Assistant trainer Norm Casse reflects on Tepin's Royal Ascot win
Norman Casse, son and assistant trainer to his father Mark, reflected on reigning Champion Turf Female Tepin’s victory in Tuesday’s Queen Anne (Group I) at Royal Ascot.
“I really can’t explain it,” Casse said. “Obviously everybody is super excited and overwhelmed because what we did had never really been done before. It was really rewarding.”
The daughter of Bernstein’s victory at the historic British race track marked the first victory for an American-based horse in the Queen Anne.
“It’s not an easy thing to do,” Casse said. “When you go over there it’s a little overwhelming but maybe now that we’ve done it maybe there will be something that Americans look forward to doing now. I think we definitely took the right horse. You have to have a special horse to go over there and she is obviously very talented but more importantly she’s super intelligent and as soon as she got off the plane you could tell that everything was going to be all right and that she was going to run her race and if she ran her race you knew she was going to be tough to beat.”
Casse is unsure as to when the Eclipse Award-winning mare would resume training for her next start.
“There’s really no time table yet,” Casse said. “She gets back next week from overseas.”
Source: Churchill Downs