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| Staff Writer |
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Known for his innovative training methods and dedication to horse welfare, American trainer Mark Casse has carved out an impressive legacy. He has over 3,500 major wins to his name, including multiple Breeder’s Cup wins and was inducted into the US Racing Hall of Fame in 2020 and the Canadian Racing Hall of Fame in 2016.
"Winning the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot with Tepin was a career -defining moment. To go over to England and beat them at their own game, that was amazing," Mark Casse shares.
Tepin, often referred to as the Queen of the Turf," made history under Casse's guidance by winning the Queen Anne Stakes in 2016. The victory marked the first time an American-based racehorse won the signature opening race over the straight-mile course at Royal Ascot. She defeated a field of leading European milers, including Belardo and Esoterique.
“They say I was foaled, not born...” Casse chuckles. “It’s always been horses for me. I remember riding with my father in a horse van from Florida for the 1973 Kentucky Derby. I got to see Secretariat win. I was only 12, but I was hooked.”
Casse’s father, Norman, had a successful breeding operation in Indiana before moving his family to Ocala, Florida. There, he established Cardinal Hill Farm and was one of the founders of the Ocala Breeder’s Sales Company. Norman Casse also had a small training operation.
“At first, I wanted to be a jockey, but I found that I liked to eat too much. I didn’t have enough heart for it. It's a tough profession. I realised, and that was at the age of 15 or so, that training was what I wanted to do,” Casse reflects.
Casse has always had a forward-thinking approach. His adoption of objective gait analysis tools to get a head start on avoiding injuries and improving performance is testimony to this.
“If you stand still, you get run over. That’s one of the things I've always said, so I'm always trying to be better,” says Casse.
Easy access to objective measurements and AI capabilities have made a difference for Casse’s team and the horses under his care. His vets use objective gait analysis to increase precision in diagnostics, guide blocking, and evaluate treatment. Above all, the technology allows the team to monitor the horses and detect issues early on.
“We have a system where we’ll watch the horses on the track. If I'm not exactly happy with how a horse is looking, then we’ll run an analysis using what I call a “VLL”, which is a video lameness locator. It’s a system that uses AI to measure asymmetries from a smartphone app. If it comes back with more than a mild asymmetry, we explore a little closer and try to pinpoint what the problem could be.”
The app returns a summary view where asymmetry levels for each limb are indicated with a colour grading—from green to grey, yellow, orange, and red. A scroll-down gives the quantified measurements and confidence intervals. Historical analyses are stored, giving the team valuable baseline measurements for detecting irregularities and tracking changes.
The Casse operation spans six locations, and being able to measure the horses objectively provides uniformity and a shared language.
“This smartphone-based system allows us to keep tabs on horses remotely. So if there's a problem in South Florida, we’ll just ask the guys there to do a recording and we can look at the data here.
Casse’s team has been using the system for about 18 months. To date, they have almost 500 horses recorded and over 2,000 analyses documented.
“We probably do about eight or ten analyses a day in our different locations,” he comments.
"Maybe a year or so ago, I had a very good horse who ran a race, and he won it. But my assistant in South Florida rang me after and said, ‘Something’s not right’. We did a Sleip recording, and he came back with a severe asymmetry, a Sleip measurement of over 2, on a hindleg. So then we x-rayed him and discovered he had the start of a condylar fracture. We were able to catch it early and treat it," Casse recounts.
In recent years, racing authorities and regulatory veterinarians have been exploring new ways to improve horse welfare and ensure the integrity of the sport.
"Last summer I had a horse running and my assistant felt she was fine, but the commission vets were worried. We did a video analysis of her, and she came back with a severe asymmetry on the right front, so we pulled her from the race."
Casse envisions a future where the Sleip app and similar technologies become standard tools for racing stables and regulatory bodies alike.
“It helps us make better calls for the horses. It gives us hard data and confirmation”, concludes Mark.
As we wrap up our conversation, it’s clear that Mark Casse’s success is no accident. His genuine love for his horses is evident as he continues to push the boundaries. In Casse’s world, standing still is never an option—there’s always another race to win, another horse to train, and another innovation to embrace.