By Dick Jerardi
Through Monday, trainer Mike Pino’s horses had started 10,242 times with 2,131 wins and earnings of nearly $47 million. By any definition, it’s been a very solid 33-year career.
And then there’s 2025 at Parx, where Pino has been on the most amazing run of his life. Again, through Monday at Parx, he had 51 starts with 23 wins, 10 seconds, and three thirds, a cool 45 percent win rate. From March 17 until Monday, he was 14-for-23, a strike rate of 61 percent.
“Right now, it’s going unbelievable,” Pino said Tuesday afternoon in the paddock. “I started to wonder what’s going on to tell you the truth. The spots are coming up, the horses are doing really good going into them, we’re getting the good trips. It’s like a blessing, really, everything’s working out.”
Pino is nothing if not realistic. He has never been at 45 percent before, but…
“It’s starting out good, but it’s a long year,” Pino said. “At the end of the year, if I’m 45 percent, then…”
So what is going on now?
“I think we’re kind of making the right claims, the spots are coming up,” Pino said. “Sometimes, you got horses coming into the races that are not as good as you would like them. It seems like every horse coming in is doing exceptionally well.”
When he was asked if he’s so hot he just heads for the winner’s circle after he saddles a horse, Pino laughed and said: “no, I know how this business can go. I’m going to take the ride as long as it’s going.”
Like any trainer, Pino has been on the other side of it when you wonder if you are ever going to win another race.
“You lose sleep at night,” Pino said. “You’re doing the same thing we’re doing now. It just seems like when you lead them over there, you’re not getting it done. It gets frustrating.”
Pino has 28 horses in the barn at the moment. He has five owners. He consults the owners about the business, but “I try to row the boat as much as I can.”
The best two horses of his career were Ten Keys who won $1.2 million when that was much harder to do than now and 2022 Parx Horse of the Year Fortheluvofbourbon for Dan Ryan’s Smart Angle.
“Dan’s the best, can’t ask for a better guy than him,” Pino said. “He’s on the same page with you whether you’re right or wrong. He’s the greatest. He’s a big plus in (our) success.”
Right now, that success, as Pino said, is almost too good to be true. But it’s right there in the numbers, which never lie. Through the first 100 days of the 2025 Parx season, Mike Pino is as hot as anybody ever gets in this game.
Those 23 wins were second best at the track and just nine behind Jamie Ness, who is almost certainly going to win his seventh consecutive trainer’s title by year’s end. And, to put those 23 wins in their proper context, Pino has started 100 fewer horses than Ness. Over time, the win gap between Ness and Pino is going to grow just because of volume, but, for now, as the trainer said, it’s been a blessing that he’s going to save for however long it lasts.
