TRAINER PATRICIA VISSCHER RETIRES AFTER 23-YEAR CAREER
Patricia Visscher retired from training racehorses on Tuesday morning after a 23-year career that featured 254 Quarter Horse wins at Los Alamitos Race Course, including 11 graded stakes victories and 18 total stakes wins.
“I’ve been at Los Alamitos a long time, and it’s time to say goodbye,” said Visscher, 79.
Visscher’s last official starter was a runner-up finish with Ed and Theresa DeNike’s Mind Control in the trials for the $99,500 Los Alamitos Maiden Stakes on Sunday, February 2. Visscher added that she will be moving to Arizona in the very near future to be closer to her family.
“I sold my place in Norco, and I bought a house in Arizona,” Visscher said. “I saved my money so I could do that. When you retire, you’ve got to have something. I’m going up there to be closer to my son, Stoney, my daughter-in-law, and my grandson. To have family there makes it nice, and I’m looking forward to it.”
Visscher had over 1,800 starters during her trainer career for earnings of over $3.7 million. She had a lot of success training for the DeNikes, saddling several major stakes winners for them, including Sweet Tess in the 2022 Los Alamitos Oaks (now a Grade 1 stakes race). For the DeNikes, Visscher also won the Grade 1 PCQHRA Breeders Futurity twice, her first victory coming with Ancient Ruler in 2007 and the second with Jumpn Beduino in 2009. Visscher and the DeNike also combined to win the Grade 2 La Primera in 2010 with Jumpn Beduino and the Grade 1 La Primera Del Ano (now known as the Oaks) with Kaniska in 2006.
“I’ve known Ed DeNike for over 20 years, and he always had some really nice horses. That always made it easy for you,” Visscher said.
Her best statistical years as a trainer came from 2006 to 2009, as she won 97 races during that span. That included a career-high 32 wins in 2009 and a career high in earnings of $632,127 in 2007.
Born in Los Angeles, Visscher grew up in the North Orange County area close to Los Alamitos Race Course. In her youth, Visscher would often visit the Cypress track.
“I just liked horses,” she said. “I had riding horses when I was young and used to participate in horse gymkhana (where riders compete in show jumping, races, and related events), barrel racing, and those types of activities. I then went to work at Legacy Ranch galloping horses when Fred Scane ran the place.”
While at Legacy Ranch, she met horseman Hans Visscher, and the two would eventually marry.
“I worked at the ranch helping to get horses ready, and then we would send them to the track to (trainer) John Cooper,” she said. “That’s how things went.”
Hans would later enjoy success training in the California circuit, saddling 430 Quarter Horse winners at Los Alamitos. Hans passed away in 2002, and Visscher picked up the reins in the barn to keep the stable going.
“It got hard when Hans passed away,” she said. “I had to do everything by myself. You think, ‘I can do this, I can do that,’ but a lot of the time it would have been good to have somebody there that I could talk about things. That made it tough, but I got through it. I was lucky that I learned some things along the way. You always have the ups and downs in this business, but you have those no matter what business you’re in.”
As mentioned earlier, Visscher had many big moments at Los Alamitos, not only with the wonderful horses owned by the DeNikes, but also horses that she bred and raced, horses that she purchased at sales, and horses that she trained for Fred Scane.
She won three graded stakes events with homebred Enjoy The Moment and also won a restricted Grade 1 stakes race with Soul Of Silence, a horse she owned in partnership with Marci South and Douglas Rau. Along with her husband, Hans, she enjoyed several stakes wins with their homebred King Of The Jungle, a 17-time winner from 85 career starts.
“It was good when Enjoy The Moment won her first stakes, the (2004 Grade 2) Miss Princess Handicap. That was fun because I raised her. That was really a good thing.
“King Of The Jungle was another that I raised, ran, and won a couple of stakes with him. It was fun when I bought Soul Of Silence out of the Pomona Sale and won (six) races with him, like the Spencer Childers and other stakes races. I still have all the pictures with him. Those kinds of things are nice. And even all those little races that you win, they’re nice too because it’s hard to win a race at Los Al.
“A lot of my owners, they got old, just like I have,” she added. “Some of them have passed away, like Fred Scane. Fred was a great guy, a good guy. I miss him to this day. I won some nice races for him. He had some very nice horses over the years. He was just great. I just don’t know how to say it any better. I miss him a lot.
“It’s hard to get new owners. It just got to the point where I can’t do it by myself anymore, so everything is a lot of money put out. I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore. I’m turning 80 soon, plus the 91 Freeway is not a fun place to be when you’re driving it back and forth.
“I’ll probably be leaving for Arizona early next week,” Visscher added. “People are asking me, ‘Pat, what are you going to do now when you retire?’ I tell them, ‘Nothing! That’s what retirement is about.’
“I do like to go to the casinos, and there are a lot of them in Arizona. With my grandson and my son, we’ll go to the (horse) races as fans. I’ll just enjoy doing those kinds of things. That’s what retirement is all about.”
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