Driver Jason Bartlett, trainer Ron Burke and owners Burke Racing Stable and Weaver Bruscemi will all be honoured by the United States Harness Writers Association (USHWA) as Dan Patch Award winners for their outstanding accomplishments during the 2025 racing season.
Jason Bartlett, having posted career highs in several major categories and the No. 1 driver in North America in terms of earnings with $16.3 million USD in 2025, was voted the Dan Patch Driver of the Year in the USHWA polling. The “Burke Brigade” had major contenders in many of the racehorse divisional battles this year and trainer Ron Burke set an all-time one-year record of $31 million USD for conditioners. Ron Burke will be honoured as Dan Patch Trainer of the Year while the partnership of Burke Racing Stable (Burke family matriarch Sylvia) and Weaver Bruscemi (Mark Weaver and Mike Bruscemi) will be honoured as Dan Patch Owners of the Year.
Burke Racing Stable and Weaver Bruscemi won their fourth Owners award: the combine was voted tops in 2013 and 2018, and they then repeated last year’s success with another triumph this year. Burke Racing/Weaver Bruscemi was the individual leader in the owners’ earnings derby, with their horses having earned nearly $5.7 million USD and headed by two-year-old pacing filly Loua Dipa, who is the favourite to be crowned champion of her division in this coming Sunday’s announcement of the leading racehorses (to be simulcast live on the Harrah’s Philadelphia signal live at approximately noon). Their overnight warriors contributed the bulk of that money, with 13 horses as six-figure earners during the campaign.
Burke Racing/Weaver Bruscemi has always been noted for introducing partners to the top Grand Circuit levels of harness racing, and indeed three of the four top money-earners including partnerships behind them are frequently in the owners’ ranks teaming with a Burke Racing/Weaver Bruscemi horse: Knox Services Inc., Phillip Collura and Lawrence Karr. Louprint and Lexus Kody, giants on the racetrack scene in 2025 and favourites in the Dan Patch divisional battles, are included in the partnerships.
Ron Burke is the “general” who keeps the operation running with the brigade’s several “battalions” at racetracks, plus their Grand Circuit battalion, with incredible breadth of oversight and knowledge of his far-flung empire. He is also winning his fourth award in the training category: he had been the writers’ choice in 2011, 2013 and 2018 as well (and his father Mickey Sr. won the award in 2006).
Again, the raceway horses often dominate at their own particular venues: nearing press time late in the season, Burke was the leading trainer at Dayton Raceway, The Meadowlands, The Meadows (his home base) and Pocono Downs, and was in the top five at four others.
The “Grand Circuit battalion” of the Burke Brigade was truly a “Murderer’s Row” of talent. It includes two 2025 millionaires: Lexus Kody, the top North American money-winning horse overall at $1,371,651 USD, and Louprint ($1,025,971 USD), along with a pair of $750,000 USD-plus winners, Loua Dipa and Sippinonsearoc. As noted, some of these stars will almost certainly grab additional glory with the further announcements of the Dan Patch Awards winners.
Bartlett grew up in the harness game, with his family in Maine, won USHWA’s Rising Star Award in 2008, and has settled in the very top leagues of harness racing, with a long string of driving titles at Yonkers Raceway, the track with the biggest nightly purses in North America.
Bartlett progressed his career to the next level in 2025: going “out on the road” more and driving several stakes competitors, Bartlett handled horses that earned $16.3 million USD to lead all North American drivers. He is also second in the dash standings (at his current pace, he’ll go over the 800-win mark), and his UDR of .454 also ranks number two among all North American competitors as a of press time. It takes a special horseman to win the UDR titles at Yonkers Raceway and The Meadowlands, but Bartlett did it and was crowned in this category at Pocono Downs as well.
Bartlett won the first two Breeders Crowns of his career this season with Spencer Hanover and French Wine, and he was the regular driver of Dandy Ideal, who raced in the sport’s “glamour boy division” (three-year-old pacing males) and earned more than $900,000 USD in doing so. Bartlett posted at least three victories in the New York Sire Stakes Championships, the Big Apple Stakes and the Matron Stakes. He has ascended to the top echelon of drivers to the degree that in 2025 he won 70 races with purses of $100,000 USD or more.
The Burkes, Weaver, Bruscemi and Bartlett will all be recognized at the 2026 Dan Patch Awards Banquet, presented by Caesars Entertainment, which will honour the best of harness racing, both human and equine. The banquet will be held on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Florida.
(With files from USHWA)