The self-professed “harness racing junkie” is loving every minute of being part of the Burke Brigade.

by Murray Brown

The only job that Phil Collura, 64, ever had in the commonly accepted sense was as a toll taker on the New Jersey Turnpike. He started taking tolls at a salary of $4 an hour. When he retired after 32 years in 2011, he might have been making around $70,000 a year. Yet today his assets might be worth in the millions of dollars. How did it come about one might ask? It started through harness racing and an involvement in the mighty Burke organization. Such is the tale of Collura, not only a significant owner in the sport, but also one of its biggest fans.

Today you own parts of somewhere around 200 horses. The total worth of these horses is likely somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars. You certainly do not come from wealth. You never earned a lot on your, so to say “9-to-5” job. How did it happen?

“I was a huge fan of the sport. My dad took me to the races at Freehold Raceway which was my home track when I was just a kid. He made my first bet for me. It was a $2 bet on the daily double. I won and collected somewhere around $30. I was hooked. I thought to myself ‘This is easy.’ I soon learned differently.

“I worked the graveyard shift on the Jersey Turnpike, so I began going to Freehold Raceway every day. I was friendly with Tom Cherichello and mentioned to him that I thought it would be fun to own part of a horse. He said that he would introduce me to Ron Burke. If Ron and I hit it off, maybe I could own part of a horse in his stable. We did and I bought a piece of a $4,000 claimer named Use Your Imagination. He won his first race for us. I thought to myself, ‘This is great. I Love It.’ As luck would have it, in his next start he blew a tendon and was never to race again.

“Thus, in the stretch of just a few days I experienced both the highs and lows of horse ownership. It didn’t matter that much that he was done after his second start. I had experienced the indescribable thrill of winning. From that point forward I invested every dollar I could afford into owning horses. I’ve sometimes wondered what might have happened if he had broken down in that first start instead of the second.”

One might certainly ask, how does a guy who is a toll collector on the New Jersey Turnpike come to afford to own parts of 200 horses?

“I suppose my horse holdings just grew. I never had a whole lot of money. But whatever I had, I used to buy more horses. Thanks to Ronnie Burke, the Burke family and Mark Weaver, the horses did well and there was more money to invest.

“I was a harness racing junkie. Whatever spare time I had, I used in going to the track. I suppose you could say that I became consumed with the sport. I read anything related to it. I listened to anybody involved in it. I worked the graveyard shift on the Turnpike, so I’d go to work with Sports Eye, race programs, the Horseman and Fair World and Hoof Beats. Working that shift allowed me lots of time to read up and further my knowledge.”

Is your interest in the sport today as much as it has ever been?

“Without a doubt. I live within a half hour drive from Pocono Downs. They race four days a week. I am there four days a week. The only time I ever miss a card is when I am at another track watching my horses race, or at a horse sale, or at one of the farms looking at yearlings with other members of the Burke Brigade.”

Would you say your involvement with the Burke Stable is part of a group effort?

“Yes. There are two types of owners involved with the stable. I would describe them as being passive owners and active owners. They are all led by Ronnie Burke who is in complete charge of the operation. Next in line would be Mark Weaver whose expertise relates mostly to buying and selling racehorses. Larry Karr and myself like to tag along and like to impart our knowledge when it comes to the purchase of yearlings. We both consider ourselves to be fairly knowledgeable on pedigrees. We also have what I believe to be a wealth of statistics available when we visit the farms and go to the sales. For example, if we are looking at a yearling who is the third foal from a mare, we have records which will tell us how much that mare’s previous two foals sold for, who bought them, how they performed on video and what Ronnie thought of them. If we tried to buy any of them, how far in the bidding we went. We also rarely, if ever, go to a farm until after the videos of their yearlings have been posted and we have had a chance to study them.

“In recent years Dr. Bridgette Jablonsky, ‘Dr. J’ has joined our team. What a remarkable asset she is. When we go to a farm or are at the sale looking at yearlings she has been there before and she has made an assessment of the yearlings. The amount of time this saves is tremendous. We might look at a third of the number of yearlings we had previously looked at because Dr. J has been there before and eliminated a substantial portion of therm. Generally speaking, I would say that Ronnie’s and Dr. J’s taste in yearlings are somewhat the same. The only substantial difference might be that generally speaking Ronnie is perhaps more likely to accept a larger horse, whereas Dr. J is more inclined towards a medium sized one.”

You describe yourself as still being a great fan of the sport who has never really strayed from you first love, betting on horses.

“That is certainly so. I’m not a big gambler. But I like to bet. In terms of how much I bet, I would guess that it probably averages out to between $10 and $20 a race. I am at Pocono Downs just about every day that they are open. The handle is low and a significant number of chalk wins, so most of my betting is on so called exotics. I particularly like the Pick-5s and Pick-4s.”

You might have as many as a dozen horses racing on a given day. How do you keep track of them?

“I have a Virtual Stable with the USTA. This enables me to know which horses are in to race and where they are racing. Obviously, I can’t be there to see most of them race. But I watch replays of all their races.”

At this time of year, when many of your horses are in stakes races, do you get to the tracks where they are competing?

“I try to get to as many of the tracks as I am able to. But the truthful answer to that question is probably not near as often as I’d like to or as I feel I probably should. My wife and I have a dog which we consider to be part of our family. We are not about to go and leave her in a kennel or with someone who we are not certain will take what we feel is proper care of her. If I know that there is a big race coming up, I try to make my plans accordingly. Either I will go without my wife Mary Lou or we will make certain that Shade, our dog, is in the
best of hands. We are planning to go to the Metro in Canada in a few weeks and we have made plans for Shade to be
cared for.

“Because of some previously made plans, I unfortunately will not be able to be at this week’s Wellwood Memorial where I feel we have a good shot. I’ll have to be content with watching it on my computer.”

How are your 200 or so horses made up?

“[I have] 150 racehorses, 22 broodmares, 16 yearlings,
14 sucklings and shares in five stallions. These numbers will likely change somewhat, especially the number of yearlings once the sales get going.”

You have been invested in the career of Sweet Lou from the time he was a yearling, first as a racehorse and then and now as a stallion. Are you at all surprised at the amazing success that he has attained in the stud, to the point where he is considered by some to be the No. 1 pacing stallion in the world?

“Truthfully, without bragging, not in the slightest. I fully expected him to become a great stallion, maybe the best of them all. He possessed the rare combination of what so few stallions have. He was not only a great 2-year-old, but he also was a great horse in every year that he raced, continuing through the older ranks. He had all the attributes that I believe one should look for in a great stallion — looks, breeding, soundness, early speed, late speed and endurance. The truth is, I would have been surprised and deeply disappointed if he had not become great in the breeding ranks.”

When you go to the sales how do you determine how far you will go on a particular yearling?

“We leave it entirely up to Ronnie. We feel he has a pretty good handle on how much a horse is worth. Sometimes, but rarely, if Ronnie has stopped on a particular horse one of us might urge him to go a little further and make another bid or two, which he will probably do.”

Are you in on all of the Burke purchases?

“Today, that is almost always the case. It was not always so. Two notables that I missed out on were Hannelore Hanover and Mission Brief. Hannelore Hanover because we were not particularly interested in having Indiana-breds at the time. With Mission Brief, she had been purchased by a different ownership group and given to Ronnie to train. The only other yearlings that I might not be involved with are those where homebreds are owned by somebody not in the core group and are given to Ronnie to train.”

Last year you started with 56 yearlings, soon to become 2-year-olds at the Burke Training Center in Florida. How do you, or, in fact, do you keep track of their progress?

“Ronnie sends us training reports on how he believes they are doing about once a month. In addition, I go down a couple of times each winter as does Larry Karr. So do other members of the team. We communicate among each other and I feel we gain a pretty good reading on how they are progressing.

“This year we will be missing a very important cog in the makeup of the organization. We lost Mickey Burke last spring. He was the man who was in charge of the entire group of youngsters each winter as well as a few other quality horses who we felt would be helped by Mickey’s great experience and superb horsemanship. Such people are never replaced.”