Author: by Darin Gagne, for Running Aces

Driver Jacob Cutting, 22, continues to impress both on and off the track. The Alberta native just completed his first $1 million year, achieving that plateau off the strength of a very impressive season at Running Aces in 2023, where he won 60 races and had 171 top-three finishes from 413 trips to the gate, while banking $785,175 in purses.

Seaside Diva overcame a catastrophic mid-year injury and returned to the track on her way to being named the 2023 Ohio 2-Year-Old Pacing Filly of the Year.

Here is the 2024 training roster for the Burke Training Center in Astor, Fla. First crop sires with horses training in Astor include Cattlewash, Dancin Lou, Gimpanzee, Papi Rob Hanover, Propulsion and Tall Dark Stranger. The Burke Stable is training 79 2-year-olds.

Although the summer/fall meet at Batavia Downs concluded less than four weeks ago, the new year brings a new season of harness racing at the oldest lighted harness track in North America as The Downs kicks off its 2024 winter race meet on Thursday (Jan. 4) at 3 p.m.

For the fifth straight year, driver Chris Page and trainer Ron Burke have captured the Kaltenbach titles. The Jerry Kaltenbach Memorial Trophies were established in 1988 and are awarded annually to the driver and trainer who have earned the most dollars competing in Ohio Sires Stakes events in a single season.

Clever Cody hit the board in nine of his 10 starts in 2023, winning six, including the Ohio Sires Stakes Scarlet Championship, on the way to being named the Ohio 2-Year-Old Pacing Colt of the Year.

Yogi Sheridan took no prisoners in his coast-to-coast effort behind Lionhead to win the $15,000 American Harness Drivers Club (AHDC) Championship on Sunday (Dec. 31) at Harrah’s Philadelphia.