Horacio De Paz emerges as surprise contender in Saratoga trainer race

Horacio De Paz doesn't head to Saratoga expecting to be the leading trainer. But as the second week of racing came to a close, that's exactly the position in which he found himself, tied with Steve Asmussen (the guy who has won more races in North America than any other trainer) atop the trainer standings.

The start to this year's Saratoga meeting was unusual in its parity; the first 24 races of the meet were won by 24 different trainers, and even by the end of the third week of racing, the top trainer (Brad Cox, with seven wins) and those tied for 10th place were separated by only three wins. 

De Paz's first trip to the winner's circle came on July 5 when Twenty Six Black won the Harvey Pack Stakes, the third stakes win for the 6-year-old gelding.

The following weekend, a three-race win spree launched De Paz to the top of the trainer standings. He saddled a total of three runners on Saturday and Sunday, July 11 and 12, winning with all of them, one of them the favorite, two of them longshots. On Saturday, B Yutiful Carly won a maiden special weight for New York-breds and paid $73.04 to win; the next day, Professor Plum won under the same conditions and paid $38.44. 

"The owner told me that all of his grandchildren watched Professor Plum win," said De Paz, sitting in his office on the Saratoga backstretch. "Then they all went out and bought the game Clue to play." 

De Paz has been training horses since 2015, first as the private trainer for Sagamore Farm in Maryland. He began training for other clients in 2018, when Sagamore began to reduce its horse racing and breeding operations.

Though initially based at Laurel Park, he came to New York in January of 2020 at the request of long-time owner/breeder Barry Schwartz. He continues to split time between Laurel and New York, and in fact, even though B Yutiful Carly and Professor Plum are New York-breds, they were until recently stabled and training in Maryland.

"Some of it is scheduling, some of it is staffing, some of it is economics," said De Paz. "I didn't know how soon they were going to run, and you know how expensive it is in New York. Being at Laurel also gives us options for what races to run in; sometimes there are races there that fit some of the horses in New York, and vice versa." 

De Paz grew up in West Texas; his first equine experiences were on his father's Quarter Horses, which he rode in match races on bush tracks. He made his way to the East Coast racing circuit via Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, California, and Florida, where he worked with, among others, trainers John Servis, D. Wayne Lukas, and Todd Pletcher. It was his stint at Sagamore that put him on Schwartz's radar, and while De Paz hadn't had any plans to move north from Maryland, the offer from Schwartz was too good to refuse.

Since then, De Paz has trained multiple stakes winners for Schwartz, including Awesome Czech, voted the 2025 New York-bred champion turf female. The 5-year-old mare was most recently fourth in the De La Rose Stakes at Saratoga, beaten barely two lengths. Schwartz's homebred Sharp Starr brought the trainer his first graded stakes win in the 2020 Go for Wand Handicap (G3). 

Though not limited to New York-breds, De Paz's stable makes the most of the options of the New York breeding and racing program. 

"We've gotten some offers to buy the New York-breds that won up here," said the trainer. "I did talk to the owners about the program, because they can go through New York-bred maiden conditions, allowance conditions, and stakes races. Once they run through those, they can move into open-company allowances." 

"We're thankful to have a respected and talented horseman such as Horacio stabled in New York," said Najja Thompson, Executive Director of New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc. "He has shown his prowess on the NYRA circuit, especially within the New York-bred program, achieving success for respected owners and breeders such as Barry Schwartz and many others."

De Paz isn't the kind of trainer to tout his own horses; he treads more cautiously than that. Nor is he the kind of trainer to run a horse in a big race just for the sake of running in it. He expects to run Striker Has Dial in the Honorable Miss (G2) on Sunday; the 5-year-old mare is coming in with wins in her last two races, both stakes, and in 15 lifetime races, she's got a record of 5-5-2. 

Undefeated K Gun is pointed to an allowance race at some point in the meet; De Paz's face lights up when he talks about the 3-year-old filly.

"She is such a game filly. I just love her," he said. "In her last race, she faced older horses, and it was a pretty tough race. We'd like to keep her undefeated streak going." 

At the end of last week's racing, De Paz was no longer co-leading the Saratoga trainers race. He was still in the top 10, though, still tied with Asmussen, along with Miguel Clement and Linda Rice, with four wins. It's worth noting that De Paz has started 10 horses so far this meet, while Asmussen, Clement, and Rice have started two, three, and four times that many, respectively. 

As the meet goes on, it's likely that De Paz is going to slip a bit in those rankings; after all, he's got a total of about 70 horses in training, while Chad Brown has already started 51 runners in the first 11 days of the meet. But given his success with longshots so far, you might bet against De Paz at your peril, on the racetrack and in the standings. 

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