For the second straight year, trainer Ron Burke topped all trainers in wins with 797 while also setting a new personal best with $18.5 million in stable earnings. In a year filled with major stakes wins, which one topped them all?

Burke admits he enjoyed his greatest moment in harness racing by winning the Breeders Crown with champion freshman pacer Sweet Lou in a world record at Woodbine last Fall.

“That was probably the best racing moment I’ve had in my life,” recalls Burke. “I don’t remember being that happy ever. It really was an unbelievable feeling. I was pretty confident he would win. I never remember watching a race, and at the top of the lane start to walk to the winner’s circle. It simply did not matter at that point because the colt was gone. Then, to watch him flash by the wire with Dave Palone in 1:49 under wraps was pretty special. It wasn’t like he did it on an 80 degree day at Lexington. He’s just back jogging now. I have his stakes schedule and I’ve started to map things out."

In addition to a much-anticipated sophomore campaign for Sweet Lou, Burke will also bring back triple millionaires and stablemates Foiled Again ($3.4 million) and Won The West ($3.9 million) in 2012 to threaten Gallo Blue Chip’s all time earnings mark for pacers of $4,260,959. Foiled Again, a 2011 Dan Patch Award winner and O'Brien Award nominee, became the oldest pacer at age seven to bank a million dollars.

“That earnings mark gives us something to shoot for. We have Gallo in our sights and I don’t know if we can do it. Everything has been positive since we started back with Won The West. Foiled Again is like a little machine. You just plug him in and off he goes."