by Debbie Little

Even though Johnathan Ahle doesn’t have a drive in any of Saturday night’s (Nov. 4) Kindergarten Series finals at The Meadowlands, it’s okay with him, because maybe, one day, he will.

With many of The Big M’s top drivers away — for Breeders Crown eliminations and finals — the last two weekends in October, Ahle came to town to play in the fourth and fifth legs of the Kindergarten Series. He drove in all seven Kindergarten leg-four races on Oct. 20, which included a win with Paulina Hanover, and four of the seven leg-five events on Oct. 27.

Not bad, considering most of last year Ahle was still designated as an amateur driver.

A lot has happened for Ahle since mid-August of 2022 when he decided to turn pro, including jogging and training horses in the mornings with trainer Noel Daley, who gave him most of the drives in the Kindergarten legs.

“I said, ‘Remember 18 months ago you were driving against [amateurs]? And that keeps him grounded,’” Daley said with a laugh. “You know, he’s willing to travel and go places and the horses race for him. That’s the first thing you notice about him. Some of them just look good out there and he looks good in the bike and then it was a matter of him just making the right driving decisions. And some of them will get that and some of them won’t, but he’s getting better all the time. And, if anything — well, it suits me anyhow — he’ll underdrive one rather than overdrive one. And he doesn’t mind me telling him something.”

Daley said he probably would have put Ahle down in one of the consolation races for the Kindergarten, but, unfortunately, only one of the four divisions for 2-year-old male and female pacers and trotters required one.

Ahle understands with Daley’s go-to drivers, Andy and Todd McCarthy, back this weekend, he will get fewer opportunities, but he also understands that that’s how the game is played.

“They drove [the horses] all year, so it’s only right for them to drive them in the final,” Ahle said. “Just getting the opportunity to drive in those legs was a lot of fun. I think the time will come eventually where I’ll be able to [drive in a final] myself.”

Over the last three years, Ahle’s stats have grown exponentially. In 2021, as an amateur driver, he had three wins in 31 starts. In 2022, he had 45 wins in 612, and so far this year, he has 247 wins in 1,845 starts. In those three years his earnings also exploded from $39,625 to $551,804 to $2,499,923.

At just 26, Ahle has already seen how the hours of dedication to his craft have paid off. In addition to his six mornings a week at Daley’s barn, he logged plenty of miles up and down the I-95 corridor competing at eight different tracks.

“You know, it certainly is a busy schedule just driving [horses] alone,” Ahle said. “And going [to Daley’s] in the morning, some mornings are tough, but I really enjoy it. Like I said, he’s a super guy and his crew that works there, they’re good people. It’s a lot of fun. I enjoy it. That’s why I go.”

Daley may be mostly to blame for the amount of travel Ahle’s logging since he’s the one that told Ahle to hit the road.

“So, I basically said to John up to now, ‘Stay away from The Meadowlands on a regular basis,’” Daley said. “There was no point in going up there to have one or two 40- or 50-1 drives, which is all he would ever get, but I said these last few weekends the boys are away and that’s when he’s taking advantage of being there. That’s the way Todd and Andy got going; they were driving [at The Meadowlands] when everyone else was not here.

“You know, you see a lot of the young fellas coming along there now and some are just a little comfortable out there and straight away he was. But then it’s a matter of, they’ve still got to make the right choices and they’ve got to work that out for themselves and getting the practice is a big help. God, I remember like David Miller, George Brennan, all those guys, they never got driving at The Meadowlands until they were in their 30s, and they had driven thousands of winners elsewhere.”

Another thing that Daley thinks works in Ahle’s favor is that he’s good with quirky horses. For example, Ahle won a $70,000 New Jersey Sire Stakes SDF final at Freehold with Daley’s Stay Grounded.

“He’s a bit of a different horse,” Daley said of Stay Grounded. “Andy and Todd and them didn’t want to drive him because he’s a bit of an airhead that horse. But, you know, John gets on with him.

“I thought he won with Ignatius [last week] at 28-1. He got beat in a three-way photo there, but that horse goes good for him. There are certain horses that really go good for him. I’m just as happy to put him on those ones I own because I don’t have to explain to anybody.”

Prior to working for Daley, Ahle also worked for trainer Shaun Vallee.

“Going back to that whole quirkiness thing with the horses, [Vallee’s] barn was majority New Zealand breds and they always seem to have some sort of quirkiness to them,” Ahle said. “So, working for him for so long and training his and driving his, it definitely helps me out with those horses that are a little crazy or they do something stupid.

“Noel, he has a whole bunch of babies, so that really helped me learn about breaking babies — not that I really do that all that much — but, you know, just driving babies and 2-year-olds, young horses and stuff like that. He really taught me a lot in such a short amount of time.”

Fall and early winter at The Meadowlands has traditionally been the time when several drivers take time off following the end of the Grand Circuit grind. It’s that time when many young drivers come to the East Rutherford oval since the opportunity for drives increases.

Ahle hopes to be one of them so he can continue adding to his career year.

“It went better this year than I could have imagined,” Ahle said. “I got a lot of good opportunities and just tried to make the most of them and definitely, not that I had any expectations, but it definitely exceeded them if I did.”