After spending most of his life working in Thoroughbred horse racing, from his adolescent days as a hotwalker in New Orleans for Hall of Famer trainer Jack Van Berg to his current incarnation as trainer of a 36-horse Kentucky stable split between Keeneland and Churchill, one can understand why Wayne Catalano felt so strongly about winning his 3,000th race as a trainer Sunday at Ellis Park. “It ain’t easy to win one race, much less 3,000 of them,” Catalano said, reached Thursday by telephone. Catalano became the 39th trainer in the modern history of North American racing to hit the 3,000-winner mark. Catalano also won 1,545 races as a jockey before trading his spurs and riding crop for a training chart and telephone. Catalano learned horsemanship first and the craft of race-riding second after trading a hardscrabble New Orleans childhood for hard work at the racetrack. As a jockey, Catalano never made the big-time, his major base of operations the defunct Detroit Racecourse. Catalano once rode a winner 41 days in a row, he said, breaking the record at the time of 38, set by Steve Cauthen. A knee injury bridged his transition from riding to training in the early 1980s. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. “My knee wasn’t as bad as my heart got weak,” said Catalano, 68. “When that happens, that’s when it’s time to hang up your spurs. I got one horse to train waiting for my knee to heal and I never went back.” Catalano’s annual win total peaked at 143 in 2010, and he had his best earnings year in 2013, winning purses totaling more than $5.6 million. Catalano won 11 training titles at Arlington Park, partnering with high-volume owner Frank Calabrese to dominate several meetings at a track where he saddled 1,115 winners before Churchill Downs Inc. closed Arlington following the 2021 meeting. In 2014, Catalano contracted the H1N1 virus, got a case of pneumonia on top of it, and wound up in the ICU in an induced coma, coming face-to-face with his mortality. “They told me I was knocking on heaven’s door,” Catalano said at the time. The sickness, a break with Calabrese, and Catalano’s glory days mainly had ended. Catalano won three Breeders’ Cup races between 2006 and 2011, the first of them the Juvenile Fillies with Dreaming of Anna, perhaps the highlight of his training career, Catalano said. In 2021, Catalano added a fourth Breeders’ Cup when Aloha West won the Sprint. This is the twilight. Arlington closed and the Catalanos, Wayne and Renee, sold their farm in the northwest Chicago suburbs. The couple now resides at a farm in Simpsonville, Kentucky. Catalano’s numbers are up this year from last. He has 17 winners this year, on track to exceed the 24 he sent out during 2023. “We might slow down a little bit,” Catalano said. “We always went to the track seven days a week, 365 days a year. We don’t have a walk day like some people do. We might have a walk day now.” No Fear makes U.S. debut The filly No Fear, bred in Brazil and campaigned with great success in Argentina, makes her North American debut in the featured eighth race Sunday at Ellis Park. Trained by Paulo Lobo for Bonne Chance Farm and Stud R D I, No Fear is one of a dozen fillies and mares in a 1 1/16-mile turf race with a basic second-level allowance condition and a $50,000 claiming option. No Fear, by Agnes Gold, brings a 2-3-1 record from six starts, her two top races resulting in defeat. Facing males, No Fear finished third of 17 last October in the Group 1 Jockey Club Stakes, Argentina’s derby. On Dec. 16, she raced against older rivals and took an agonizing defeat in the Group 1 Carlos Pellegrini, leading to the last jump of that 1 1/2-mile contest. “She arrived here in January and never had any setback. She’s been training well and we’re very confident on Sunday,” said Lobo. Lobo describes No Fear as “a medium to big filly, very strong, very kind to train, sound, and happy.” While she nearly won over 1 1/2 miles, Lobo believes No Fear will find a sweet spot at about 1 1/8 miles. Earlier in her career, she finished second in a pair of Group 1s over one mile, beaten both times by Neverwalkalone, who also came to Lobo this past winter. Neverwalkalone finished a disappointing fifth making her North American debut June 22 at Churchill Downs. “We were expecting good things, but sometimes that happens with South American horses the first time you run them here,” Lobo said. Expect something better from No Fear on Sunday. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.