Burke Brigade directing more energy to producing their own champions
Mark Weaver said their top stallion Sweet Lou is the catalyst for a successful breeding program.
by Debbie Little
The term “little guy” is generally not one that comes to mind when thinking about the Burke Brigade.
For 2025, as in most years in recent history, trainer Ronnie Burke sits at the top of the North American standings in wins and earnings from horses mostly provided by Burke Racing, Weaver Bruscemi, and partners.
The Burkes continue to be the full package of quality and quantity that is hard for most to challenge.
However, there is one arena where the Brigade has not displayed that same level of dominance, that of breeding. But if the last few years have shown us anything, they have homebreds that can play.
According to Mark Weaver of Weaver Bruscemi, they usually start each year with 90 yearlings, and, in previous years, maybe 10 to 12 were homebreds, but that number is growing.
“It’s going to get up to maybe 20 or 25; I think this year we probably have low 20s,” said Weaver, who spoke with HRU on Monday afternoon (Sept. 29) prior to the first session of the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale. “In recent years, probably 10 per cent of the yearlings we start with were homebreds, and now it’s getting to maybe 25 per cent and I don’t think we’ll get any bigger than that with breeding more. I think we’ve kind of hit our level, to where we’re pretty comfortable.”
Much of the Burkes’ budding breeding business began because of their back-to-back (2023-24) Dan Patch Pacing Sire of the Year Sweet Lou.
“Having access to Sweet Lou is kind of what drives most of it, but now we’ve got other stallions that we’re trying to support, and so we actually don’t breed to Lou as much,” Weaver said. “We’ve got Summa Cum Laude, who had a great year in Ohio, his first crop, and Lou’s Pearlman, who’s also in Ohio, and All Bets Off in Canada, so we try and spread it around. T C I is also in Ohio.”
Mission Accepted is another stallion they stand in Ohio, who had a pretty good first year from a really small first crop, with only eight horses making it to the races, but two of them made sire stakes finals. As for Summa Cum Laude, seven of the 18 in the Ohio Sire Stakes finals were by him.
From around 35 broodmares, they end up with about 25 live foals, but when Weaver enlisted as a general in the Burke Brigade, he wasn’t in favor of the yearling game or breeding, but the Pennsylvania breeders’ bonus made him think twice.
“This was probably eight or 10 years ago when we started it,” Weaver said. “[The breeders’ bonus] was appealing at the time, and then, like I mentioned, having Sweet Lou and wanting to support him the best we could, kind of got us more involved. It’s a totally different business than what I initially enjoyed, which was buying ready-made horses and trying to make it be profitable. But, yeah, it’s totally different, certainly more risky, but certainly more rewarding as well.”
When it comes to the homebred yearlings that they solely own, Weaver said they have kept them all, but ones owned in partnership can be a different story.
“We do have a couple of broodmares that we own with other breeders, and they go through the ring, it’s kind of the agreement,” Weaver said.
Hip #44 Seaside Ubeaut owned and bred by Burke Racing Stable in partnership with Crawford Farms Racing, J&T Silva- Purnel & Libby, and Phil Collura, sold in the opening session of the Lexington Sale to Bill Pollock, Bruce Areman, and Andrew Harris for $500,000.
Weaver said he thought she was “one of the nicest pacing fillies in the sale,” and as much as they would have liked to have bought her, she ended up outside of the $300,000 price range that they had set for her.
“We give Ronnie maybe a five to 10 per cent leeway, but with his father, Mickey, we couldn’t give him that leeway because he would just keep going,” Weaver said with a laugh.
Over the first three days of the sale, Burke Racing Stable bought a total of 13 yearlings for $1,147,000.
Since 2011, Ron Burke has been recognized as the Dan Patch Trainer of the Year three times (2011, 2013, and 2018) an award his dad, Burke Brigade founder Mickey Burke, won in 2006, and Burke Racing, Weaver Bruscemi have also been recognized on three occasions as Dan Patch Owners of the Year (2013, 2018 and 2024), but so far, they have not been recognized for their breeding prowess even though in 2024, they bred two Breeders Crown and Dan Patch champions, Louprint and My Girl EJ.
This year among their stakes winning homebreds they have top-ranked 2-year-old filly pacer Loua Dipa and Horse of the Year favorite, 3-year-old male pacing standout Louprint.
Loua Dipa set a 1:48 world record yesterday (Oct. 3) in the International Stallion Stakes, while Louprint is racing Sunday in the Tattersalls.
“It seems like the last six weeks have been ridiculous, like, everything’s just clicking and it’s not going to continue,” Weaver said. “Like everything, it can’t, like the homebred part, there’s so much luck involved.
“As an example, this past week in the Ohio Sire Stakes, the 3-year-old pacing colts, we finished 1, 2, 3, 5,” Weaver said. “Last year in the same division, we didn’t get a check. This year we took out 92 per cent of the purse. Last year we got zero. And it’s just kind of how things work. You know, sometimes you’ve got good horses and sometimes you don’t.”
Louprint doesn’t appear to have missed a beat following emergency surgery in early July to remove one of his testicles.
“I don’t understand a lot about it, but they did remove a testicle, and he had very large testicles to begin with, and I believe the remaining one has gotten even bigger,” Weaver said. “When he was off for a month after the surgery, we had him collected and his semen was tremendous. The veterinarian was thrilled and was optimistic that he would be able to service a full book of 140 mares… He said he couldn’t have been happier. So that was a sense of relief.”
Weaver said he was told that there have been successful sires in the past with just one testicle.
Thanks to Anne Chunko, USTA information and research manager, HRU was able to see that both Go Get Lost and Rambaran were ridglings and successful stallions. Also, famed stallion and racehorse Cam Fella was a ridgling.
Currently, the Burke Brigade is being courted by several breeding farms that would love to stand Louprint, but they are not the typical clients.
“So, we, maybe, like a little bit of a different arrangement, just because we like helping out in the process of selecting mares and dealing with the breeders, making it a little less work for the breeding farm,” Weaver said. “For the collection part and getting mares in foal, that’s all them, but the office part and working with getting the best book of mares, we enjoy and are pretty confident in that process ourselves.”
In regard to Louprint, the only thing that seems certain is that he will start a new job at stud next year. As for what state he will call home, that remains a mystery for now.
“What we’re trying to do is place them in states where they don’t compete with each other,” Weaver said. “Right now, we have Sweet Lou in Pennsylvania and Summa and Lou’s Pearlman in Ohio and All Bets Off in Canada, and then T C I on the trotting side in Ohio. So ideally, I would think Louprint and maybe Sippinonsearoc would stand next year. If I had to guess, I would say maybe Searoc in Indiana, and then Louprint, I think could end up in Ohio or New York or Kentucky. We’re just kind of trying to get that ironed out.
“We’re constantly looking and constantly changing; where we thought Louprint would stand a month ago is maybe a little different now. If New Jersey were to get a casino at The Meadowlands, then Jersey would maybe go to the front of the class on the list. They’re certainly an option, but it’s such a long process. We’re in 2025 now, he breeds in ’26, they foal in ’27, they would sell in ’28, they don’t race until ’29, so, you’re looking almost four years down the road before they hit the track. So, you want to be in a program that’s pretty stable and has a bright future.
“You never know how they’ll do, but I’ve had a lot of people that understand gait and movement better than I do, I actually don’t really have a good feel for comparisons, but a lot of people that I respect a lot in the game have just commented on Louprint, that he’s different and they just feel that he’s going to change the game. He’s just so efficient and not like anything they’ve ever seen. So, I hope that’s the case. To me, he’s fast. I love watching him. He’s a cool horse. I don’t understand the technical part the way the horsemen do, but pretty much everyone I’ve talked to kind of feels the same way that he’s got something that, if he can pass it on, it’s going to be pretty special.”
