Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Odds On Racing's

Trainer of the Month
for October 2007

Blair Burgess

Trainer Blair Burgess, 46, started out with training claimers and has since risien to the likes of Amity Chef, Frugal Gourmet, Real Desire, Amigo Hall, this season's standouts Tell All and Glidemaster.

Burgess--a Toronto native--started out as a part-time groom when he was 11, working before and after school and during the summer holidays.

Blair Burgess

He went on to work for Stew Firlotte, who gave him some insight into the training of young stock as well as to the advantages of training in the south. Burgess also trained under top Canadian conditioners Gary Bourgon and Paul Radley.

After going out on his own, Burgess got the attention of the harness racing world in 1985
with his handling of Amity Chef. The son of French Chef enjoyed a fine freshman season that year by winning four races and banking $128,202. He also gave Burgess his greatest thrill
as a driver.

“My most exciting race was driving Amity Chef to the fastest mile by a 2-year-old ever in Canada,” Burgess said. “The time was 1:56 and it was a North American season’s record at the time also.”

                         Trainer Blair Burgess walks off with Tell All in
                          tow after winning the 2007 Little Brown Jug.

While his 2-year-old season showed promise, it was his sophomore campaign that took Amity
Chef and his trainer to new heights. The bay pacer won 13 races that year, earned $1,244,481, and was named Three-Year-Old Pacing Colt of the Year in the year-end balloting. Burgess drove Amity Chef in his first four starts that year, then turned the reins over to John Campbell.
“It was very beneficial to have a great horseman like John Campbell drive Amity Chef for me,” Burgess said. “I learned a lot while he was working for me.”

Proving his success with Amity Chef was no fluke, Burgess also conditioned one of 1987’s top
3-year-old pacers in Frugal Gourmet. The French Chef sophomore won 14 of 25 starts that year and banked $1,283,348. His biggest victory was in the $902,500 Meadowlands Pace. Frugal Gourmet’s success led to Burgess being named as the Canadian Trotting Association’s Trainer of the Year in 1987.

The 2000 season saw Burgess campaign Real Desire, who was one of the leading 2-year-old pacing colts in the sport. The bay son of Life Sign won eight of his ten starts as a freshman, with earnings of $453,988. His most impressive showing came in the $143,000 Kentucky Sires Stakes Final at The Red Mile, when he cruised to a two-and-a-half-length victory over LCB in a time of 1:50.4, a new world record for a 2-year-old pacing colt on a mile track.

Real Desire came back as a 3-year-old in 2001 and posted a marvelous campaign. He hit the board in 16 of his 17 season’s starts, made seven trips to the winner’s circle, and banked
$1,646,036. Real Desire won the $1,009,500 Meadowlands Pace Final, the $781,050 Breeders
Crown Final, the $450,000 Hoosier Cup Final, and a $150,000 Oliver Wendell Holmes division
(in a national season’s best clocking of 1:49). Unfortunately for Real Desire, despite those two outstanding campaigns, his arch-rival Bettor’s Delight defeated him for post-season honors in both 2000 and 2001 in Canada’s O’Brien Awards and the United States’ Dan Patch Awards.

But in 2002 Real Desire would not be denied. Posting a brilliant 4-year-old season, Real Desire
won 10 of his 13 starts and added $1,059,790 to his coffers. He was victorious in the $532,665
Canadian Pacing Derby Final in 1:49.4, the $500,000 Breeders Crown Final in 1:48.3, and the $400,000 U.S. Pacing Championship in 1:48.2 (a national season’s best for a four-yearold pacing horse on a mile track). He was named Horse of the Year in both the Dan Patch Awards balloting and the O’Brien Awards. He concluded his brilliant career with earnings of $3,159,814, ranking him third (behind Gallo Blue Chip and Nihilator) among the richest pacers in the history of the sport.

The leading horse in the Burgess Stable in 2003 was Amigo Hall, an O’Brien Award winner as the top 3-year-old trotting colt in Canada. The son of Balanced Image was victorious in half of
his 16 starts that year, with earnings of $896,209. Amigo Hall was at his finest in the $1 million Hambletonian Final, closing from fourth place at the top of the stretch to defeat Sugar Trader by one length. He was also a winner in the $222,000 Ontario Sires Stakes Super Final.

Burgess trained another outstanding trotter in 2006 in Glidemaster, who would become his second Horse of the Year. The Yankee Glide lad set a single season earnings record for trotters when he banked $1,918,701 last year while finishing first or second in each of his 15 starts. Glidemaster became the sport’s eighth Trotting Triple Crown winner in ’06 as he captured the $1.5 million Hambletonian Final (in a national season’s record time of 1:51.1), the $526,000
Kentucky Futurity, and the $728,930 Yonkers Trot. He also picked up large checks with second place finishes in the $900,000 Canadian Trotting Classic Final and the $500,000 Breeders Crown Final.

The past two seasons saw Burgess handle the pacing colt Armbro Deuce. As a freshman in 2005, he hit the board in six of his nine trips to the post and banked $81,699. The son of Western Ideal was second in his Champlain Stakes division and third in his Nassagaweya and
Bluegrass splits.

Armbro Deuce really came into his own at 3, as he finished in the money in 18 of his 25 trips to the post and cashed $674,296 in paychecks. He was at his best for Burgess in the Confederation Cup, taking his $44,500 elimination in 1:54.3, then coming back to post a lifetime best 1:50.2 score in the $452,120 final.

Armbro Deuce also won a $121,502 Simcoe Stakes division and picked up third money in the
$1 million Meadowlands Pace Final, the $348,900 Progress Pace Final, and the $259,679
Little Brown Jug Final.

Rounding out Burgess’s best in 2006 was the lightly raced 2-year-old trotting colt Ogham. The
son of Andover Hall made just four starts last year and had but a lone win, however it was a big one -- a 1:57 score in the $432,700 Valley Victory Final. That gave him the lion’s share of
his $221,325 in season’s winnings.

Other top horses for Burgess over the years include Road Machine (winner in the 1989
Metro Final and the 1990 James B. Dancer Memorial); Driven By Design (banked more than $500,000 in 1991-92); Racing Fund (another $500,000-plus winner in 1995-97); Art In The Park (winner of $448,169 in 1997 and second for Burgess in the Breeders Crown Final for sophomore pacing fillies); Life Cycle (in the money in seven of 11 season’s starts as a freshman in 1997, with earnings of $207,961); Living With Art (a multiple stakes winner who cashed checks worth $345,967 in 1999-2000); and Quality Western (the 2003 Oliver Wendell Holmes champion, he banked $422,912 as a sophomore).

Burgess, who has always been based in southern Ontario and races mainly on the Woodbine
Entertainment Group Circuit, sticks to several principles in training. His first rule is to treat all of the horses as individuals. Burgess’ conditioning basics include: a lot of speed work with the young horses and leaving the distance work until later.

“I am beginning to think that the horse bred today is more natural but also more fragile, and therefore one is forced to race them with less work underneath them. Good feeding and health practices are essential to to having a good racehorse,” he said.

In 2007 Burgess was blessed with Tell All, an unraced son of Real Desire that captured the $1.5 North America Cup on June 16 at Mohawk and the Little Brown Jug at Delaware, Ohio on Sept. 20.

Blair Burgess' Career Statistics as of Oct. 1, 2007
Year   Starts  Wins  2nds  3rds   Earnings       UTRS
2007      180      27       9      30     $1,600,720      0.233
2006      180      19      28      24      $2,964,518      0.236
2005      256      35      24      27      $506,457         0.224
2004      264      32      27      30      $441,346         0.216
2003      225      42      23      24      $1,569,175      0.279
2002      235      45      36      23      $1,545,366      0.309
2001      236      42      46      33      $2,115,824      0.333
2000      300      47      41      44      $1,199,736      0.281
1999      392      72      50      61      $1,152,494      0.306
1998      294      40      43      35      $547,806        0.257
1997      302      41      46      36      $969,850        0.260
1996      234      33      23      37      $652,519        0.248
1995      205      27      24      25      $408,096         0.237
1994      163      31      24      18      $568,464         0.309
1993      114      18      12      16      $278,574         0.263
1992      209      23      24      25      $643,040         0.214
1991       16        1      2        2      $41,846           0.174
Total              575                       $17,205,831