For the last two years, Brett Beckwith has been one of a handful of drivers under the age of 30 to perform consistently at The Meadowlands. These “young guns” took advantage of the opportunity created by Big M regular “A-list” drivers taking vacations for part of or all of December, January, February and March.
The 22-year-old Beckwith, the 2024 Dan Patch Rising Star Award winner who finished third in the United States driver dash-win race with 608 victories during the year, has seen things go exceedingly well during 2025 at The Big M.
His 79 wins currently have him sitting atop the driver standings at the mile oval and Beckwith has opted to stay at The Big M rather than constantly spin on the Plainridge/Saratoga wheel, the routine that brought him great success during 2023-24.
“Things were and are going really well,” said Beckwith, “and I was getting a good amount of drives and I kind of realized, if there was any chance of advancing my career to the next level, which is obviously what everyone wants, the only way that would happen is staying at The Meadowlands, where all of the top guys race, because when you race against the top guys and you race for the top trainers, you get much more noticed.”
Beckwith, whose biggest career win to date was in a $222,222 Massachusetts Sire Stakes final last year with his dad Mark’s trainee, Oer The Ramparts, is looking to fry some bigger fish this season with Making History.
The three-year-old son of American History-Mystery Game is in one of three eliminations for the $1-million North America Cup on Saturday, June 7 and is being pointed toward the $700,000 USD (est.) Meadowlands Pace.
“If you had asked me a year ago if I was going to be flying to Canada to race in the North America Cup, I would have laughed,” said Beckwith. “The main connection with Making History was the ownership group, led by Myron Bell, were at my grandfather’s [Jerry Silverman] funeral and Myron told my dad and my Uncle Richie [Silverman] that he was going to give me a two-year-old to drive.”
Making History made quite a splash when he won his career debut in a New Jersey Sire Stakes leg on May 3, gunning down 2-5 favourite Manolete at the wire. Since then, the horse finished third in leg two of the Sire Stakes before another third-place finish in the $308,219 final.
“I qualified him twice at two and then he was turned out,” said Beckwith. “He’s come back at three and been pretty solid. Everything’s been good. The race he won, that was his first lifetime start. To do that is unbelievably impressive, passing a pretty nice horse at the end of it.”
Award winner, leading driver at The Meadowlands, a live Grand Circuit horse to drive. The trajectory of Beckwith’s career is clearly going in the right direction.
“It’s always great to win a lot of races and make the money I was making at 20 and 21 years of age, but once you get the wins and driving titles, your next step is to make more with less starts. When you get a little bit of a taste of driving good horses, it makes you want to continue to drive the good ones.”
A little old-fashioned hard work never hurts, either.
“Luckily, my career has gone the way it has at an unbelievably fast pace. The one thing I will give myself credit for is there are very few people who end up outworking me,” said Beckwith, who still does plenty of driving at other tracks, just not on Fridays and Saturdays when The Meadowlands races. “You can have as much talent as you want, but you are going to get nowhere with no work ethic.”
There are still 50 race cards left on the 2025 calendar at The Meadowlands, but Beckwith, with a 21-winner lead on the current runner-up in the driver standings, Jason Bartlett, is the favourite to wear the Big M crown at season’s end.
“If I told you it didn’t cross my mind, I’d be lying,” said Beckwith. “It’s crazy to think that I could be the top dog at The Meadowlands. It’s so meaningful. There’s probably not a single guy who has won the driving title there that hasn’t gone on to be unbelievably successful.”
Click here for more on Saturday's North America Cup eliminations.
(Meadowlands Racetrack)