For the love of the game
/Words - Bill Heller
Justin Evans, Jeff Radosevich and Tim Hamm are three of a kind, three terrific trainers rarely in a national spotlight because they work at tracks in Ohio, Arizona and Washington, not New York, Kentucky, California and Florida. “The way this business is, if you don’t have the stock, you stay where you belong,” Radosevich said. “I’d rather win a race at a smaller track than be second or third at a bigger track. No matter what, wins are wins.”
They’ve had boatloads. Collectively, more than 7,400. Their horses have earned more than $115 million. They’ve won numerous training titles.
“We don’t get much publicity,” Evans said. “Not even when I was third in the county in wins (in 2014) and when I won my 2,500th race this year. It bugs me a little bit. That was a big accomplishment to me.”
It was and still is. More are likely to follow for all three. No matter who’s paying attention.
Justin Evans, now 43, has been a horse owner since he was two. That’s right. Two.
His father Robert, a trainer, explained: “We bought a Quarter Horse at a sale, and he was eligible for one of the futurities. I put Justin’s name on him as the owner. They said, 'Who's that?’ I said, "He's my son.’ ‘Well, he has to be licensed.’ There wasn’t anything in the rulebook about age. He had a big, black cowboy hat on and they took his picture. He’s had a license ever since.”
Evans recalled, “There were newspaper stories. It was really cool. Growing up around the racetrack, I was never one of the shy kids. They coached me really good. I remember doing one interview on TV, I knew all the right answers. I did a lot of those when I was a little kid. I liked talking to older people, I think it really helped me along the way.”
When Justin Evans was just a couple months old, his family moved from California to Chino Valley, Arizona, 100 miles north of Phoenix and eight miles from Prescott Downs. From Kindergarten until the fourth grade, Justin was excused from school to help his family’s horse operation. “I would miss about the first eight weeks,” Justin said. “After Prescott Downs got done running, we went to all these little towns in Arizona, Holbrook, St. John’s and then to Yuma. After Yuma, we’d go home and start with the young horses, breaking babies and starting with some of the older horses that we had turned out. Prescott would run from Memorial Day to Labor Day, so I spent every day at the racetrack. As a kid growing up, I’d just dread going back to school and couldn’t wait to get out. Sometimes, my parents would let me out a week early to go to Prescott Downs. I couldn’t wait to get out of school to go to the racetrack. I spent every waking minute there, going with my parents at five in the morning and staying all day long.”
His father said, “He was around horses day and night. Feeding. Doing leg wraps. I showed him how to do bandages. He was learning everything.”
Growing up, he idolized Bob Baffert, long before he became a Hall of Fame trainer: “He was an Arizona guy for a long time. I used to read the Form and watch his work patterns, and try to pattern my horses like that. We remain good friends to this day. He’s great to me and my family.”
On the first possible day he could get a trainer’s license, his 18th birthday, he did at Prescott Downs. “He had four or five horses,” his father said. “He’s never looked back. He’s a talented trainer and he knows how to pick out horses. He’s good at claiming.”
But it took time. “I struggled a little bit,” recalled Justin. “I had cheap horses at Prescott Downs. I called my mom two weeks in and said if things don’t work out I’m coming home. Three days later, a guy from Turf Paradise, Arnie Fullerton, the stall man, called me and said, `I’m going to do you a favor. In barn K4, there’s seven stalls you can have. There’s only one tack room, so you’re going to have to make do with it.’”
“I thought it was like early Christmas. I said, `Oh, man, thank you. I’ll never forget it. Back then, K4 was the high-rent district. I mean you had Jeff Mullins, and R. Kory Owens. You had some good trainers down there. I was like the Jeffersons. I was moving up, man.”
He made the most of this opportunity. “I was like the 10th leading trainer in the standings my first year at Turf Paradise - I was 18 years old, it was really huge.”
When he shipped to Lone Star Park, he did some work for Steve Asmussen. “I helped Steve a lot and we got to be good friends, I mean I’ve always been one of those guys not afraid to ask a guy like Steve or Bob, `Hey, what do you think about this.’ Because why wouldn’t you? They’re the greatest in the game, so you know if you can get an answer from those guys, then you’re way ahead of the ballgame for sure.”
He'd like, eventually, to be in the same game as Baffert and Asmussen. “To be at that level one day, absolutely, it’s my main goal to try to achieve.”
In 2014, he was as good as any trainer, finishing third in victories (272) while posting career highs in earnings ($3,607,260) and starts (1,022), one of five years he finished 11th or better nationally in victories. He completely dominated in New Mexico in 2014, becoming the first trainer to win every meet at New Mexico’s five tracks, Sunland Park, Zia Park, The Downs at Albuquerque, Ruidoso Downs and Sunray Park. “They couldn’t beat me, I claimed a lot of horses.”
Evans won six titles in seven years at Sunland from 2013 through 2020, then shifted his focus to Turf Paradise, where he won his fourth consecutive title with 43 victories, 17 more than anyone else. His victory margins the previous three years were 30, 23 and 28.
In 2023, Evans raced in Emerald Downs in Auburn, Washington, near Seattle. He led all trainers in victories and in earnings in 2023 and 2024 by wide margins. Midway through this year, he’s tied for first in wins and second in earnings.
His top earner was African Rose, a multiple stakes winner for two-thirds of her career from 2011 to 2017. She finished with 18 victories, seven seconds and six thirds in 46 starts with $586,757.
Evans’ son, Austin, may be following his father’s career path. His proud grandfather, Robert, shares the story: “My grandson is 12, and he went to the sales in Kentucky. Justin had the catalog and they went by one of the stalls. Austin had a cap on, and the horse took his cap off. Austin said, `I want that horse.’ They bid on him, got him and named him Austin’s Ace. They put him in training, he ran second, then first at Sunland Park. The track announcer knew Austin real well and he was going nuts. He said, `Austin’s Ace won the race and Austin is going to the winner’s circle.’ There were a zillion people in the winner’s circle.
“He’s at the barn all the time. It won’t be long. He’ll be doing the same thing. He’s a little horseman. He loves horses.”
That sounds about right.
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The breadth of Jeff Radosevich’s horsemanship is vast, and nobody knows more about it than Thoroughbred owner William Spitler. On November 23rd 1990, Radosevich rode Spitler’s (and his long-time best friend Rick Spicer’s) King of the Nile to a three-length stakes victory at Beulah Park. Nearly 29 years later, August 11th 2019, Radosevich trained their horse Verissimo, who won the $75,000 Horizon Stakes on grass by a neck at Belterra Park.
“I don’t think too many people have done that,” Radosevich said.
Spitler, a retired director of tourism and trade for the United States Department of Commerce, is deeply appreciative: “We can’t say enough good things about Jeff and his family. He and his family are great friends of ours and have been forever. He works really, really hard and he gets on virtually every horse that he trains. He maximizes the potential of every horse he trains.”
And his family’s been with him every step of the way. The J line: his grandfather Jake, father Joe (a Quarter Horse trainer who passed away three years ago), mother Jackie, brothers Joey and Jake, sister Jill and late nephew Joshua, Jake’s son, a promising jockey who suffered a fatal accident on the track at the age of 16 in November, 2005 at Beulah Park. “He was really a special son to them,” Spitler said. Joshua’s younger brother, Jacob, became a jockey, winning his first race at Beulah Park in January 2011. Jeff and his wife Yvonne’s three adult children together are named Justin, Josie and Joshua.
The Radosevich family had more in common than the first letter of their first names. All are horsemen. “I didn’t really plan on all J’s,” Jeff’s mother, Jackie, recalled. “I named the first child (Joey) after my husband and Jeff for Jeffrey Hunter (a movie star). I thought I would pick short names because people couldn’t say the last name.”
She talked about the beginning of the family’s involvement with horses: “We started out horse showing. My husband started that. We had a barrel horse. We were greener than green. He ended up winning. So then we started racing Quarter Horses, then Thoroughbreds. With Quarter Horses, the big purses were for two and three-year-olds. There were no claiming races. The kids always had ponies, horses. The kids would help in the barn.”
Jeff’s father, though, became a steel mill worker in Joliet, Ill., while he was training. Those memories helped determine Jeff’s future. “He was getting horses, then more horses. Me and my older brother Joey, we were five and six, and he sat us all down in the living room, all the kids and Mom. He asked us, `Do you want me to work with horses or stay in the steel mill?’”
The kids didn’t wait long to answer their father. “We all, of course, were kids and we wanted to be with the horses. That’s how he ended up quitting the steel mill.”
They dabbled with barrel racing, and pole bending. “There wasn’t much money in that. “Then we raced Quarter Horses. We went to Oklahoma, Denver, Nebraska. We all started working with him when we were 10 and 11. We were galloping and exercising horses for them. It was fun. It was all fun.”
He said his father “got a little bored with Quarter Horses. There was a lot of traveling. Then he started buying Thoroughbreds in 1980.”
Jeff wanted to ride them, but his father mandated he graduate high school first. “I graduated early when I was 16 ½ because I wanted to ride, to be a jockey,” Jeff said. “I graduated from Joliet East and started riding Quarter Horses.”
He did well. “They’re like speed cars. Get out of the gate and go as fast as you can.”
Her mother wasn’t surprised that he did well: “Jeff has always been known as a hard worker. He would ride a bike through the barns and get on trainers’ horses. He was up early and he was reliable and honest. I’m very proud. I told him, `Just because you’re at the racetrack, you don’t lose your manners or your morals.’”
Jeff rode his first Thoroughbred when he was 19 at Commodore Downs, and won his first Thoroughbred race at Thistledown on November 9th, 1980. “When we went from Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds, you had to be a good gate person,” his mother said. “He knew how to get his horse away from the gate, get in position.”
In 1990, he got into a good position with Spitler and Spicer, starting a relationship that’s still going strong 34 years later. He rode their King of the Nile and won a maiden race at Thistledown by 12 lengths in his third career start, November 4th. Nineteen days later, he won the $25,000 Beulah Park Sales Futurity on him by three lengths.
While Jeff made it initially as a rider, his brothers wound up turning to training. “All the boys wanted to ride,” Joey said. “My dad told me and Jake that we need to be trainers. He was right. Jeff could make weight.”
Joey trained horses in Florida, New York and Ohio. “Jeff rode races for me and won races for me. I've got a lot of win photos with him. I wanted to ride, but I was always too heavy.”
Jeff trained in Florida before turning to pinhooking and breaking horses. He and his wife bought a farm in Oklahoma: “I like doing the farm life better. I like baling hay, putting in a garden. I have cattle, I do the weanlings.”
Jill rode a saddle pony and became a clocker.
Jake trains horses in Kentucky. Through mid-June, 2024, he’s won 1,259 races and $8,773,787. His daughter Jamie is married to jockey Brian Hernandez, who won the Kentucky Oaks and Acorn Stakes with Thorpedo Anna and the Kentucky Derby with Mystik Dan.
Jake’s son, Joshua, seemed headed to a glorious career when he began riding at the age of 16. In a little more than a month, he won five races at Mountaineer Park and 14 races at Beulah Park. In November, 2005, his mount in a $3,500 claimer snapped his leg and Joshua died of a broken neck. “It was hard on all of us, but it was hardest for his dad,” Jeff said.
Eleven years later, on December 17th, 2016, Mobil Sky captured the $75,000 Joshua Radosevich Memorial Stakes at Mahoning Valley Race Course. The horse was trained by Jeff and ridden by Joshua’s younger brother Jacob. Jacob rode through 2020, winning 319 races and earning $4,494,006.
Jeff Radosevich was the leading jockey at Thistledown in 1988. He stopped riding after breaking his leg in 1993. “I was fighting weight a little bit. I rode for 14 years. Broken arms, broken back, broken leg”.
He won his first race as a trainer on December 10th, 1993, at Thistledown.
“I struggled a little bit the first five, six years, from 1994 to about 2000,” Radosevich said. “Then things started turning around. I started picking up some clients. I got more horses.”
His win total jumped from 11 in 1999 to 34 the following year. His horses topped $1 million in earnings for the first time in 2004 and his number of victories and earnings kept on rising. He has finished in the top 14 nationally in wins nine times, including eighth-place finishes in 2016 and 2019.
In 2008, he had 45 horses at Thistledown, 20 at Presque Isle and 20 at Mountaineer Park. On one crazy day, he won races at all three tracks thanks to their staggered starting times. “That’s a pretty busy day. I called it the Bermuda Triangle.” He had five horses at Thistledown for afternoon racing and won two. He drove an hour and 20 minutes to Presque Isle for twilight racing and won one there. “Then I got in my truck and drove an hour and a half to Mountaineer. I won one there. I got home at 1:30 or 2 in the morning. Couple hours sleep and back to work. I was at Thistledown the next morning at 5.”
Why? “Because I like watching them run,” Radosevich said. “I had clients there, and the clients like to see the trainer there. I just made all three places.”
By then, he had married his former fiancé, Yvonne, who works at FedEx. “We ran back into each other 15 years later,” Radosevich, now 54, said. “We got married in 2007.”
Radosevich has dominated in Ohio. He’s currently battling Hamm – they’re one victory apart through early September - for what would be Radosevich’s ninth title at Thistledown in the last 13 years. He’s been second three times and third once.
Radosevich has dominated in Ohio. He’s on target this year for what would be his ninth title at Thistledown in the last 13 years. He’s been second three times and third once.
At Mahoning Valley, he’s won five titles with a second and a third in the last seven years.
In 2016, he was inducted into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame which celebrated him as “the first and only horseman” to prevail as a champion as both a jockey and as a trainer.
He has ventured into Florida twice: “I was at Gulfstream Park for half a season, but I didn’t have the stock. I did have some horses at Tampa for a short bit. You’ve got to have stock.”
So he does the best where he’s at, piling up victories, titles and the respect of his rivals for the unique course of his life, a two-way champion who is one of the very few jockeys who transformed into successful trainers.
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Like his father, Ed, before him, 54-year-old Tim Hamm trained horses as a second, simultaneous career. “I learned a lot about Thoroughbreds from him,” Hamm said. “Actually, the only teacher I really had was him.”
Eventually, Hamm convinced his father to leave General Motors, where he was in lower management, to work full-time with him on horses.
“My dad said, `I want to retire one of these days and I said, 'why don’t you retire and we’ll work together on our horses?’ So he did it and he just loved it.”
Hamm’s childhood was filled with other-breed horses. “We raised Arabians when I was a young kid. Then I worked at a farm that had Saddlebreds when I was 11 or 12. I worked under a guy I credit with a lot of my horsemanship to Grey Barrun. He was nearly 90 at the time. He was one of the gurus in Saddlebreds. I did hay, put oats in feed bags and cleaned stalls. He taught me how to ride Saddlebreds.”
Hamm decided to get more hands-on: “I bought a parade pony that no one could ride. They said he was too mean to ride. He’d throw me about 20 times a day, but I finally got to where I could ride him. Then I started breaking Saddlebreds for Grey, and he saw I was capable. Once I got into high school, I was doing sports and I got a car, and I stopped doing that.”
He was good enough at football to play in college at Youngstown State, where he graduated in 1989 with a business degree. And he was mighty busy. “My schedule was 6-8 a.m. football, classes until noon, football in the afternoon, night classes and working at Wendy’s from 9 until 3:30 in the morning and start over the next day. It was insane. I looked at my buddy and said, `I will never flip another burger. I need to get into the construction business.”
He started his own construction company, Hamm Company, in Warren, near Youngstown, immediately after college.
Meanwhile, his father raced eight to 10 Thoroughbreds at Mountaineer Park in West Virginia, 40 miles from their home in Lordstown, Ohio. He would win nearly 100 races while still working at General Motors. “I learned a little bit about Thoroughbreds there. I lived there. I ate there. I did the stalls and helped them jog the horses.”
With Hamm Company doing well, Hamm bought his first horse, Willowy Proof, for $13,000 at the 1994 Ocala Breeders’ Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training. “My business plan was I want to train horses. I said I have to go out on my own. Then if it grows enough, you can bring in partners. The plan kind of worked. But when I bought her, I tell you I was just so green. Somebody said you bought a Penn-bred, and I said, `What is that?’’
After hearing that meant his new filly was bred in Pennsylvania, Hamm said, “It sounds like I’m going to Philadelphia Park.”
And that’s exactly where Hamm and Willowy Proof went. In Hamm’s first start as a trainer, Willowy Proof won a filly Pennsylvania-bred maiden special weight by 9 ¼ lengths, July 25th, 1994. “It seemed easy, but I didn’t know anything,” Hamm said.
He knew enough to keep his filly. “The breeder, Daniel Ljoka, comes up to me after her first race and wants to buy this horse,” Hamm said. “He said, 'I'll give you $75,000.’ I said, 'She's really not for sale.’ He said, "I'll give you $100,000.’ I said, `It doesn’t matter what you offer, I’m keeping her.’”
After her debut score, Willowy Proof finished last in a $46,000 stakes race. Her next victory was in a $10,000 claimer. She finished seven-for-46 with seven seconds, six thirds and earnings of $64,007.
Hamm returned to the Ocala 1996 Two-Year-Old Sales and purchased two more fillies and two colts. Every one won a stakes. He was aided by his brother Tom, who became Hamm’s assistant trainer.
With an ever-growing number of horses, Hamm decided to buy property in Ohio and began Blazing Meadows Farm in 1995. A year later, Hamm opened a second Blazing Meadows Farm in Florida.
He said he considered leaving his construction company in 1999, but didn’t pull the trigger until 2003. But it took time to walk away. “It took me a year and a half to get everything closed down.”.
Good timing. At the 2004 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, he purchased Wait a While, a daughter of Rubiano out of Rose Colored Lady, one of the four two-year-olds he’d bought in Ocala in 1996, for $50,000. He then offered Wait a While at the 2005 OBS Select Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training, and got $260,000 for her. She was worth the money. Trained by Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, Wait a While would be named the 2006 Champion Three-Year-Old Filly.
In 2005, Hamm debuted the gray colt Too Much Bling in the $40,000 Hoover Ohio-Bred Stakes. He finished second. Dropped to maiden company at Thistledown, Too Much Bling won by 19 ½ lengths. Stonerside Stable then bought a three-quarter interest for $450,000, and Too Much Bling won three graded stakes for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert.
“You hope everything you’re doing can be validated,” Hamm said. “It at least lets you know if a good horse comes into your hands, you can get that horse to the pinnacle of the game.”
Leona’s Reward, a home-bred, didn’t seem like she’d reach any pinnacle, beginning her career zero-for-11. Hamm never gave up on her, and she rewarded his patience, becoming Hamm’s first millionaire with 10 victories, 10 seconds and six thirds in 55 starts, earning $1,000,556.
At the other end of the spectrum, Dayoutoftheoffice, a filly Hamm owned in partnership with her breeder, Siena Farms, was spectacular as a two-year-old, following a debut maiden victory by taking the 2020 Grade 3 Schuylerville at Saratoga by six lengths; winning the Grade 1 Frizette at Belmont Park by two lengths, and finishing second by two lengths to Vequist in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland. As a three-year-old, she was second by a length in the Grade 2 Eight Belles at Churchill Downs and a close fourth in the Grade 1 Acorn at Belmont.
A knee injury derailed her career. “There was so much scar tissue,” Hamm said. “We sold her for $2,850,000 and she went to Japan (Shadai Farm).”
Hamm has remained stabled in Ohio, even as his stable has grown to 130 horses.
He had to struggle to get past his father’s death in November, 2022: “It was a shock to us. It happened all of a sudden, and a big part of what we do was all of a sudden missing.”
Despite regularly taking on Jeff Radosevich, Hamm has won the 2021, 2023 and 2024 training titles at Belterra Park, and the 2023 title at Thistledown. He and Radosevich are 1-2 so far in 2024. Hamm has also won the 2013 and 2022 training titles at Presque Isle. He has 1,820 career victories and more than $44 million in purses.
He’s had seven Ohio-bred Horses of the Year and 70 divisional championships, and he’s as much in love with horses and horse racing as ever. “I love the challenges. What I love about the horses the most – obviously, the animals are beautiful – you meet every person from every walk of life, from hot walkers all the way up to billionaires. Literally, I’ve got friends on all aspects and I can relate with every one of them very well. And I love that. I was heavy into sports, and it’s competitive. Horses fill my competitive nature. I love being outdoors.”
And he hasn’t stopped learning: “You never conquer it. Financially, it’s a challenge. There are always new things to learn. It’s competitive. To win races is not an easy thing. You’re always trying to breed a better horse, put a better partnership together. It keeps your mind fresh. You’ve always got to think - to stay ahead of what’s going on in the game.”
No matter how many are watching.
