Austin Hanners can look back on his 2025 season and enjoy the fact he won the three biggest races of his career so far, including a Breeders Crown, but that will not change his focus going forward.
The 26-year-old Hanners captured his first Breeders Crown with Always B Naughty in the $548,000 Grade 1 Breeders Crown Mare Pace on Oct. 25 at Woodbine Mohawk Park, garnered his first Ohio Sire Stakes championship with Jailhouse Pearl in the $416,667 final for three-year-old trotting fillies on Sept. 27 at Hollywood Gaming at Dayton Raceway, and won the $347,222 Charlie Hill Memorial Trot with Hillexotic on Sept. 6 at Eldorado Scioto Downs.
Overall, Hanners won 205 races and recorded $4.31 million USD in purse earnings in 2025, which fell just $44,645 shy of his career high in 2024 while making 398 fewer starts.
“It was a good year,” said Hanners, who resides in southcentral Ohio. “I’m grateful for all the opportunities I had. The Breeders Crown and Charlie Hill were definitely highlights, along with winning my first sire stakes final. I’d won one other big race (in 2024), the Pacey Mindlin Memorial at Miami Valley, but to win the Hill at Scioto was a lot of fun. That’s at home and it was my first big, big win. The Breeders Crown just topped it all off.”
Hanners began driving in 2016, making 17 starts, and saw his workload gradually increase from there. He drove in more than 1,000 races for the first time in 2022, racing 1,618 times, and had his first million-dollar season that same year, collecting $1.42 million in purses. He has topped 200 wins and earned more than $3.2 million in purses in each of the past three seasons. His back-to-back $4 million USD campaigns put him among the top 30 drivers in purses in North America both years.
“I hope I just keep getting better,” Hanners said. “I know a lot of people say that, but I really do. Looking at how far I’ve come in such a short period of time – I remember having my first million-dollar season just a few years ago – and now I’ve had three straight years where I’ve done triple that. To say that I thought I would be there that quickly would be a lie, but I was definitely hoping that I could get there. It has come a lot quicker and I’m hoping I can stay in that category and just keep improving.”
As for what he would like to improve, Hanners said, “I just want to get better at driving horses in general."
“Our colony is so tough that you’ve got to be on your game at all times,” Hanners said. “I just want to learn more, be a student of the game, and get better every day. I feel like if you’re not getting better, then what’s the point of being there. If you feel like you’ve learned everything, you’re way off.
“I watch a lot of races from everywhere. If I’m not in a race, I never miss one. I’m always watching, trying to learn, trying to pick something else up.”
Hanners’ victory in the Breeders Crown with Always B Naughty came in only his second start in a Breeders Crown final. Always B Naughty won by 5-1/4 lengths in a stakes-record 1:48.1.
“She just peaked at the right time,” Hanners said. “She was so powerful that night, as she was the week before (winning a Fillies and Mares Open at Mohawk in 1:48.2). It was a great way for her to get sharp for the right race.
“In the stretch, I could see myself on the (infield) TV and I didn’t hear anybody else behind me; I knew she was a good ways ahead. The feeling was unbelievable. But it didn’t really sink in until after the race and everything was over. People work for that all year long. To win a race like that was just awesome.”
Always B Naughty’s triumph also gave trainer Todd Luther and owner Greg Luther their first Breeders Crown trophy.
“They were as much on cloud nine as I was,” Hanners said.
Hanners enjoyed numerous other successes with the Luthers, such as winning the Hill Memorial with Hillexotic and an Ohio Breeders Championship with three-year-old pacing filly Prolific Fire, as well as finishing third in the $822,000 Breeders Crown Final for sophomore pacing fillies with Skywalker Sea.
“It’s worked out good,” Hanners said. “I drive the majority of the stakes horses; all of them in Ohio and whatever we can fit in out of state. It doesn’t always work out early in the year, but when we start slowing down (in Ohio), I start traveling with the older horses on the Grand Circuit, which is a lot of fun. It’s somewhere I never thought I would reach. It’s been one of those amazing rides.”
Where that ride goes in 2026 will be determined as this season unfolds. Hanners gets his year under way on Wednesday, Jan. 7 with seven drives at Miami Valley Raceway.
“I’ll focus mainly on Ohio, and if other things happen, then that’s how it happens,” Hanners said. “If not, we’re just going to try to keep going one day at a time and see where we go. I try to take it one day at a time because it all happens so fast.”
(USTA; photo of Austin Hanners winning the Breeders Crown with Always B Naughty on Oct. 25, 2025)