Harness race trainer Ron Burke currently holds the North American record for earnings in a year by a trainer with $28 million won by his racing stable in 2014. And that’s in all of racing – so more than any big name thoroughbred trainer with the larger, multi-million dollar purses offered in major thoroughbred races.
Ron and his father Mickey Burke have dominated standardbred racing for the last decade – and they’ve been doing it with all of their horses on SUCCEED.
Ron Burke’s Harness Racing Achievements
Ron Burke grew up with horses in the harness racing barn his father, Mickey, started in the early ‘80s. After training together for years, Ron officially took over the family business in 2009.
Since then, he has become the first harness race trainer to win over $100 million in career earnings along with the annual earnings record he took from thoroughbred trainer Todd Pletcher in 2014.
He also happens to be the first trainer to win more than 1,000 harness races in a year, a record set in 2013 leading to the U.S. Harness Writers Association’s award for best trainer that year.
Ron currently trains about 225 horses in operations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and Florida and has about 20 assistant trainers and 40 grooms.
Ron Burke’s Standardbreds Race Better on SUCCEED®
The Burkes first trialed SUCCEED Digestive Conditioning program in 2004, saw results in days, and have been using it ever since.
Ron currently feeds SUCCED to around 20 to 30 horses year round. Most of his top performers get SUCCEED, but if Ron notices a horse that looks lackluster, or has lost weight or otherwise seems compromised, that horse goes on SUCCEED straightaway.
The moment any one horse doesn’t look as healthy as the others, it goes on SUCCEED, Ron says. And that especially includes new horses. If they don’t immediately start looking good under our program, we start them on SUCCEED right away. It seems like SUCCEED is the one thing that we can add that really helps them if they’re not as healthy as they should be.
We trust SUCCEED to keep our horses in excellent health. Healthy horses are winning horses, and SUCCEED helps us get there.
