Golden Hare assured his status as the winningest horse in North America for the calendar year when he scored his 14th win of the 2007 season in at Fair Grounds in New Orleans on Friday, December 28. He also helped his trainer, Steve Asmussen (pictured), edge out Scott Lake as winningest trainer of 2007, with 488 victories from 2,273 starts. Lake closed the year at Philadelphia Park with 485 wins from 2,345 starts.

Golden Hare’s 14 wins (from 17 starts) are the most recorded by any horse in North America since 2002. Claimed by Scott Blasi at Remington Park in 2006 for $3,500, the 8-year-old son of Gilded Times has 23 wins from 52 career starts and career earnings of $388,389.

Asmussen, who went into Friday’s races in a deadlock with Lake for the national lead in wins, scored six victories on Saturday, December 29, the most ever by a trainer on a single Fair Grounds card. It could have been an even bigger day, as he missed a seventh win by a nose.

The 42-year-old Texas native, ranked second with 2007 earnings of $23,898,844 – Todd Pletcher, another native Texan, ranked first with $28,111.697 – recorded seven wins on a single program at Lone Star Park, on July 14, 2002, and has won 10 races on a single day with horses racing at multiple tracks.

Dale Baird, with 9,445 wins – more than any other trainer in thoroughbred history – died on Sunday, December 23, in a traffic accident near Greenfield, IN. He was 72.

Baird, who began training in 1960, specialized in low-priced claiming horses. He led the nation in wins15 times between 1971 and 1999 and was the first trainer to score 300 wins in a calendar year, when he claimed 305 in 1973. In addition, he was the leading owner in terms of victories 17 times, and is one of only four trainers with more than 5,000 victories, along with Jack Van Berg, King Leatherbury and Jerry Hollendorfer.

In 2005, Baird received a Special Eclipse Award, which honors outstanding individual achievements in thoroughbred racing.