Maryland Million Classic favorite is ‘new shooter’ for Ness

The morning-line favorite for the feature race on Maryland Million day Saturday at Laurel Park is a horse who has been claimed twice in his last three starts and who never has raced for his current trainer.

Really?

“I’ve got a back story with that horse, too,” Jamie Ness said Thursday. He trains Ournationonparade, the 5-year-old gelding who was made the 5-2 top choice to run his winning streak to four when he goes in the $150,000 Maryland Million Classic for horses sired by stallions standing in the state.

Wait a minute. Did he say, “too”? Yes, there is a little bit to unpack here.

Ness, the third-winningest trainer in North America this year, has made a name for himself by studying past performances and claiming horses. Not from the bottom of the racing chain but in mid- to upper-level races where he targets additions for his stable. Each one has a back story, and so does Ness.

“I do things a little bit different,” Ness said in a telephone interview for Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “Coming up I was a little younger guy. Maybe I kind of was lucky and fortunate that I didn’t really work for anybody, so I didn’t really have any tendencies. I just tried to follow people that were very successful and emulate what they did. A little bit from this guy, a little bit from this guy, a little bit from this guy.”

Coming out of South Dakota State University, Ness had visions of being a sports writer. He was on the staff of the campus newspaper, and he took an entry-level writing job out of college. One skill he had developed along the way was reading past performances, and that served him well as he followed the horse trail that his father and grandfather had blazed.

“I was really a handicapper early and just a student of the game,” he said. “So I feel like that really helped me out a lot starting off. I didn’t have a big owner or big money, so we had to claim our way into big races. That’s the only chance I had. I couldn’t go to a sale and buy. We were looking at five- and 10-thousand-dollar horses rather than the 100- and 200-. That’s the only choice I had, and I had to do good at it.”

In more than 18 years as a full-time trainer, Ness had 3,772 wins through Thursday and earnings of $71,813,732, according to Equibase. His 216 wins this year ranked behind only Steve Asmussen’s 534 and Karl Broberg’s 397.

His success has not been without controversy. Ness missed more than four months in 2017 because of clenbuterol positives in Florida. He is appealing a six-month suspension now in Pennsylvania after a failed drug test involving Crabs N Beer, a horse he is saddling Saturday in the Maryland Million Turf.

“We will take this the whole way,” lawyer Andrew Mollica told Thoroughbred Daily News in August about Ness’s ongoing appeal. “He obviously vehemently denies any wrongdoing. The law and the facts are on our side.”

While the appeal goes forward, so, too, does Ness’s training and claiming, which brings this story back to Ournationonparade.

“I used to train the mare,” he said, referring to the 5-year-old’s dam Parade of Colors. “She was just a so-so horse, but the breeder (John Williamson III) who bred this horse always liked her. He asked me, ‘Hey, when this mare is done running, if you don’t have a spot for her, I’ll take her.’ So I gave the mare away to the guy, and he’s bred nothing but good runners out of that mare.”

Sired by WinStar-owned stallion Cal Nation, Ournationonparade won the 2019 Maryland Million Nursery Stakes in his second start at age 2, by then for owners Dean and Patti Reeves. At 3 he was moved from trainer Bernie Houghton to Kathy Ritvo, who tried Ournationonparade in four stakes races. He never finished better than third.

A seventh-place finish in last summer’s Smile Sprint Invitational (G3) at Gulfstream Park led to a 5 1/2-month break, a move to trainer Tom Amoss and Ournationonparade’s first time being in for a tag. Three claims, eight races and four wins later, he landed with owner Sean Mitchell, who paid $50,000 and won a five-way shake to buy him out of a victory in a seven-furlong race last month at Churchill Downs.

“Now it comes full circle around,” said Ness, who got a 47.4-second, half-mile breeze out of Ournationonparade last weekend at Parx. “You do a good thing for somebody, and here he is back for us. He’s probably the favorite in a $150,000 race, but he was a horse we’ve been watching.”

Jaime Rodríguez, who is Ness’s first-call jockey at Laurel, will ride Ournationonparade out of post 9 in a field of 12 starters Saturday. Stretching to 1 1/8 miles, it will be the gelding’s first stakes test since last year’s Smile Sprint became his fork in the road.

“The mile-and-an-eighth is the furthest he’s ever been,” Ness said. “It was either this race or the (six-furlong Maryland Million) Sprint, and I think he’s got a better shot in this mile-and-an-eighth rather than the Sprint.”

Rodríguez will be Ournationonparade’s seventh different rider in nine races this year. Ness said he figures to follow the style of his predecessors.

“He likes to put horses in the race early,” Ness said. “That’s his thing, so that’s probably our plan. Get out there and put him in the race early, and see what we’ve got down the lane.”

In the first race after a claim, Ness has been striking at a 32 percent rate. To do that Saturday, Ournationonparade will have to fend off the likes of Double Crown, a stakes runner-up last out at nearby Pimlico, and Vance Scholars, a stakes winner this summer at Laurel. Both were made 9-2 second choices on the morning line.

The Maryland Million Classic also features its last two winners. Monday Morning Qb, the 2020 victor and himself a recent claim, was made a 15-1 long shot. Prendimi, who scored last year at 10-1, was written into the program at 20-1.

“I think we’re the new shooter,” Ness said. “The elephant in the room is the mile-and-an-eighth. That’s the thing. I’m not sure a mile-and-an-eighth is our forte. I don’t really know the horse that well, but I think that’s the kicker.”