He called the career milestone “a great achievement” for the entire racing team.
“That’s a lot of wins,” he said during a phone interview with the Journal-News.
Those on the Lauer team probably wondered when the 1,000th win would happen. After recording his 999th career win, Lauer’s horses had four second-place finishes.
Miracles Take Time, owned by Lauer’s wife, Penny, was ridden to the four-length victory by jockey Declan Cannon.
Ironically, Penny Lauer wasn’t at the track for the historic win because she was at the family’s 130-acre farm in Finchville, Ky., caring for some sick foals. She watched the race on a horse racing network and she said was “glad it finally happened” after four near-misses.
“It was good to get over the hump,” she said. “A big accomplishment. I’m glad to see him get it.”
The Lauers seem destined for continued racing success.
Lauer, a 1969 Hamilton Taft graduate, is Indiana Grand’s all-time leading stakes winning trainer. He has 32 career stakes victories in Indiana and is among the state’s all-time Top 10 leading trainers. He has 19 wins in 105 starts and $636,000 in purse earnings so far this year.
Lifetime, he has had 7,754 starts, 1,011 wins, 941 seconds, 1,040 thirds and earnings of $22,271,050.
His wife is among the track’s Top 5 leading owners.
After high school, Lauer attended The Ohio State University and continued spending his summers working at tracks throughout the United States. He graduated from Ohio State with a degree in arts and sciences then gravitated back to horse racing.
“There is an adrenaline rush of winning,” he said. “It’s what I liked and what I knew.”
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