Harrah's Hoosier Park: Burke the Breeder out in full effect for Friday's Crown elims

It was hardly a surprise to see a multitude of entries for Friday's Breeders Crown races at Harrah's Hoosier Park from the sport's leading trainer, Ron Burke. It's a given, no matter what division, Burke has it covered, and very often with more than one entry. The surprise, as it relates to Friday's elimination round, is that Burke has five freshmen in the juvenile Crown pacing eliminations that were homebreds.

While Burke has been dominating the racing wars for years, he also has quietly been building a broodmare band that has more than proven its mettle.

"It really started out that we were trying to support Sweet Lou," said Burke of the evolution that began some years ago and now has blossomed to roughly 30 mares. "It really was Mark Weaver's idea. I had nothing to do with it. I just wanted to train the babies.

"When you look at it, we'll spend like $40,000 to get one to the races. When you look at that comparatively, it would cost between $200,000 and $250,000 to buy similar horses at auction," Burke said.

What separates Burke's five juvenile pacers on Friday night from the rest of the fields is not just that they are homebreds, but that they are homebreds from pacing mares that raced in multiple years, with one - Breakheart Pass - racing until the age of 8. Breakheart Pass earned nearly $400K in just two years for Burke before her retirement from the track to motherhood. She has been a 100 percent producer, with Pass Line, her seventh foal and second behind All Bets Off, already her fastest and likely to be her richest within the next couple of weeks.

Pass Line enters Friday's eliminations as the one to beat in her division, having landed post two in the third race. She has been the best Ontario-sired horse all season long and certified that last week with an imposing 1:50 4/5 front-end victory for Yannick Gingras in the Ontario Sires Stakes Super Final. With Pass Line based in Ontario, Gingras had not driven her all year until September 2 when he guided her to a 1:49 3/5 career-best effort where she advanced a long way without cover and won by open lengths.

Burke's other homebred Camerican (post five) is another with proven credentials, first racing much of the year in New York Sire Stakes before heading to Lexington where she captured an International Stallion Stakes division on October 6 in a career-best 1:50 3/5 clocking. Camerican is the sixth foal from the Camluck-sired mare Camille. Burke and associates purchased Camille as a 4-year-old and added roughly $950K to her career bank account that rose to $1.276 million before her retirement.

Despite her success on the racetrack, the conversion to broodmare was not an instant success for Camille. Though she did produce racehorses, there was nothing exceptional from her first four breedings, all to Sweet Lou. Her fifth foal, by Captaintreacherous, is the $185K winner Hello Yes Hi. Camerican was her first cross with American Ideal and in just one year on the track has already surpassed the earnings of all other foals. Camerican returns to the Hoosier oval having finished fourth behind Blue Pacific in the Kentuckiana on September 22.

While Burke will have three of the six fillies entered in the second $25,000 Crown elimination for juvenile pacers (race five), he won't have the favorite, with the unbeaten Geocentric (post two) a probable odds-on favorite. That said, My Girl EJ (post five), a full sister to the $1.1 million winning Lou's Pearlman and fourth foal from the dam Lucy's Pearl, did give Geocentric the biggest challenge of her career when she battled to the wire and finished a neck back in the $252,000 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes Championship at Pocono on September 2. My Girl EJ had post eight on that occasion with Geocentric starting from post three. Both fillies saw action on the second week of the Red Mile Grand Circuit, with Geocentric coming from off-the-pace to a 1:49 3/5 victory and My Girl EJ racing on the front-end to a career-best 1:49 1/5 mile on October 6.

My Girl EJ's dam Lucy's Pearl was purchased by Burke and company as a 5-year-old after a successful stint with the late Ron Gurfein. She's more than exceeded her racing career where she won $341K. With her first four foals earning in excess of $1.5 million, that number is likely to grow significantly. Her fifth foal is a Papi Rob Hanover colt named Second Generation owned by David McDuffee.

"We sold the breeding rights for one year to her," said Burke of the interesting arrangement that allowed David McDuffee to breed a quality mare to his first-year stallion without taking ownership.

Canigetalouploup was another of the homebreds to capture a Grand Circuit event at The Red Mile. The Sweet Lou filly from Continual Velocity earned a 1:50 4/5 mark in her Bluegrass win on September 28 and then was a solid second to Geocentric a week later, giving credence to her Breeders Crown entry. She's the fourth foal of the dam and a full sister to the Breeders Crown elimination winner in this division at Harrah's Hoosier Park in 2020 by the name of Continualou. While Canigetalouploup's sister did not enjoy similar success during her freshman campaign at The Red Mile, the likely reason she paid $186 to win, she would go on to capture the Matron Stakes at year's-end in a career-best 1:50 2/5 following her fourth-place finish in the Crown finale.

As with the other Burke broodmares, Continual Velocity arrived in his stable as a 6-year-old, and she would have the best year of her racing career, enjoying 12 wins and earnings of $187K. Continual Velocity made a limited number of starts as a 7- and 8-year-old before being bred to Sweet Lou as a 9-year-old.

► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter

To say Burke's success as a breeder is unconventional is an understatement. That all these mares were purchased with a specific goal of racing them for years after the initial buy and then go on to success as broodmares, is contrary to traditional wisdom that sees professional breeding farms seek out 2- and 3-year-old fillies after a couple of years on the track and then have them in-foal as 4-year-olds. Going back to Pass Line's dam Breakheart Pass, she started her broodmare career as a 10-year-old.

Unlike the four fillies Burke sends out on Friday, his lone homebred colt Noblesville doesn't have any heralded storylines going back to her dam, or for that matter, brothers and sister. As a matter of fact, Noblesville is the second living foal from Happiness and the first foal, a filly, was also named Noblesville until her untimely passing. Noblesville, a son of JK Endofanera, is an example of how things don't always go as planned in the breeding business, either. His dam was acquired after her 2-year-old season and didn't have the same kind of success as her stablemates on the track, earning just $86K lifetime before attempting a broodmare career in 2017. Happiness was barren that year and lost her first foal in 2019. Then she was barren again in 2020, with the colt version of Noblesville, who is in the Breeders Crown, arriving in 2021.

"We like to give a chance to the mares that we think a lot of but haven't gotten there for one reason or another," said Burke of the decision to retain Happiness as opposed to selling her.

Noblesville enters the Crown with four wins in 10 starts racing exclusively in Indiana and is one of two Burke entrants in the 13th race on Friday, one of three eliminations for juvenile pacing colts and geldings. Despite his solid record, Noblesville drew into a tough division with the once-beaten pair of Captain Albano (post four) and Legendary Hanover (post six) sandwiching him behind the starting gate. Magnifico Hanover (post three) won back-to-back stakes at The Red Mile and will get his biggest test to date in the same division.

"I think he'll be competitive," said Burke.

Harness racing has changed a lot since the inception of the Breeders Crown in 1984, and it's great to see race-horse trainers become stakes horse trainers and then breed stakes horses in their next career. Ron Burke and his partners have enjoyed success at all levels.