New York commission to consider revoking Asmussen's license over labor violations

The New York State Gaming Commission will consider revoking the trainer’s license of Steve Asmussen during a hearing scheduled to begin Sept. 18, the commission said Thursday in a notice citing several investigations by state and federal labor regulators into his business practices.

The notice of hearing was sent out Thursday morning, two days after the U.S. Department of Labor announced that the U.S. District Court in Kentucky had ordered Asmussen to pay $486,000 in back wages and penalties related to an investigation of his Kentucky operation between 2012 and 2019.

The notice of hearing alleges, in part, that Asmussen has “engaged in a pattern and practice of financial irresponsibility and/or negligent or willful deprivation of wages and other benefits to employees."

Clark Brewster, the attorney for Asmussen, did not immediately return a phone call Thursday. Brewster has said in the past that the various judgments against Asmussen for his labor practices were not the result of any “willful” acts. Asmussen has already appealed the Kentucky District Court judgment on its assessment on penalties, Brewster said Tuesday.

License revocation could deal a critical blow to Asmussen’s racing operations if other state racing commissions were to honor the revocation under an existing system known as “reciprocity,” which generally allows racing commissions to honor suspensions or revocations in other states. However, that practice is usually applied to suspensions for medication violations, and the precedents for license revocation are not as clear.

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Several members of the NYSGC have said in the past that the commission might begin pursuing penalties against Asmussen for the labor violations, most notably the commission’s chairman, Brian O’Dwyer, who is described in the commission’s bio as “an advocate for working men and women and immigrants.”

In 2021, Asmussen was ordered to pay $563,000 in back wages and penalties to employees of his New York stable for a period covering 2016 to 2020. In 2023, he reached a separate agreement with the Department of Labor for violations of the H-2B visa program requiring $129,000 in back wages and $75,000 in penalties. Those violations occurred from 2016 to 2019.

At a NYSGC meeting in March, O’Dwyer had said that the commission’s attorneys were looking into the possibility of charging Asmussen with violations under the state’s rules about conducting business in a professional manner.

“This is a situation we take very, very seriously,” O’Dwyer said at the meeting.

Brewster has said that Asmussen has complied with the judgments and put in place new practices to better track overtime pay. The latest U.S. District Court order involved a case that has been appealed by both sides over the past four years.

Over the past five years, a number of New York trainers have settled with state and federal labor regulators over issues substantially similar to those involved in the Asmussen case. The trainers have contended that the industry has been slow to adopt modern pay practices that fit with the odd hours worked by grooms and hotwalkers, including the use of timeclocks and properly documenting hourly work.

In the summer of 2023, Asmussen said that he was closing his year-round stable in New York due to concerns over the costs of training in the state. At the time, he kept approximately 40 horses year-round in New York, though he also shipped in to New York tracks for major stakes races.

Asmussen, who maintains year-round stables in a handful of states, is the sport’s all-time leading trainer in wins, with 10,538 victories and counting. Over his career, his horses have earned more than $445 million in purses.

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