Cash Asmussen: Still Involved, Passionate and Proud

[Wandering Eyes]

There are probably not two places on the planet more different than scruffy Laredo, Texas and charming and classy Deauville, France, but Cash Asmussen is equally comfortable in both environments. That’s because they share a common element-the Thoroughbred race horse.

Asmussen retired from riding in 2001 and most of his time since has been spent at the El Primero Training Center in Laredo. It was founded by his father, Keith, a former Quarter Horse jockey who is now known as one of the best in the business when it comes to breaking yearlings. Cash, now 56, is a partner in the overall business, but trains his own horses at El Primero  under the business name Cashmark Farm.

“I do like this,” he said. “I come from a family of great horsemen, I passed through the hands of more great horsemen through my career thanks to the support of owners and trainers of so many great race horses. I had the luxury to ride for these people and watch how they prepared these horses and point them in the direction where they should excel. That’s what a trainer’s job is. What they’re assigned to do is to allow these great athletes to get into [a] position to show the world the talents God gave them.”

Though it has been many years since he rode in Europe and he now lives about 5,000 miles from Longchamp, Asmussen’s memories of his years there are fresh in his mind. He’s proud of his long list of accomplishments, but, perhaps, most proud of the fact he believes he forever changed the way European riders sat on a horse. They saw Asmussen’s more aerodynamic style, saw that it worked, and were forced to adapt. Either that or let him beat them more often than not.

“I hope that any professional that rode with me had respect for the way I rode and the way my horses performed,” he said. “I hoped they looked over and had an open enough mind and enough passion that they thought, ‘I need to incorporate some of what that guy is doing in the way I ride.'”

Asmussen appeared to be well on his way to becoming a major star in the U.S., where he was the champion apprentice in 1979. In 1982, he received an offer from trainer Francois Boutin and Stavros Niarchos to come to France to be the stable’s top rider.

“Basically, the proposal to me was if you want to ride the greatest race horses in the world and be compensated equivalently, we would like to offer you a position to ride 250 of the best bred race horses that are on this planet,” Asmussen said. “I was 20 years old. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, being in the top 10 in America and being that I worked myself into a spot where I was leading rider in New York two years in a row and was working my way toward a position where I was going to ride for some of the top stables in the U.S. and the top horses. It wasn’t an easy decision to make until I went to France and saw the operation. To go to the team of Francois Boutin and Stavros Niarchos, it was an opportunity of a lifetime and it wasn’t an opportunity that was going to be around for long and it wasn’t an opportunity that was going to come up again.”

He lists becoming the first American to be named France’s champion rider, something he did five times, as among his proudest accomplishments. There’s also the win in the 1991 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe aboard Suave Dancer, a horse who was broken at his father’s farm.

“I’ll also never forget winning the [G1] Prix de Diane in 1994 on East of the Moon while her trainer, Mr. Boutin, was in the hospital fighting for his life,” he said. “She also avenged the defeat of her mother, Miesque, in that same race. That was quite a memorable day.”

He had riding stints in Ireland and England, but France was his primary home for the 18 years he was in Europe. Weight was never a major issue, but he said he had grown homesick and wanted his children to go to just one school. They would go to school in France during the racing season and then in Texas when Asmussen returned home for the winter. Just 39 and still very much on top of his game, he decided to retire.

“It was a great run,” he said. “Stavros Niarchos inviting me to Europe changed my life. I was given an education that I never could have paid for.”

He also credits Boutin and Niarchos for accepting that the then- young American was going to ride his way and said he would never adapt to the French style. He watches races from Europe now and sees that most jockeys no longer look like they’re jumping up and down on a pogo stick. It’s become hard to distinguish between the European and American styles, and he believes he’s a big reason why. He didn’t ride that way to gain style points, but because he felt it was the best way to get the most out of a horse.

“I brought a style of riding to France that was totally foreign,” he said. “I was a foreigner bringing a foreign riding style to a new country. In 1651, two nobleman raced two horses against each other and they called that the first ever horse race in France.  From that day forward, they had never ridden horses in some of the greatest races in the world with the kind of style I brought over. I knew there was going to be enormous criticism when I got there. I was also riding for one of the biggest stables in France and you get criticized for taking a position that a French jockey could have occupied.

“I am so thankful for my supporters, like the Niarchos family, Francois Boutin, Jean-Claude Rouget, and many others who supported me during a time I was bringing transition to a country that hadn’t changed since 1651. I was bringing something new and the only way I was going to confirm that it was a better way was to win. I wanted to show that my style allowed my partner to show his talents. The way to do that is be one with the horse instead of a foreign object on his back. When the rider and the horse become one it is poetry. I felt that the aerodynamic style, my seat on a horse, which was taught to me by my father, is what allowed a horse to show what he is capable of doing. I was there to manage his energy.”

From 2008 through 2014, Asmussen trained in the U.S. His younger brother, Steve, is a Hall of Fame trainer who is respected as one of the best in the business. Cash won 158 races and had a high winning percentage (17%), but mainly had cheap horses and never won any major races. He decided to give that up and focus solely on working at his family’s farm breaking yearlings. Many of the horses he breaks are sent to his brother for their racing careers.

He still romanticizes about the greatness found in the truly special horses and likes being involved in the development of their careers. A horse could win a Group or Grade I race two or three years after last being handled by Asmussen. That doesn’t lessen the thrill.

“From the breeder to the groom, the trainer, the jockey, the owner, the public, this is what a great race horse does,” he said. “They’re all invested in this beautiful God given work of art and when he excels and when he does things people are unaware that he is capable of doing, that horse takes them places they can’t go without him or her. The horse allows them to travel to these places. This is what creates the following, the love affair, why kings give castles for great horses. This is why people follow them around the world. When people ask how could someone pay so much for a horse they only ask because they’ve never experienced the feeling.”

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