PROFILE
MIKE TROMBETTA
BUILDING FOUNDATIONS OF A DIFFERENT K IND F
or the first 15 years of his 31-year training career, 55-year-old Mike Trombetta split every day between the racetrack and his brother Dino’s demolition company in White Marsh, Maryland. “He would train horses in the morning and knock down buildings in the afternoon,” his long-time friend and client R. Larry Johnson laughed. Dino added, “Then he’d go back to the track in the evenings just to check on things.” Of course he did. That’s what he, Dino and their sister Laura learned from their parents. “Our dad worked extremely hard,” Dino said. “Both him and my mom were hard workers. That’s how we grew up. We worked hard in everything we did. That’s what it took to have success.” Mike could still be working two jobs had he not had the good fortune to take over the training of a horse who had previously made just one start, finishing 12th by 24 lengths as a two-year-old in 2005. That horse, Sweetnorthernsaint,
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would go off the favorite in the 2006 Kentucky Derby, making a strong middle move under Ken Desormeaux before tiring to finish seventh. Sweetnorthernsaint then finished second in the Preakness Stakes. “That gave us national exposure,” Trombetta said. “That gave us a big push for sure.” The following year, Trombetta’s starts increased from 312 to 422, his victories from 78 to 106 and his earnings from $2.7 million to $3.5 million. Trombetta abandoned his demolition career and began upward trending with his training. In 2019, he posted a career high in earnings— $4,614,509—helped by his three-year-old Win Win Win, who was ninth in the Kentucky Derby, and his two-year-old Independence Hall, who became a legitimate contender for the 2020 Kentucky Derby. Independence Hall ran into problems in 2020, but Trombetta still finished 24th in earnings with more than $4.1 million and a win percentage of 16.0. Trombetta has posted a win percentage of 20 or higher for an entire year 11 times.