By Dick Jerardi
As we close in on September with Jamie Ness 26 winners clear of Steve Asmussen for most training wins in 2025, consider that, since 2000, just four trainers have ended the year with the most winners – Asmussen (15 times), Karl Broberg (five), Scott Lake (four) and Ness (one).
Ness has finished second to Asmussen each of the last three years, 44 behind last year, 30 behind in 2023 and 56 behind in 2022. Asmussen’s high-water mark was an almost impossible 650 winners in 2009. Broberg won each year from 2015 to 2019 with an amazing 2,256 winners in those five years. Lake won in 2006 (528 winners), 2003 (455), 2001 (407) and 2000 (337). Ness finished first in 2012 with 395 winners to Asmussen’s 285.
When he finished first 13 years ago, Ness was training for powerhouse Midwest Thoroughbreds. After losing that job and essentially having to start over, Ness rebuilt the operation that today, with full barns at Parx, Delaware Park and Laurel Park, is running, to borrow a phrase, “like a tremendous machine.”
The trainer, with 4,780 wins and counting (fast), will hit 5,000 in 2026. He won 1,350 races from 2021-2024. He is going to go over 300 again this year and, yes, he knows he is in the national lead with just over four months left in the year.
“I’m not going to go for it,” said Ness, who is going to win his sixth consecutive Parx title this year. “I’m not going to do anything out of the ordinary. If it happens, it happens.”
The biggest difference between Ness and Asmussen this year is the winning percentage. Asmussen has more starts (1,589) and starters (487) than Ness’s 918 and 241. But Ness (236 winners) is hitting at 26 percent while Asmussen (210) is at just 14 percent, his lowest winning percentage since 1993.
“We’ve been consistent for years,” Ness said. “I told my owners we’re going to win at 25 percent give or take a percentage point or two, and we’re going to be in the money between 55 and 60 (percent). We’ve just been steady.”
True that. For his career, which will hit 20,000 starts next year, Ness wins at exactly 25 percent, with 58 percent in the money.
Two of the four 21st Century training winners (Lake and Ness) are based at Parx and when Ness passes 5,000, he will be just one of nine trainers – Asmussen (10,953), Dale Baird (9,445), Jerry Hollendorfer (7,776), Jack Van Berg (6,523), King Leatherbury (6,508), Lake (6,451), Todd Pletcher (5,886) and Bill Mott (5,539) – with that many winners.
“It’s a longevity milestone,” Ness said. “It’s running a big stable and staying consistent, not up and not down. In 2017, we lost Midwest Thoroughbreds, so it took a while to get back.”
Well, he is all the way back with approximately 140 horses in training. Over the course of his career, Ness has raced in every serious racing state except Texas and California. At last count, he had raced horses at 42 tracks in the United States and three in Canada.
Broberg (4,907 winners) retired last year. Jeff Runco (4,863) and Chris Englehart (4,837) are still active, but not winning at Ness’s pace and likely to get passed soon enough.
“My owners are doing good, making money, they always want more horses,” Ness said. “But I’m limited in the stalls I got and the help I have. With everything in the mid-Atlantic region, I’ve got my hands on everything.”
And unless Asmussen gets very hot (possible) or Ness cools off (very unlikely), the dominant trainer at Parx is going to join Lake as the only Parx-based trainers this century to lead the nation in wins.
