Hammond earns 2000th career victory

Already the all-time leading female trainer by wins, Kim

Hammond notched her 2,000th career victory Saturday when she saddled Big Smooth

to an emphatic seven-length score in the 4TH race at Turfway Park.

"It feels good. It's about time!" Hammond said, noting that

in the last month her trainee Limerick Lady had twice brought her within a head

of reaching the mark.

"Where's my champagne?" Hammond laughed, referencing Turfway's tradition of toasting winning owners and trainers in its paddock

lounge.

As she watched the replay from the lounge, however, the emotional impact

of her accomplishment came home.

"I just wish my mom was here today," Hammond said through

tears. "I lost my mom, Imogene, two years ago. She was a big fan. When you're

close to your parents, you want them to be there with you."

Born in East St. Louis, Illinois, Hammond drew up competing in

barrel racing and pole bending events. At 14 she went to work for her father,

Everett Hammond, a dominant fixture for decades at Fairmount Park. She and her

brother, four years younger, galloped horses on the family farm, and she often ponied her dad's runners at night. After high school graduation she began taking

his horses on the road.

When a heart attack forced her dad to cut back in the early

1980s, he turned most of his 100 horses over to his son.

"It's a tough life for anybody, but you figure back then,

in the '80s, for a girl...? No way," Hammond said. "There were hardly any

women in the business then, and my dad didn't think I had a shot. He gave me 12

or 15 horses. It was tough for my brother, too. He was only 18 years old."

Over the next 18 months, many of her dad's former clients

made their way to Kim Hammond's barn, and she began adding clients of her own as

well.

"The owners started coming to me," she said, "and they've stuck with me. It

takes a long time to establish that relationship."