For bettors, Dale Romans has long been the guy whose horses could light up the tote board at any time. Shackleford ($27.20) in the Preakness Stakes (G1). Keen Ice, at 16-1, beating Triple Crown winner American Pharoah in the Travers Stakes (G1). Court Vision ($131.60) in the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1).
Safe to say that Romans has often walked into a million-dollar race with a horse the public shrugged at, only to walk out having rewritten the payoffs. So, when he announced last week that he’s running for Kentucky’s open U.S. Senate seat — and laughed that he thinks he’s “4-5 but everyone else has me at 99-1” — it didn’t sound like a trainer suddenly talking like a horseplayer.
It sounded like a man who’s spent 40 years watching the public bet the chalk – and losing more often than not.
“I’ve spent my whole life watching people get the odds wrong,” said Romans, who is running as an independent Democrat. “This is no different.”
Romans’ worldview comes straight from the racetrack, working with million-dollar owners and minimum-wage stable hands, an environment that gave him a rare vantage point on Kentucky’s economic realities — its wealth, its labor, its tensions, and its interdependence.
“I’ve worked with every kind of person you can imagine,” said Romans, whose highest elected position to date has been president of the Kentucky branch of the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. “You learn to listen, or you don’t last.”
He’s negotiated with wealthy partners, managed payrolls through worker shortages, watched immigrant grooms work long hours under tough conditions, and learned early that barns only function when everyone pulls in the same direction. That mix of small-business pressure, labor reliance, and backstretch pragmatism has become the backbone of his political identity: socially moderate, economically practical, and impatient with ideological theater.
On immigration, for instance, he calls the system “unworkable” and supports a legal pathway for long-serving undocumented workers. On regulation, he has watched sudden federal rules crush smaller barns and argues for protecting workers and employers alike. On healthcare, he sees rising costs hurting families on both sides of the payroll.
Romans knows the field is neither small nor soft, but less than a week after announcing his bid, he has raised more than $750,000, according to a news release from his campaign office.
Among those already in the race are, on the Democratic side, Amy McGrath (retired Marine aviator), Pamela Stevenson (state legislator), Logan Forsythe (attorney & former Secret Service), and Joel Willett (military veteran, ex-CIA). On the Republican side, big names like Andy Barr (U.S. Rep.), Daniel Cameron (former state AG), and businessman Nate Morris are in play.
Moreover, Kentucky hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Wendell Ford in 1992. And he knows his resume reads more Daily Racing Form than POLITICO. But he believes voters are tired of career politicians and open to a recognizable Kentucky voice from outside the Beltway.
He’s banking on name recognition, an outsider’s credibility, and a message grounded in real-world management rather than party-line theatrics. Most of all, he’s relying on the instinct that made him famous: reading the race better than most.
“I’ve seen a lot of favorites spit the bit,” he said. “And I’ve seen a lot of longshots come running.”
