Christmas came early for Steve Searle

For harness racing trainer Steve Searle Christmas came early this year. 

His 2-year-old trotting filly, Lou’s My Number (Lou’s Legacy), captured the $144,000 Fox Valley Flan Stake on Hawthorne’s Night of Champions, shattering the track record for her age and gait. On that chilly Nov. 9th evening, Lou’s My Number became the fastest 2-year-old diagonally gaited filly in Hawthorne’s history, trotting to victory for driver Casey Leonard in 1:56.3.

LOU’S MY NUMBER REPLAY

Then, just two weeks later, she captured the $98,744 Violet Stakes at the Stickney one-miler, setting a new track standard of 1:56.2, and besting her rivals by nearly four lengths.  

Steve, 65, is not a name you’d find on harness racing’s East Coast stage, but he’s certainly no stranger to the Midwest racing’s winner’s circle, and is quickly closing in on 1,000 training wins, having conditioned the winners of $8.1 million to date. The fourth generation horseman has known no other life than that which began with his great grandfather. He and his wife Debbie reside on their small farm in Grant Park, Illinois. 

“I was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the Bratwurst Capital of the world,” Steve laughed. “We stayed there until I was four and then moved to Princeton, Illinois when my Dad bought a farm. My mom, Donna was a homemaker, and Dad always trained horses.” 

Steve’s father, John Searle, trained horses at the Bureau County Fairgrounds, and his sons Steve and Tim (now 59) began helping him in the barn as soon as they could walk and clean stalls.

Steve also has a sister, Tracy, 56, who did participate in the family tradition. Tim was a trainer driver for many years, but retired from the horse business 20 years ago and now works for Sparland, IL., county services.  

“Dad had been racing in Wisconsin, where all of his family was from, but moved to Illinois in 1963 because the purses were so much better,” Steve explained. “The Bureau County Fairgrounds in Princeton, where we stabled, used to have a yearling sale every year and is where Su Mac Lad sold as a youngster. It is also the home of Bruce and Wayne Nickels.”  

Steve said his earliest memories are of being at the fair track with his father, his grandfather, and his uncle, who conditioned a little pacer named Dusty H Forbes p, 6, 1:59.4f ($246,756), prior to selling him to Bob Farrington.  

“I loved horses from day one,” Steve said. “I was a fairly decent student up until sixth grade and then Dad started letting me train and jog, and then I went from an A to a consistent C student. I did well in subjects like agriculture and crop science, but the other stuff became kind of a struggle.”  

Steve graduated in 1977 from Princeton High School, among a high school class of 150 students. 

“We had a lot of horse-enthused people in our class,” Steve noted. “There was a kid named Bruce Morine in my class, who was into cutting horses, and he was just enshrined in the Cutting Horse Hall of Fame. Scott Robbins (who trained and drove on the Chicago circuit) also went my  school and was in Tim’s class.” 

Throughout his middle and high school years, Steve never wavered from training horses, under the watchful eye of his grandfather and father, and the day before his 20th birthday (July 1, 1979), steered his own horse, Midnight Fun, 8, 2:04.1f ($27,845), a diminutive son by Moot Mite-Full Of Fun-Royal Date, to victory, in his first driving attempt, at the Rushville Fair. 

“He was my first horse, and my grandfather helped me train him down,” Steve recalled. “He was a 4-year-old and we won 12 races that year at the fairs. That was back when we went two heats and went from fair to fair—my high school friends went and helped me and we really had a good time. Midnight Fun also gave me my first pair-mutuel win, later that September at Quad City Downs.” 

That same summer, Steve ventured out on his own, taking four horses he had leased to the five-eights mile oval of Quad City Downs in Moline, IL.,  and then to the southern one-mile track at Fairmount Park.  

“In my head I thought ‘I’m going to sink or swim down here,’” Steve said of his Fairmount experience that summer. “Ray Parker—a trainer-driver from Corden, Indiana that my dad and I had gotten to know at Quad City, really helped me out. He approached me and asked me what I charged to train a horse. I didn’t have a clue and when he offered to give me $500 a month I jumped at it. He told me to show up at the paddock that night and he claimed a horse named REB, and I took him back to my barn. REB won his first start for us and paid $20 to win. Ray gave me $200 the night he won because he had bet the horse, and I was astounded; that $200 was like a million dollars to me back then. 

“Ray was a major player on the Illinois racing scene during those years, with one of the biggest stables at Quad City Downs,” Steve added. “A lot of other Illinois guys, such as Tom Simmons—got their start working for Ray. He was a great horseman and always willing to help a guy who was starting out.” 

Although that first summer at Fairmount Park presented a number of challenges for the young conditioner, Steve recalls those times with great fondness. 

“I was in the last barn, the furthest away from the track,” he said. “My barn was a good quarter of a mile from the track itself, and back then we’d warm up two trips, and then you’d have to go back to the barn and get your bucket and blankets and walk to the paddock. I didn’t have help then. Glen Cassagranda and Max Miller were both in my barn, and that’s where Jeff Peine got his start.  

“Once Peine came over to see me, because he had bought a pacer from Miller for $2,000 and was having trouble with him. He told me, ‘this is nice little pacer, but all he wants to do is trot,’ so I said ‘try qualifying him on the trot.’ The horse won his qualifier in 2:06 easily, and then throughout that year he got better and better and better on the trot, and the following February won the Dygert at Hawthorne.” 

The horse was Chad E. Carlton p, 4, 2:093. ($629) t, 9, 2:03.1 ($200,684). 

“That horse put Peine on the Chicago map,” Steve said. “I realized then that if you had a good horse, it could take you places.” 

Steve continued to ply his wares on the Quad City-Fairmount Park circuit until 1986, when he ventured to the Chicago tracks of Hawthorne, Maywood, Balmoral, and Sportsman’s Park. His best horse during those early years on the Windy City circuit was Miracle Dust, T, 7, 2:02.2f ($64,284) a pacing-bred trotter by Racing Miracle-Eat My Dust-Tar Heel Boy. 

“She really taught me a lot,” Steve admitted. “She really wanted to just pace, so I’d have to get her revved up, and behind the gate, she’d throw her head up and start trotting. But the most she ever won by was a neck. She wore an open bridle, and you’d have to pull her first up, and then she was game, and never let a horse get by her. She wanted to win but knew just how much effort she had to put forth to get the job done. I won ten races with her that year and she was a good horse for her class. 

“I like those kinds of horses—they teach you a lot and they give you all they got, which might not be a lot, but they give you all they got,” he added. 

Then, as is typical in the horse business, another trainer’s cast-off became Steve’s newest stable star, when he acquired a tall, lumbering trotter by the name of Serial Number, 7, 2:001.f ($195,475). 

“I’d always try to pick up horses at the start of the summer,” Steve recalled. “Right before the Sportsman’s Park meeting Mark Fransen came up to me and said he had a trotter for me, and I liked the horse right away and bought him for $5,000.” 

Steve purchased Serial Number on May 18, 1989, from Fransen, and had the son of C R Star-Arbor Flight for nearly two years. Bred and raised in California, Serial Number had raced in the Golden State for Joe Anderson as a 2- and 3-year-old.  

“He was nothing compared to today’s horses,” Steve stated reflectively. “But he was an open trotter at Quad Cities, and he was a great teaching tool for me. He was a whole different animal compared to what I had been working with for so long. The kind of horses I had been driving, for the most part, up until that time, were those where you had to sit and wait, and then make a dash at the end to try to get a piece of the purse. Serial Number was the first horse that I could pull and go on with.” 

Steve’s next standout was another trotter—this one a son of Cooper Lobell, out of the Heather Smoke mare Katie’s Girlde—named Mousin Around  3, 1:59.2 ($72,776). 

“I was training at Springfield for Ken Buck of Iowa and his partner, and got this horse from them,” Steve recalled. “I had to qualify him at Sportsman’s, because he had been on the list, but Phil (racing secretary Langley) made the qualifiers in the late afternoon, because we had to enter that night for the Cardinal Stakes. The horse stayed flat and qualified well and ended up finishing a strong second in the $45,600. I know a lot of horsemen thought Langley was tough or not nice, but he was always good to me, and the one thing no one could ever fault him on is that he was fair to everyone.  

“Mousin Around won his Su Mac Lad elim, but then got parked in the $100,000 final and finished fourth,” Steve added. “Richard Taylor (HHYF’s Ellen’s father) was unbeatable that year with a trotter named Allot, and he pretty much won everything, but Mousin Around was right there with him for the most part.” 

Steve and Debbie got married in 1994 and maintained a modest stable of ten to 12 horses. Early in the 20th century, Steve trained an Ideal Society filly—First Crush, p, 3, 1:53.4 ($103,058). 

“She was the first horse I trained who made more than $100 lifetime,” he said. “She hadn’t raced at two, and we got her from Jack Leonard. What made her especially fun is that the guy who was my health teacher and coach at Princeton High School bought her, and we had her during her 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old seasons. She was our first stakes horse who was a pacer, and I think her not racing at two really helped her. She was the best pacer I had ever trained up to that time.” 

“Jack Leonard was an excellent horseman,” Steve assessed. “His horses always had excellent manners, and they didn’t pull, they didn’t’ bear in or out, and they were all Cadillacs to drive.” 

In 2002, Steve and his father-in-law, Thomas Wisniewski, purchased a trotting broodmare that would prove to reward them for several decades. Patient Dream 8, 1:58.2 ($70,362) was a daughter of Town Escort out of the Cooper Lobell mare Moppy, and would go on to have nine foals—with her fifth being Ants Iner Pants—who earned $300,706 and took a 6-year-old mark of 1:55.1 for Steve. 

“We raised her,” Steve explained. “She was by Band’s Gold Chip and was the first horse that Deb and I owned who made serious money for us. She was a handful, but she was as professional as you could get. She was always super focused on the track and even now, when she trots around the field, she’s still flawlessly gaited and focused on her surroundings. We could have raced her past her 8-year-old season, but I felt she had maxed out on what she could earn for us.” 

Ants Iner Pants won 30 of 156 starts, with 34 seconds and 16 thirds, rarely finishing her mile without nabbing a check. Upon her retirement, Steve bred her to Lou’s Legacy, producing the gelding Losin Er Pants ($275), before foaling Lou’s My Number in 2022.  

“Her first foal was a total dud,” Steve laughed. “But Lou’s My Number has made more money as a 2-year-old than any other freshman we’ve had.” 

Owned by Steve and partners, Michale Buzzard, Chris and Michael Paloma, Lou’s My Number made $168,352 and took a mark of 1:56.2, winning four of 11 starts, along with six seconds and a third. 

“Deb took a photo of Lou’s My Number this past Spring and we compared it to a photo of Ants Iner Pants, and they were carbon copies of one another,” Steve said. “Lou’s My Number is smart and a terrific racehorse, and Casey (driver Leonard) gets along great with her, and he and I are on the same page when it comes to young horses. He’s not out there guttin’ or abusing them early in the year. He drives to win, but he also teaches them to trot. I think the speed, if they have any, will come with time when they learn to manage themselves. I always want their best races to come at the end of the season, not at the beginning.” 

Steve said Lou’s My Number will stay turned out until March, when he will bring her and the rest of his 3-year-olds, to get them ready for the summer races. In total, he and Deb have 20 racehorses, with several broodmares housed at either Walker Standardbreds in Sherman, IL, or at Flacco Farms in Alexis, IL.  

“Ants Iner Pants will have a Southwind Chrome foal at Flacco Farms this Spring and will be bred back to Lou’s Legacy in 2025,” Steve said. 

Always positive, Steve said he never tires of the ups and downs of the horse business. 

“Amazingly enough, I look forward to this life every day,” he said. “You never know if you’ve had or are going to have your best horse ever.” 

Always quick to praise his wife Deb, Steve says despite all his wins with his racehorses, it was the 24-hour, 100-mile Tevis Cup endurance ride, completed by Deb and her horse Ranger, in 2010, that is first place in his heart. 

“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced in the horse business, despite it not being with a harness horse,” Steve said. “The Tevis Cup is the Super Bowl of endurance riding and takes place in the high mountains of the western United States. The race goes through the Donner Pass, one hundred miles in 24 hours, over some pretty grueling terrain. I was so proud of Deb because she took a mediocre horse that she bought for $1,200 and finished that race, after being out there in the dark for hours on their own. When she came over the finish line at 5:30 in the morning, it was just spectacular. 

“I enjoy this life—harness racing—so much,” Steve concluded. “It’s good for me that Deb is such a good horseman too, because she sees many things that I may miss, and we make a good team working alongside one another.” 

by Kimberly Rinker, for Harnesslink