When you hear the name Burke you can’t help but think of harness racing. What started with Mickey Burke and has grown exponentially under Ron Burke, is a racing empire. Ron Burke has rewritten the history books of training horses, shattering records and milestones, and setting the bar at a new high every year. In 2009, Burke took the lines from his father Mickey as the leader in the Burke Stable. Since then he has had a 15-year streak leading the trainer’s list by money earned, with over $20 million each year since 2013 except the pandemic-affected 2020. Last year, Burke sent out 5,053 starters and posted a record of 1,156-766-688 with $27.5 million earned. This year to date, Burke has sent out nearly 1,700 starters, returning with 379 wins and $8.1 million in earnings. Since 1992, Burke has won 14,879 races as of press time, yielding $331 million. With an average barn of 250-head it is amazing that Burke had the time to discuss with me the inner working of his operation in such depth. He has his finger on every aspect of his stable and seems to not miss a beat. The story of course begins long before his Hall of Fame induction in 2023. Burke got into the business at the age of 12. “When I was 12 years old, my dad had a car dealership. He came home and said he’s selling the car dealership and is going to race horses. We literally thought we were going to starve to death. We literally would win one race a year. One race a year was a good year,” Burke said. “We actually moved, broke up with a longtime partner and moved in with the Snyders, Doug, Dave and Dick Snyder, and decided at that point they were going to race at The Meadows and he was going to learn what they did. It was around the time when me and Mickey went to work at the barn and I was scared to death of the horses when I first went. I found out I really did like it and really liked the horses all because of a horse named Embassy Omega. “Every year we’d build on and build on and build on. And the big thing was, right before Pennsylvania got the slots, we went to The Meadowlands to build a barn and found out we were competitive, so we decided we weren’t going to bring that barn back, we were just going to build another barn at The Meadows with more horses there. Then, basically did that everywhere. When Ohio got good, we sent horses to Ohio. When Indiana was good, we had a barn there. Now that Kentucky is good, we have a barn there. Basically, that is how the barn built. I say all the time, I don’t think anybody else could do what I do right now because I went from 40 to 80 to 120 to 200 to 250 and I kept growing. So, along the way, I learned. I made mistakes and I figured it out and got to know how. “I just don’t know if anybody else wants to do it,” Burke continued on his immense operation. “It’s the last thing I think about when I go to bed and it’s the first thing I think about when I get up in the morning.” The Burke Stable spans across seven barns with over 100 employees. “Every barn has to have at least one person that could do it if I dropped dead tomorrow. They could still run the barn. They understand the way of doing things,” Burke said. “People that are good with horses and good with organization; good with the owners. “Between me, Mark [Weaver] and my mother [Sylvia], we figure it out. Every barn has Murph, Adam Rucker, PJ Fraley, Nick Tiernan; there’s a lieutenant at every barn. Some barns have two. Murph has Keith Kamann, Nick has Jason Moore. Every barn basically runs independently, but also a part of the big picture, especially that they all work together great. That’s the number one thing, if you don’t work together, you won’t be around because number one I want people to enjoy what they do. If this isn’t fun, go do something else. That’s basically how it grew into what it is today.” The seven barns are located in Indiana, Lexington, Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, and three in Pennsylvania. Burke considers his employees to be friends first, employees second. “It’s good for all of us as far as being able to work together. A lot of these people are not only employees, but they are also friends of mine. They are people that I’ve been working with for 15-20 years. I look at them as friends first and employees second. I’m trusting them with the lives of my horses that are not only worth a lot to me, but I actually care about. I have to trust them. The minute I don’t trust you or the minute you cause the rest of us to no longer enjoy it, you won’t be working here. This is supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun, we have to change it to make it fun. The horses feel the vibes. If the barn vibes are bad, I think they feel that and they feel bad. I want the horses to be happy to be there too.” As far as ownership, the majority of the horses in Burke’s stable are co-owned between the Burke Racing Stable and Weaver Bruscemi LLC. “The big thing was the addition of Mark Weaver,” Burke said. “Mark gives us an endless supply of horses because he’s always looking for horses, looking to sell and looking to buy.” While he enjoys the business overall, Burke said his favorite part is to get on the track and sit behind one. “Truthfully the one thing I really enjoy is training. I do the entries because I’m good at it, I understand it and I have a good memory, but the part I love is sitting behind the horses.” Speaking of sitting behind horses, Burke has tallied 111 wins as a driver, though, again, he prefers training. “I love training. I don’t particularly care for jogging. The only reason I jog is because I feel bad for the guys if there’s a lot left. These days, I jog 10-12 and go home happy. Training, I love. I could do that all day, every day. I warm up for the bigger races. I trust my guys. Every day at The Meadows, we break them up. I usually take the ones that tend to be more difficult.” As far as entering goes, it seems to be a difficult feat to get the average stable size entered in a week, deciding which horses go where and in what class, the overlap on entry times and race times, driver picks, and making the last-minute changes when necessary. Once again, in this case, that is multiplied exponentially when it comes to the Burke operation. “Every barn has to turn in twice a week a list of the horses that are in their barn,” Burke explained. “They have to list everybody all at the same time. If a horse moves, I know where they are moving to, so I’ll move them. Every week, I checkmark when they are entered and every horse gets a star when they’re in. When they are all stars, you’re good. Some horses you just put down training, but it forces me to think of every horse in the barn every day. I at least have a thought process of ‘where are we with this horse, where are we going with this horse?’ ► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter “If I don’t understand where we are going or where we are at, I can call the head of that barn and say ‘Hey, where is this horse at? How much have we trained it? Condition-wise where do you think it’s at?’ and they can give me the right answer. The thing is, if I don’t get the answer I like, they come home. Home is always going to be PA for me. We have a training center here and at the Meadows. I go easily to both every day so I can see horses that I am most worried about.” Thus, despite having a lengthy roster of horses, Burke is well-informed on each and every horse, how they are training, and when and where they are racing next. The greatest number of horses Burke has had entered in a single day was 55 horses in at 10 different tracks last year. The process of entering has been simplified with the addition of online entries. “I could never do it without online entries. I remember sitting there and just dialing the phone over and over again. I would quit. That’s the greatest thing ever done. If we could figure out how to make driver changes that way, it will truly be the greatest thing.” Up next in the process, racing. Now comes the part of the shipping, paddocking, warming up, and racing. If you’ve traveled to various harness races, especially the big stakes, it’s likely you’ve seen the literal “Burke Brigade” pull up in their trailers and matching shirts. The trailers are decaled with yellow insignia for Burke Racing and their equipment, jog carts, horses, and grooms all match to that effect. Though with so many entered in various places on any given day, where do you go as the trainer? “Usually where they need me most is where I go. Sometimes, I just stay home. Yesterday I had so many stake races, I didn’t go to any of them because I would have missed too many watching and I try to see every race. I don’t see every race, but I’ve seen way more. Like if I’ve raced 5,000, then I’ve seen 4,500 easily. It’s usually a lot based on my ability to watch the races. The 2-year-olds always get an extra check. If it comes down to 2-year-olds or aged horses, I’m going with the 2-year-olds. I know them the best, I like to go there and make sure there are having good experiences the first couple times. “When people call me about shipping, I don’t know, don’t want to know,” Burke added. “Call my guys. If the truck’s acting up, call my brother, call my mother, I don’t do trucks. Mark says it best, stay in your lane. Drivers drive, vets vet, blacksmiths shoe, trainers take care of horses. Stay in your lane. It’s really that easy. Do what you do and do it to the best of your ability.” With such a large operation, Burke and his team must handle selecting drivers for each and every horse entered. “Most places we have a guy that is our guy, so we just use the guy that we use on everything,” Burke explained. “We’ve started to change a little bit, but everyone knows we have our guys. Yannick Gingras, Dave Miller, we use Dexter [Dunn], Toddy [McCarthy], and Joe Bongiorno. In PA, Ronnie Wrenn drives 95% of them. In Ohio, Chris Page drives them all. Devon Tharps is starting to become more of our Kentucky guy and Indiana until our Grand Circuit guys get there. Our Grand Circuit guys are Yannick, Dave, Dex, Joe, Toddy, and a little Scotty [Zeron]. With those guys you can’t get hurt with any of them.” Burke’s stable expands across all ages of horses with all class levels represented. His stable is very well represented by award winners and track, national, and world-record holders. In 2023, Burke’s students It’s Academic and Bythemissal took home trophies in their respective divisions of the USHWA Dan Patch Awards, adding to the already extensive collection of trophies for the Burke Brigade by his horses. As a trainer, Burke has received three Trainer of the Year titles through the USHWA Dan Patch Awards in 2011, 2013, and 2018. As an owner, Burke Racing and Weaver Bruscemi have collected two Owner of the Year awards in 2013 and 2018. The collection expands across the border as Burke’s horses have yielded O’Brien Awards in Canada. Also in 2023, Burke claimed training titles at The Meadowlands, Harrah’s Philadelphia, Dayton Raceway, and The Meadows; earned his sixth Kaltenbach title as the leading trainer in the Ohio Sires Stakes; topped the Grand Circuit standings; surpassed the $300 million mark in earnings; and set a new record as the only trainer to achieve more than 1,100 wins (1,156) in a single season. The previous record of 1,093 wins in a single season was set by Burke and matched five times as the only trainer to ever achieve the 1,000-win plateau. In addition to being inducted in the U.S. Hall of Fame in 2022, Burke checks off every box with Dan Patch Awards, O’Brien Awards, training titles, milestones, record mile times, and historic races won. From coast-to-coast, Burke’s horses have made a statement in winning big races, including several Breeders Crown titles, the North America Cup, the Little Brown Jug, the Delvin Miller Adios and the Gold Cup and Saucer. His list of top trainees extends to the highest earning Standardbred of all time, Foiled Again ($7.6 million), and triple millionaires Sweet Lou, Hannelore Hanover, and Atlanta. With such a star-studded résumé, Burke still has his favorite and most memorable moments in racing. “Two races come up,” Burke said on his most memorable races won. “Both Foiled Again. Foiled Again winning the Canadian Pacing Derby. It’s funny, I was standing in Indiana Downs in the upstairs bar by myself cheering because I had raced at Hoosier that night and we didn’t think he had a chance. The other was when he won the Breeders Crown at Pocono and when he won. The whole crowd went crazy and I thought, this horse is not just our horse, it’s everybody’s horse. Everybody cheers for this horse and that’s a good feeling. “It’s a reminder that we are not the stars. The trainers are not the stars. The drivers are not the stars. The horses are the stars. People get mad at the drivers and people get mad at the trainers; you can’t get mad at a horse. Foiled went one time to Canada and he was on the backside and drew 1,500 people just to see him stand in the paddock. The Premier of Canada was on the front and she drew 500. Right there tells you all you need to know. People like horses and we can’t lose sight of that.” Burke’s personal favorite horse is Mission Brief, a now 12-year-old mare and daughter of Muscle Hill that won just $483 shy of $1.6 million in earnings with a record of 19-3-0 in 27 starts. She had a mark of 1:50 2/5 taken in the Matron at Dover and saw her sophomore campaign as her breakthrough year with 10 wins and three seconds in 14 starts. “Hands down it is Mission Brief. The best horse I have ever sat behind and my favorite horse,” Burke said. “Foiled, obviously, and Lou. Embassy Omega, without him I wouldn’t be in the game. Town Judge was the best horse I’ve driven on a regular basis, but Mission Brief was the best horse I’ve ever sat behind and my most favorite horse I’ve ever seen.” As far as Burke’s personal résumé goes, what could be next? “I’d like to win a Hambo and not give it back 10 minutes later,” Burke laughed. “The Meadowlands Pace. I’m satisfied with what I’ve done. It doesn’t mean I’m done or I’ve lost my fire to win. I’d like to get to $400 million in purses because I don’t think that will ever be beat if I get there. Truth is, you set records for other people to try to break them. If they break them, it isn’t going to change your life. If you did good, you did good. There’s nothing really that I feel like I need to do, I’m pretty satisfied with what we’ve done as a group. I just want to keep doing it. I enjoy it. I like the people. I like the horses. There’s no reason to stop.” Burke attributes his success to his team and hard work. “Hard work. We work. I work. My sister works. My brother works. My son started with us this year, he graduated college and he seems to have it. I wasn’t sure if he did, but he’s the first one that’s on the track each day, first one to say he’ll do anything, jump in and do it, and he makes a difference with a positive attitude.” And while Burke can be considered one of the most influential and inspiring trainers in harness racing history, he has his own trainers that he looks up to. “The two people that are a little bit older but I still consider my contemporaries are Jimmy Takter and Ake Svanstedt. Jimmy is insanely intelligent. He just knows. He’s the first one I would go and ask anything. Ake, I love the way his horses look, I love the way they act. They can be off for months and come back and win. Growing up, it was Dick Snyder and my father. The people that showed me what to do. My dad was just an all-around horseman with not just the business but also hunters and jumpers.” Going forward, Burke agrees that the success of the business can be helped by focusing on the bettors. “We can’t lose sight of the fact that we are a gambling industry, not just an entertainment industry but a gambling industry. We need to make the product receptive to people putting wagers on it. I think sometimes they get too caught up on getting young kids to the track, which is great, except young kids don’t have disposable income. Older men do. We should keep the older guys that come and make it a great experience so they continue to support the product.” All-in-all, Ron Burke has etched his name forever into the history of harness racing and his name as well as his horses’ names continue to top the charts across the board. His list of accolades is extensive and his trophy case must be large, but the (much less than) two minutes his students spend on the track en route to the winner’s circle only show a fraction of the time, work, and effort behind-the-scenes of Burke and his team.