Wise Dan Trainer Charlie LoPresti Confirms He’s Been Retired

Veteran horse trainer Charlie LoPresti, known for training two-time Horse of the Year Wise Dan, has confirmed having quietly retired at the age of 63. LoPresti disbanded his stable late last year after a career spanning 27 years but harbors plans to remain in the industry.

Wise Dan likely made betting folk pretty happy under LoPresti’s tutelage, but persons new to the game would do well to note that horse-bettors.com is a great avenue for finding some of the best online offers.

“I haven’t been racing horses for 6 or 7 months now, and I didn’t want to make a production about it. I wanted it to be quiet,” he was quoted as saying by Daily Racing Form’s Marty McGee (H/T Bloodhorse.com). “I had some really, really good horses and those horses were great horses. I give the horses more credit than me.” 

The 63-year-old handled his last starter at Indiana Grand Racing & Casino in October, with his last win coming around 5 months prior when Lessons From Avery came in at #1 in a 1 1/8-mile allowance at Churchill Downs.

His retirement comes on the back of 310 wins in 2,205 lifetime starts as well as $20,043,754 in earnings. Wise Dan won nearly half of the earnings, taking 23 victories during 2010 and 2014. The Morton Fink-bred gelding won his first top-level score at four in the Clark Handicap at Churchill and would go on to stake a claim as one of the best with consecutive G1 wins in the Ricoh Woodbine Mile and the Breeders’ Cup Mile in 2012 and 2013.

He won back-to-back races in the Maker’s 46 Mile and Woodford Reserve Turf Classic the next two years, adding to the accolades with another set of first-place hauls at the Shadwell Turf Mile in 2012 and 2014. Wise Dan retired with a 23-2-0 record and $7,552,920 in earnings. 

The gelding was named champion grass horse and champion older horse in 2013 and 2014, as well as Horse of the Year both years. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year. Now 14, Wise Dan lives on LoPresti’s Forest Lane Farm in Athens, Kentucky, with his half-brother Successful Dan, a grade 2 winner also trained by LoPresti.

LoPresti, meanwhile, isn’t looking to turn his back on the business and says he’s still training young horses on his farm for some of his old clients.

“I’ve been very fortunate in the business,” he noted. “But the racetrack takes up a lot of your time, and I have other things I want to do. That is really what made me make the decision.”