When Kinnon LaRose saddles Michael McLoughlin’s Oscar’s Hope in Friday’s $400,000 Lafayette (L), the fifth race on opening day of the Keeneland Spring Meet, he will begin another chapter of his training career.

Keeneland is where in October 2020 LaRose met his mentor, Tom Amoss, who recently announced his semi-retirement from training Thoroughbreds. Amoss then transferred the bulk of his stable to LaRose, his assistant for the past six years, but will remain involved in an advisory role.

LaRose was familiar with Amoss from watching him as a racing analyst on Fox Sports. He sent Amoss an email seeking advice, and Amoss invited him to meet him at Keeneland during the 2020 Fall Meet. 

“He had four horses running on opening day at Keeneland and he won two races; I was hooked from there,” LaRose said. “Being at Keeneland was like going back in time — so much history.”

Amoss and LaRose have a great deal in common. Both began working with Thoroughbreds at the track with virtually no previous experience. Amoss was familiar with the sport while growing up in New Orleans. After he graduated from college, he started working at Fair Grounds, where he became a member of the track’s Hall of Fame. Similarly, LaRose absorbed Thoroughbred racing on family trips to Saratoga Race Course, 200 miles southeast of their home in Ogdensburg, New York. 

LaRose graduated from Sacred Heart University in Connecticut with a sports management degree and a master’s degree in strategic communications and public relations. During his school years, he also excelled at basketball.

After Amoss hired LaRose, he was taught to clean stalls and handle Thoroughbreds. LaRose then was promoted to groom and foreman prior to becoming his assistant.

“I am certainly very grateful and humbled for all of this. And lucky,” he said of the opportunity to succeed Amoss. “This doesn’t happen in this industry very often. I am not going to take it for granted; just going to do my best. I will be working with Tom in a different fashion and glad that he will still be around and still in my corner. I can’t be more appreciative to the owners and Tom. We will do this together.”