Asmussen sets world record with 624 wins
USA: Steve Asmussen, the first trainer in racing history to send out 600 winners in a calendar year, ended 2008 by extending his world-record total to 624.
Asmussen, who already held the record with the 555 winners he achieved in 2004, saddled 622 winners in North America, plus two in Dubai, where the great dirt champion Curlin won a handicap at Nad Al Sheba before an awesome victory in the World Cup.
The North American figure was 201 more than his closest rival, Scott Lake, who saddled the not inconsiderable total of 421 winners in 2008.
Asmussen also topped the North American lists in terms of prize-money won, his horses amassing a total of $24,235,247, not far off double the $13.8m achieved by runner-up Todd Pletcher.
Prize-money championships are the senior titles in US racing, and once again Garrett Gomez came out in front among the jockeys, his mounts having accrued $23,344,351.
But although Gomez won on three of his mounts at Santa Anita on New Year's Eve, he fell just short of overcoming Jerry Bailey's prize-money record mark of $23,354,960.
Gomez won the third, fifth and sixth races at Santa Anita but his mount Baroness Thatcher could finish only third behind Lovely isle in the featured Kalookan Queen Handicap.
There are no prizes for identifying America's top rider in races won. Russell Baze, the all-time North American leader with more than 10,000 wins, topped the 400-mark for the 12th time.
The 50-year-old, who rode at the Shergar Cup in August, ended with 403 victories as he led the continent for the tenth time, 70 ahead of Deshawn Parker on 333.
Last year, however, Baze was outdoneby his arch-rival, the Brazilian legend Jorge Ricardo, who rode 472 winners in South America, where he is based in Buenos Aires.
World leader Ricardo now has a career total of 10,459 - 100 more than Baze.
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