The memory is nearly 45 years old now, but still vivid. In anticipating his son Keith’s debut in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve May 4, Steve Asmussen recalls the excitement surrounding his older brother Cash’s first run for the roses in 1979.

“At that time in my life, competing on this stage was a dream,” the Hall of Fame trainer said. “And it’s something I’ve chased ever since.”

Then 13 years old, Asmussen would ultimately outgrow jockey silks and become the first American trainer to win 10,000 races. His more than $440 million in career earnings trails only Todd Pletcher on the lifetime list. Yet Asmussen’s pursuit of the preeminent prize in American racing has proved both elusive and agonizing. In 25 tries, his closest call was a gut-punching, caught-from-behind three-quarter-length loss by Epicenter to the improbable Rich Strike  in 2022.

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In Saturday’s 150th Derby, he says, “I am very much hoping for a dead heat.”

Asmussen will saddle Track Phantom, 20-1 in the morning line, for jockey Joel Rosario. His 25-year-old son, Keith, will ride another 20-1 shot, Just Steel, for the venerable D. Wayne Lukas. Though the odds appear steep against either Asmussen winning this year’s race, their bloodlines suggest an eventual breakthrough. 

Keith Asmussen’s grandfather, also Keith, was a successful Quarter Horse jockey for nearly four decades, rode for Lukas before the Hall of Fame trainer switched to Thoroughbreds, and has produced more than 200 stakes winners at the family’s Laredo, Texas, training center.

“Horses are, and always have been, our ONLY business!” says Asmussens.com.

Cash Asmussen won the Eclipse Award as outstanding apprentice jockey in 1979, earned three Derby mounts, and made such a significant splash in France that Sports Illustrated in 1983 devoted a five-page profile to his expatriate exploits. (That story spent only a single sentence on the man who would become America’s winningest trainer: “Brother Steve started riding last year; this winter he was an apprentice jockey at Aqueduct.”)

The younger Keith Asmussen earned a master’s degree in accounting at the University of Texas as a fallback position, but was drawn to the family business. He rides primarily for his father, but won his first race of 2023 for Lukas aboard Papa Rocket at Oaklawn Park.

Asked to compare the training methods of Lukas and his father, the younger Asmussen said, “I think Wayne does a little more in the mornings and my father works a little slower. But as far as a horseman perspective, I think they’re both the pinnacle of the sport.”

Keith Asmussen replaced Ramon Vazquez aboard Just Steel prior to the Arkansas Derby and finished second in that prep race behind Bob Baffert’s Muth. With the effort, Just Steel earned a career-best Equibase Speed Figure of 112.

Through May 1, Asmussen has won 53 races in 2024 and ranks 10th among North American jockeys with nearly $4.3 million in earnings. 

“He has a really good pedigree to be a horseman,” Lukas said. “Physically, he doesn’t fit (as a jockey). He’s too tall (5-foot-10), too skinny. But he’s got so much horsemanship that he overcomes it. We used to say in athletics, ‘They look good in the lobby.’ He doesn’t look good in the lobby. He looks better on the horse.”

Just Steel trains at Churchill Downs. (Eclipse Sportswire)

D. Wayne Lukas holds a master’s degree in education and in April he speculated that Just Steel will be the first Derby horse with a trainer and jockey who have master’s degrees.

Keith Asmussen will become the 28^th different jockey to ride in the Derby for Lukas, whose résumé features four Derby wins. Seventeen of those 28 riders have reached racing’s Hall of Fame, and 14 of them have won the Derby at least once.

It is not normally a job for novice riders. Since 1980, only three jockeys have won the Derby in their first try: Stewart Elliott on Smarty Jones in 2004; Mario Gutierrez on I’ll Have Another  in 2012 and Sonny Leon on Rich Strike in 2022.

“When you put these riders out there in a 20-horse field, the whole game changes,” Lukas said. “None of these horses have been in a 20-horse field. None of these riders have run in 20-horse fields this year. This is all new. It gets to be an entirely different race. The jockey does become very important. . .

“I’m hoping when they start playing ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ and marching out there in the post parade that it doesn’t affect (Asmussen). I think he’s that type of kid. He’s very sure of himself. I’m going to plot out some of the strategy; I feel after all these times, I think I’ve got a feel for some of the things you can do and can’t do. So I’ll go over some of the strategy, but then I’ll turn him loose.”

Steve Asmussen said he agrees with that approach “1,000 percent” in a race as congested and chaotic as the Kentucky Derby, relying too heavily on pre-race instructions can put a jockey in a perilous position.

“In a regular race, if you break a half-stride slow, it might cost you three or four positions,” Keith Asmussen said. “In the Derby, it’s eight or 10 positions. Given the volume of horses in the race, there’s not a lot of margin for error. I’m just hoping for a clean trip.”

Lukas says Keith Asmussen, considering his size, is “remarkably good” on a horse, but that his “real asset” is intelligence. “He really rides smart,” Lukas said. “He makes very good decisions. … I feel real comfortable with him.”

He compared his faith in Asmussen about the son of Triple Crown winner Justify to the trust he placed in the young Gary Stevens, who rode his first Derby horse for Lukas in 1985 and delivered his first Derby winner with filly Winning Colors in 1988.

“Nobody knew who the hell he was,” Lukas said. “He couldn’t even get mounts at Santa Anita and here he is now in the Hall of Fame. So I don’t think I’m giving up much with Keith. I feel real good. There’s a lot of horsemanship in the background.”

“I couldn’t be more excited about this opportunity,” Keith Asmussen said. “It’s the level of racing you’ve always aspired to compete at.”

It’s the dream his father has been chasing for most of his life.–Tim Sullivan