. Everyone in the Gun Runner staggered home, Chip Honcho included, Asmussen concedes. A month later, in the Lecomte Stakes, Chip Honcho endured an impossible trip from a wide draw and did well to finish a competitive fourth. Asmussen felt Chip Honcho wasn’t ridden to maximal effect in the two Fair Grounds stakes, and when his jockey in those two races, Paco Lopez, broke his ankle, Asmussen gave the mount in the Risen Star last month to Luis Saez, a rider he rarely uses. Saez is best known for two things: strong finishes and consistently letting his mounts use their speed. Asmussen took blinkers off Chip Honcho and Saez took off the emergency brake, letting his mount roll to the lead. He held at bay pro tem Derby favorite Paladin past the furlong grounds before succumbing, but his half-length defeat marked a significant step forward, Chip Honcho earning a 92 Beyer and moving from the margins onto the actual Derby ledger. Asmussen agrees the track surface on the Risen Star card favored inside speed horses. But that, he notes, is a long-term general slant here at Fair Grounds, one that could prevail Saturday. “We were soundly beaten last time out with everything our own way,” Asmussen said. “He held well. Paladin found more, but he might be very special. My confidence in Chip Honcho is that was a very good horse that beat him.” Chip Honcho worked back nine days after his last race, and between the Risen Star and the Louisiana Derby he has logged four breezes over a combined 19 furlongs, a demanding schedule for a March 3-year-old who has raced once a month since October. Asmussen never overdoes it with his young horses, a master of knowing when to push, when to lighten up. Chip Honcho is built for this. “I got a lot of horse. There’s just a lot of him, physically,” Asmussen said. “We pile it on him because there’s a lot of him, and he’s responded very well to everything. There’s as much of him if not more, as far as his weight goes, as Epicenter.” The mighty Curlin, undone by inexperience, finished third in the 2007 Derby, a race he obviously was talented enough to win. Asmussen sent out Nehro to finish second in 2011 and Lookin At Lee to a longshot second in 2017, but Epicenter in 2021 was the one that really stung. Epicenter won the Lecomte, Risen Star, and Louisiana Derby, and he arrived at Churchill in full bloom, still ready for more. By the furlong grounds Epicenter had bulled to the lead and looked like the Derby winner – before Rich Strike, an 80-1 shot who came into the Derby following a tame third in the Jeff Ruby Steaks, mowed him down. Rich Strike was retired without ever winning again. Epicenter won the Travers. “Right now,” Asmussen said, “I would think Chip Honcho has as good, if not a better, chance than Rich Strike did.” With 39 points, Chip Honcho needs only a top-five placing Saturday to all but guarantee one of the 20 Derby starting slots. Regardless, a day or two after the Louisiana Derby, Asmussen will get into his car and head for Oaklawn. He’ll set the cruise control at the speed limit – a means of overcoming the way he once drove. In some pursuits, one eventually slows down or pays a price. Everyone notes how Steve Asmussen’s bearing has softened. The long drives, he says, are the part of his professional life that provide comfort and ease. The miles, the entries, the winners keep spooling out. Could this be the year for the Asmussen Derby? “If not this year, then next,” he said. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.