Ness Wins 3,000th Race as Trainer With Parx Victory

Just 20 years into his career, trainer Jamie Ness notched his 3,000th winner Feb. 18 at Parx Racing when Late Breaking News ($5.20) won the sixth race, a $25,000 conditioned claiming race for owners Gap View Stables and Jagger.

A native of Heron, S.D., Ness, 45, took a job in the media relations office at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minn., after graduating from South Dakota University. He took out his training license in 1999 and saddled his first winner, Blue Rocket, at Canterbury that August. His career took off in the late 2000s and early 2010s, topped by a career-best year in 2012 when his horses won 395 races from 1,264 starters with earnings of more than $6.7 million. That year, he led all North American trainers in victories.

Nine times the leading trainer at Tampa Bay Downs, he was issued a 100-day suspension and fined $4,800 from Florida racing officials in 2017 from a dozen post-race test positives for the bronchodilator Clenbuterol over a period from December 2012-March 2014.

Ness now largely competes in the Mid-Atlantic region, most often starting his horses at Laurel Park and Parx during the winter. Running a stable of mostly claiming horses and mid-level runners, he is 30-for-109 in 2020, following a 2019 season in which he won 171 races from 812 starters with earnings of more than $4.5 million.

His career record stands at 3,000 winners from 12,286 starters with $50.7 million in earnings.