Dale Romans is among the most successful trainers in the history of Kentucky racing. He's the all-time leading trainer in terms of wins at Churchilll Downs, has won the GI Preakness Stakes and upset Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) with Keen Ice (Curlin) in the 2015 GI Travers S. But he's looking for a career change. Last week, trainer Romans announced that he'd like to become U.S. Senator Romans, representing Kentucky. He announced his candidacy and has entered the Democratic primary.
To discuss why he is running for office, his love for his home state and what he'd like to accomplish in Washington, Romans sat down with the team this week at the TDN Writers' Room Podcast presented by Keeneland. He was the Gainesway Guest of the Week.
Romans was asked why such a successful trainer would want to make such an abrupt career change and go to Washington at a time when D.C. is a snake pit. The answer was, he wants to make a difference.
“I've been the vice president of our HBPA for 30 years,” Romans said. “I've spent a lot of time on Capitol Hill. As Zoe [Cadman] knows, we spent a full day there together one time. I've been behind the scenes on a lot of political issues. I've supported a lot of our Democratic candidates inside the state of Kentucky. I've spent a lot of time in Frankfort working on issues like the VLT situation we have and helping Kentucky and Kentucky racing grow as a whole. Politics has always been a side gig of mine. And this seat became open. At this stage of my life, I think I could do a lot of good and help people from Kentucky by getting to Washington.”
The pundits say he is a longshot. He first has to get by a formidable opponent in Amy McGrath in the Democratic primary, and if he gets that far, beat the Republican candidate in what is a solid red state. Can he pull it off? Who has he sought for advise? Should he have run, instead, as a Republican.
“I'd be a phony issue if I changed my party to Republican and run as Republican,” he said. “That's not who I am. I'm a Democrat, but I'm a very centrist Democrat. Senator [Joe] Manchin and I have been talking. I talked to him a lot about running as a Democrat because he was a Democrat who won in a red state, West Virginia. He told me to identify myself as an independent Democrat. He said from your state you would have a lot of power coming from a red state and being a Democratic senator because they can never primary you. You don't have to go along with the party on anything. You can vote for what's right for Kentucky and what's right for this country. Everybody says we're such a red state. They did vote for Trump, but we've seen it all in the elections in the last couple of weeks that people don't just follow what Trump says and who to vote for. We have a Democratic governor, a very popular one. He's won a couple of terms.
“We just haven't had an opportunity really to have a Democratic Senator for a long time. For 30 years, we had two institutions, Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning. Rand Paul came in, and I don't think we ran the strongest candidate against him, and he won the seat. So there really hasn't been a lot of opportunity for a Democrat to run for a Senatorial seat in the state of Kentucky. I'm just going to give it all I can, see what I can do.”
Win or lose, Romans is in a good place in his life, one of the reasons he felt it was time to throw his hat in the ring. He has lost a considerable amount of weight and has overcome his problems with alcohol addiction.
“I'm in the best place I've been in my life,” he said. “You're right, Zoe. You've known me a long time. We've had a lot of fun together. I was excess on everything. I ate too much, I drank too much. But a few years ago, I decided I needed to make major changes or I wasn't going to be here. And the first thing I did was have gastric sleeve surgery. I've lost 180 pounds. Two years ago, I went into rehab. That's another thing I want to work on at Capitol Hill, our whole rehab system. I haven't had a drink in two years. I've never been healthier or happier in my life.”
Working as a trainer, he knows how important an immigrant labor force is in racing and in other industries. He said one of his major goals in Washington will be to work to fix the immigration mess.
“I'm trying to get this issue through,” he said. “I've gotten as far as [United States Secretary of Agriculture] Brooke Rollins at a meeting with her,” Romans said. “You just can't get it over the line because it's a political pawn. It makes no sense to me. Even when I sat with Mitch McConnell for a long time in March, he said both sides agree. He agreed with me 100% as far as what we should do. He said neither side wants the other side to get the win. It would be one of the first issues I want to work on. We need to document, not deport. That's a more realistic situation for a labor force that we have to have in this country.”
The “Fastest Horse of the Week” was the Robertino Diodoro-trained $10,000 claimer Get Her Number (Dialed In), who turned in a 103 Beyer in a race at Remington Park. The Fastest Horse of the Week segment is sponsored by WinStar, which stands the stallion Constitution
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the PHBA, 1/ST TV and West Point Thoroughbreds, Randy Moss, Bill Finley and Zoe Cadman discussed Finley's TDN story about a horse named Awesome Hawaiian (Awesome Bet) pulled from a kill pen by John Stewart and his family, who went on to win a $30,000 maiden claimer at Churchill Downs. As heartwarming a story as it was, the team lamented that too many horses in this country are still liable to show up in the slaughter pipeline. They also looked at the booming sales market, which set records across the board at virtually every major sale in 2025, including the recently concluded November sale at Keeneland.
Click here to listen to the podcast or here to watch.
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