Small Track, Big Winner : Trainer Dale Baird Needs One More Victory to Reach 6,000

Dale Baird, about to become the first North American horse trainer to post 6,000 victories, figures achieving the milestone will not change his life that much.

“I’m just going to get up tomorrow and do the same thing,” Baird said.

Baird has been doing the same thing for 30 years. The son of an Illinois horse trader learned his craft at county fairs and similar get-togethers, but did not enter the business in earnest until 1960 after a two-year Army stint.

Baird will have a horse in all nine races at Mountaineer Park today. He has 5,999 wins worth more than $9.5 million in prize money.

“We’ll do it,” he said, with nothing boastful in his tone.

In fact, Baird is quite modest about his victory total.

He is quick to point out most of his victories came at tiny Mountaineer Park, a track with an average attendance of 1,000 to 1,500 located about 30 miles west of Pittsburgh.

Baird’s formula for winning takes that into consideration.

“I race just mostly right here and I know what it takes to win a race here. I’ve been doing it for 30 years,” Baird said. “When I go out to buy a horse, I buy a horse that fits well here.”

Baird keeps about 60 horses on his 20-acre farm located a few miles from Chester at Newell. He keeps about 40 horses at the track. His strategy is to try to enter a horse in every race.

Baird has not always been the most prolific North American trainer. He assumed that role in 1988, when he passed Jack Van Berg. Van Berg was the first to top 5,000, but “he’s slowed down a lot, which doesn’t make it much of a race anymore. But if I quit, he’d pass me,” Baird said.

Van Berg had 5,687 victories through July 31.