Asmussen wins $100,000 Preakness weekend trainer bonus at Laurel Park

Steve Asmussen did not need one marquee win to own Laurel Park’s Preakness weekend; he needed volume, and the bonus system rewarded it. The Hall of Fame trainer earned the top share of 1/ST Racing’s $100,000 stakes bonus package, collecting $50,000 for the fifth time overall and first since 2022 after finishing with 39 points, two more than Maryland-based Graham Motion.

That margin came from a deliberate, broad assault on the card. Asmussen started horses in eight different stakes over the May 15-16 weekend, more than enough to clear the eligibility threshold of five starters and enough to keep his barn in the mix across the biggest racing days of Laurel Park’s spring meet. The Preakness weekend program featured 15 stakes, seven graded races and $4.2 million in purses, giving major stables a chance to chase prize money not just in the headliner but all the way down the card.

The format matters because it rewards stable depth as much as it rewards one brilliant performance. Bonus points were awarded on a sliding scale, with 10 points for a win, 7 for second, 5 for third, 3 for fourth and 1 for fifth through last. That structure pushes top trainers to spread their horses across divisions, ship into major events and keep quality runners in play from Friday’s Black-Eyed Susan Day through Saturday’s Preakness Day.

Asmussen’s one victory over the two-day stretch came from Obliteration in the $150,000 Chick Lang Stakes, his seventh career win in that race. His strongest visibility on the weekend may have come from Chip Honcho, who finished third in the $2 million Preakness Stakes (G1), the 151st running of the race and the first contested at Laurel Park while Pimlico Race Course was being rebuilt.

For racing’s biggest outfits, bonuses like this underline how the modern economics of top-level racing often favor scale, planning and staying power. A stable that can populate eight stakes on one weekend can turn a mixed results sheet into a meaningful payday, and Asmussen’s latest bonus showed again how much influence a dominant barn can exert on a major meet without even winning its signature race. Laurel Park’s Preakness meet runs through June 30, but the trainer standings already told the larger story: in elite racing, depth is a weapon.