30 years after Unbridled’s Song, Ryerson remains a strong presence in New York racing

It was three decades ago that the eventual breed-shaping stallion Unbridled’s Song came storming down the Belmont Park stretch to win the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and provide trainer Jim Ryerson with the most significant win of his career. Fast forward to 2025, and the veteran conditioner is still a familiar face on the backstretch of the Elmont oval.

“I’ve enjoyed it, I love New York and Belmont, I love Saratoga… it’s been a lot of fun,” Ryerson said. “Even though we may not always have the stock, by getting a lot of New York-breds, it’s all worked out.”

These days, Ryerson maintains around 20 horses at his Belmont barn, where he has kept a string of trainees since his breakout year in 1995, when he surpassed $1 million in earnings for the first time. Since starting his first horse in 1976, Ryerson has visited the winner’s circle more than 950 times, with his runners having earned in excess of $34 million in total purses.

Ryerson, a native of Oceanport, N.J., spent his childhood at Monmouth Park, where he fell in love with the sport and eventually got his feet wet, working for trainers such as Les Lear and John Tammaro and making his way up to an assistant role with the latter.

With family life in mind, Ryerson decided to stay put in New Jersey rather than travel further through the Mid-Atlantic circuit, and took a handful of horses for the Toman family in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania for his first foray as a lead trainer, finding success at tracks like Keystone Park [now Parx Racing] and the Meadowlands.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Ryerson said. “I grew up in Oceanport and going to Monmouth Park, and as a summer job, I started working at the track for Les Lear. Then he stopped coming to Monmouth and I went to work for Johnny Tammaro and tried two or three times at college, and found that wasn’t what I wanted to do. For about 20 years, other than spending a winter or two in New York, I was Jersey year-round.”

In 1987, he captured his first stakes win with Joan’s Button in Garden State Park’s Forsythia, and while he went on to win a handful of smaller stakes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the next few years, things started heating up for Ryerson with the arrival of Ben J. Aliyuee’s Meadow Flight in 1993.

The son of Meadowlake won on debut in a 5 1/2-furlong maiden at Monmouth Park ahead of a runner-up finish in the Grade 2 Sapling at the Jersey Shore oval. He ran twice more that year and returned as a sophomore in Florida, where the final of three starts there produced a two-length win in the Grade 3 Flamingo that April at Hialeah Park.

Meadow Flight then took Ryerson on the journey that each trainer hopes for when he contested the 1994 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, becoming the conditioner’s first starter in a Triple Crown event.

Meadow Flight finished a distant 11th-of-14 in the Derby, but he rebounded with a gritty neck second to End Sweep in the Grade 3 Jersey Shore Breeders’ Classic ahead of a win in the Long Branch and a hard-trying second to subsequent Hall of Famer Holy Bull in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational. He made his penultimate start of that season with a win in the Grade 2 Pennsylvania Derby by a half-length over Red Tazz.

While Meadow Flight was enjoying a prosperous sophomore campaign, Ryerson had welcomed a juvenile gray son of Unbridled into his barn for owner Paraneck Stable. The colt, named Unbridled’s Song, turned heads on debut at Saratoga with an 8 1/2-length trouncing under subsequent Hall of Famer Mike Smith, who would pilot him through each of his 12 starts.

“My body believes it,” Ryerson said with a laugh when reflecting back to 30 years ago. “It was a wonderful experience. It’s easy to get up in the morning when you have those kinds of horses. That’s all I can say about it. To be in that arena with Meadow Flight first, to go to the Derby, to win the Juvenile with Unbridled’s Song – it would be nice for everybody to have that experience. That’s what it’s all about.”

Unbridled’s Song’s stakes debut was a pacesetting fourth in the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont Park next out, but that performance was no indication of what was to come when Belmont hosted the second of four Breeders’ Cups to be held at the Elmont oval, which will again host the World Championships in 2027.

Sent to post at odds of 5-1, Unbridled’s Song exited post 8-of-13 in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and settled in sixth early behind the pace set by Appealing Skier over a fast Big Sandy. Unbridled’s Song advanced through the turn, and despite some traffic ahead of him, he found a seam to range up along the inside of Hennessey before those two separated themselves from the rest of the field. A thrilling stretch battle ensued, and a gutsy Unbridled’s Song stuck his neck in front to notch the victory in a final time of 1:41.60 for 1 1/16 miles.

Ryerson said Unbridled’s Song’s victory helped ease the sting of missing the Grade 1 Futurity that September at Belmont. 

“It was huge. Mike Smith had turned down the call on Louis Quatorze in the Futurity so that he could stay on Unbridled’s Song, and wouldn’t you know that Unbridled’s Song popped a temperature and we couldn’t run him in the Futurity,” Ryerson recalled. “I felt bad for Mike, but he said, ‘don’t worry, we’ll make it up.’ We ran him in the Champagne and he got beat, but as Mike said, it came around, and we ended up winning the Juvenile. It was awesome.”

Unbridled’s Song would go on to win the Grade 1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park and the Grade 2 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, propelling him to a fifth as the favorite in the 1996 Grade 1 Kentucky Derby. He made two more starts each for Ryerson and Hall of Famer Nick Zito before retiring to Taylor Made Stud, where he at one point stood for $100,000. 

At stud, Unbridled’s Song produced the likes of the late Hall of Famer and sire Arrogate, and impactful Grade 1-winning stallions Midshipman and Liam’s Map, among others. He is the broodmare sire of commercially successful stallion Maclean’s Music, as well as the promising young sire Volatile. His grandsons include 2023 Champion 3-Year-Old Colt Arcangelo, dual Grade 1-winner Seize the Grey, and graded stakes-winner Petulante, who stood his first season at New York’s Irish Hill and Dutchess Views Stallions this year. 

Ryerson said the memory of Unbridled’s Song still glows bright in his mind, especially as reminders of his special tenure in the barn are invoked through the colt’s subsequent stallion career.

“Unbridled’s Song’s career at stud as a sire and broodmare sire has been great to look back at,” Ryerson said. “He’s a sire of sires, and to be a part of that, you feel good.”

After Unbridled’s Song, Ryerson planted his roots in New York as racetracks like Garden State and Atlantic City Race Course were closed or ran limited meets into the early 2000s. He continued to find stakes success through the years, led by what was then a career-best year in earnings [$1.83 million] in 2006 with seven stakes wins, led by a score in the Grade 3 Philip H. Iselin Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Monmouth with Park Avenue Ball. Only in 2015 did he best his earnings record, with his runners banking more than $1.92 million.

“When Garden State and Atlantic City went by the wayside and when Meadowlands wasn’t the Meadowlands that I knew anymore, I had a decision to make,” Ryerson said. “I looked at Parx and I looked at New York, and we did both for a while, but then we decided to just do New York. I was lucky enough pick up horses for clients like WellSpring Stable and the Generazios, so I had a bunch of New York-breds, and it all worked.”

Live racing will resume at Belmont Park in September 2026 following a multi-year redevelopment project designed to re-imagine the venue. Centered around a modern, five-story grandstand, Belmont Park will offer four newly constructed racing surfaces including a one-mile synthetic oval to be used as the exclusive surface for winter racing.

Ryerson expressed his excitement as Belmont’s construction progresses, and said he envisions a racetrack that will serve as a destination for both horsemen and fans alike.   

“Just to be here for 10 months with racing right in your backyard, we all can’t wait for that. The pictures of it are great and Belmont is just a beautiful place,” Ryerson said. “With the development of the mall and the beautiful arena [UBS Arena], and now Belmont, hopefully this can be a destination.”

20 years after settling in the Empire State, Ryerson remains at Belmont, splitting his time between working hands-on with his trainees and commuting back to his home in New Jersey to spend time with family, including his wife of nearly five decades, Susan. With an established program and loyal clients, Ryerson could likely move his tack anywhere, but the conditioner said the New York program gives him more than enough reasons to stay put.

“The breeding program to me, and the number of dates and turf races you get, and the purse structure, I don’t see anything that compares to it,” Ryerson said. “They do a great job of maintaining their surfaces here, and when Belmont is fully operational, you have different surfaces to train on – the main track, a training track, the pony track and jogging barns. It gives you options with different horses, and it’s very helpful to a trainer. The state-bred program offers owners a chance to go to the sales and buy a horse inexpensively, take your time, and at the end of the day, you have a chance here with a New York-bred.”

Among his latest successes is Sweet Montreal, winner of the state-bred Joseph A. Gimma on September 19 at Belmont at the Big A. The juvenile daughter of Instagrand was a $120,000 2-year-old purchase for owner Joseph DiRico, and is a perfect 2-for-2 after a debut win in August at Saratoga. 

For Ryerson, there lies an excitement in young horses like Sweet Montreal. And while that potential can be motivating, Ryerson said he prefers to take the slow approach and see where it leads.

“A good horse can come out of anywhere, but I don’t dwell on that,” Ryerson said. “I love bringing young horses to the races, and I probably never made a quarter until I started doing that,” Ryerson said. “It really changed my career when I started getting more young horses. I’m patient, and that’s hard for owners sometimes. I lot of horses make you wait, and you’ve got to be able to read them. If you do that, a majority of horses make it and have lengthy careers.”

After nearly 50 years dedicated to his work, Ryerson is proud to have built his life and family around the sport of horse racing.

“It’s a very hard lifestyle to make a living, but it’s very rewarding and the relationships you form with the clients through the years are great,” he said. “My wife is great, and my family loves it. Even the grandkids get into it. My family loves to come here and to Saratoga, and it’s just been a great thing.”