Albert M. Stall, Jr. (born October 10, 1961 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American Thoroughbred horse racing trainer best known for winning the 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic in which his horse Blame defeated the great filly, Zenyatta. [2]
Al Stall Jr. is one of four children of Al Stall Sr. (died 2017), who was the chairman of the Louisiana Racing Commission for 18 years, and Susan Ellender Stall. [3]
He first gained experience training racehorses by working with Frank Brothers during high school holidays before attending Louisiana State University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Geology. [4] He worked in the oil industry before becoming a trainer, starting as an assistant to Brothers for five years. [3] [5]
When Frank Brothers retired in late 2007, Stall became the primary trainer for the legendary Claiborne Farm in 2007 until 2016. [6]
Stall won the 1,000th race of his career on May 23, 2010, at Arlington Park with Toll in the second race. His North American career earnings exceed $65 million with 1,710 wins through August 6, 2021. [4]
His best year by earnings was when he finished 10th among all trainers in 2010, and his best year in wins was 2011 at 55th. [7]
His top-earning horse was Blame with $4.36 million in earnings followed by Departing at $1.86 million, Tom's d'Etat at $1.76 million and Star Guitar at $1.74 million. [7]
Stall has 37 grades stakes wins. [8]
Stall and his wife Nicole have two children, Albert II and Greta. [9]
Kent Jason Desormeaux is an American thoroughbred horse racing Hall of Fame jockey who holds the U.S. record for most races won in a single year with 598 wins in 1989. He has won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes three times each, and the Belmont Stakes once. Aboard Real Quiet, he lost the 1998 Triple Crown by a nose.
Tiznow is an American Thoroughbred racehorse best known for his wins in the Breeders' Cup Classic in 2000 and 2001, becoming the only horse to win this race twice. He was the 2000 American Horse of the Year and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2009.
Round Pond is a retired American Thoroughbred racehorse. A two-time Eclipse Award finalist, she is best known for winning the 2006 Breeders' Cup Distaff.
Garrett Keith Gomez was an American Thoroughbred jockey who won two Eclipse Awards and thirteen Breeders' Cup races during his career.
Steven Mark Asmussen is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. The leading trainer in North America by wins, he is a two-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2016. His horses have won the Breeders' Cup Classic, Preakness Stakes, Belmont Stakes, Travers Stakes, Breeders' Cup Distaff, Kentucky Oaks and Dubai World Cup.
Zenyatta is a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the Breeders' Cup Classic and Breeders' Cup Distaff and 19 of her 20 starts. She was the 2010 American Horse of the Year, and Champion Older Female in 2008, 2009 and 2010. She was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2016.
Anna Rose "Rosie" Napravnik is a former American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey and two-time winner of the Kentucky Oaks. Beginning her career in 2005, she was regularly ranked among the top jockeys in North America in both earnings and total races won. By 2014 she had been in the top 10 by earnings three years in a row and was the highest-ranked woman jockey in North America. In 2011, she won the Louisiana Derby for her first time and was ninth in the 2011 Kentucky Derby with the horse Pants on Fire. In 2012 she broke the total wins and earnings record for a woman jockey previously held by Julie Krone, and became the first woman rider to win the Kentucky Oaks, riding Believe You Can. She won the Oaks for a second time in 2014 on Untapable. She is only the second woman jockey to win a Breeders' Cup race and the first to win more than one, having won the 2012 Breeders' Cup Juvenile on Shanghai Bobby and the 2014 Breeders' Cup Distaff on Untapable. Napravnik's fifth-place finish in the 2013 Kentucky Derby and third in the 2013 Preakness Stakes on Mylute are the best finishes for a woman jockey in those two Triple Crown races to date, and she is the only woman to have ridden in all three Triple Crown races.
Chad C. Brown is an American racehorse trainer. Brown is widely regarded as one of the elite trainers in the world, having won four consecutive Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer in the United States 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. In 2019, he also achieved the highest position in the World Training Standings according to the Thoroughbred Racing Commentary (TRC) Global Rankings, becoming the first and only American trainer to be recognized as the World's Number One Trainer. Brown has secured two Preakness Stakes victories with Cloud Computing in 2017 and Early Voting in 2022, and narrowly missing a Kentucky Derby victory in 2024 with Sierra Leone. Early in his career, many sought to pigeonhole him as a "turf trainer" who specialized in fillies and mares. However, Brown's success has become so diversified that he has demonstrated the ability to win at any distance, with any sex, and on any surface. Brown has trained 18 Breeders' Cup winners, further showcasing his dominance across the sport. Over his career, he has also trained thirteen Eclipse Award winners, including, Big Blue Kitten, Lady Eli, Flintshire, Goodnight Olive, and Horse of the Year Bricks and Mortar.
Jonathan E. Sheppard was an English Hall of Fame trainer in American Thoroughbred horse racing. He holds the record for the most wins in American steeplechase racing history with 1,242 victories, and led with the most U.S. steeplechase wins per year a record 26 times between 1972 and his retirement in 2020.
John W. Sadler is an American horse trainer in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing. He currently has over 2,600 race wins, including the 2018 Breeders' Cup Classic with Accelerate, who was subsequently named American Horse of the Year. He has won multiple training titles at Santa Anita Park, Del Mar and the now defunct Hollywood Park. Sadler trained Flightline, the winner of the 2022 Breeders' Cup Classic.
Gio Ponti is an American Thoroughbred race horse who was the Champion Turf Horse in 2009 and 2010, and finished second to Zenyatta in the 2009 Breeder's Cup Classic. He was sired by Tale of the Cat, a son of Storm Cat, out of the stakes-placed Alydar mare Chipeta Springs, making him half-brother to stakes-winner Fisher Pond.
Blame is a retired American champion Thoroughbred racehorse, a winner of nine races in 13 starts including the prestigious Breeders' Cup Classic.
Mucho Macho Man is an American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2013 Breeders' Cup Classic. He was foaled in Florida and named after the Village People song "Macho Man". His breeders were Carole and John Rio of Florida, who owned his dam. His foalhood nickname was "Lazarus" because he appeared lifeless at birth, but spontaneously revived. He grew to be a very large horse, standing over 17 hands high. Throughout most of his racing career, Mucho Macho Man was primarily owned by Dean and Patti Reeves of Reeves Thoroughbred Racing of Suwanee, Georgia. They purchased a majority interest in him after his first race in 2010, and in 2012 became his sole owners. In February 2014, Frank Stronach purchased an undisclosed share in the horse on behalf of his Adena Springs Farms, owner of Mucho Macho Man's sire, Macho Uno.
Charles LoPresti is an American race horse trainer best known as trainer of two-time Breeders' Cup Mile winner and Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year champion Wise Dan, who was also American Champion Older Male Horse and American Champion Male Turf Horse. Unusual for modern American horse trainers, he is based year-round at Keeneland Race Course and does not move his training stable from track to track throughout the year. He chooses to give his horses time off in the winter and does not race-year-round.
Irad Ortiz Jr. is a Puerto Rican jockey who has been a leading rider in the New York Thoroughbred horse racing circuit since 2012. He won his first Breeders' Cup race on Lady Eli in 2014, and his first American Classic on Creator in the 2016 Belmont Stakes. He won the 2022 Belmont Stakes on Mo Donegal.
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The 2010 Breeders' Cup Classic was the 27th running of the Breeders' Cup Classic, part of the 2010 Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships program. It was run on November 6, 2010, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky with a purse of $5,000,000. In a highly publicized race, the mare Zenyatta was attempting to defend her victory in the 2009 Breeders' Cup Classic and retire undefeated. Running well behind in the early portion of the race, she made a sustained drive but came up a head short of the winner, Blame.
José L. Ortiz is a Puerto Rican jockey who has been a rider on the New York Thoroughbred horse racing circuit since 2012. In 2016, he was the leading jockey in North America by number of wins, including his first win at the Breeders' Cup. In 2017, he earned the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey after he led the earnings list and won his first Triple Crown race, the 2017 Belmont Stakes. In 2019, he won the Kentucky Oaks. In 2022, he won the Preakness Stakes, his second Triple Crown race win.
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Flightline is an American Thoroughbred racehorse who retired undefeated after six starts, including the 2021 Malibu Stakes and the Metropolitan Handicap, Pacific Classic and Breeders' Cup Classic in 2022. In the January 2023 World's Best Racehorse Rankings, he was given a rating of 140, the highest ever awarded to a runner on the dirt. He was named the 2022 American Horse of the Year and Champion Older Horse.