Levine still going strong as one of Aqueduct Racetrack’s leading trainers

Bruce Levine has been a familiar name and face on the backstretch of New York’s racetracks for decades. Since 1976, Levine has collected the second-most wins by a trainer in races run at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Since securing his first training victory in 1979, the 70-year-old native Long Islander has won 1,025 races at Aqueduct [statistics provided by Equibase include Belmont at the Big A meetings], second only to Linda Rice, who has notched 1,059 wins at the Big A as of October 2. Along the way, he has accrued a wealth of knowledge that only a lifetime of hard work and passion could yield.

A winner of more than 2,200 career races, Levine has experienced success at all levels of racing, from the everyday weekday races to the heights of Grade 1 success. His journey began humbly like so many in the sport, with visits to Aqueduct and Belmont Park as a child with his father.

“My father took me to the racetrack and he was a horseplayer. I went to the track when I was 11 or 12 years old, and within a year or two it just captured my imagination,” Levine recalled. “I just got the bite. I couldn’t wait to go to the racetrack on Saturday. The more I went, the more I loved it.”

A weekend hobby would soon set Levine on the road to a full-time commitment to racing, beginning with a summer job hotwalking for multiple Grade 1-winning trainer John Russell, and subsequently a stint with Kentucky Derby-winning trainer John Campo, where Levine’s time as a foreman and assistant gave him the skills to begin his own training operation in late 1979.

“It was a lot of work and still is,” Levine said. “It’s seven days a week, getting up every day whether it’s good, bad or indifferent – it’s a way of life after a while.”

The demanding life of a trainer is only feasible with a passion for not just the sport, but for the animals in their care. Levine’s dedication led him through the harsh winters at Aqueduct in the infancy of his career, carving out a living while working to establish himself in the competitive New York circuit as his peers traveled to Florida.

Levine said he naturally aspired to compete at the highest levels.

“I think everybody sets high goals, you just don’t realize how hard it is to get to the top,” Levine said. “It’s hard to get clients and the right horses. They started winter racing here in the 70s, and I started with one horse. I claimed one, lost another, and you just stay for the winter and try to build your stable. It was harder back then to get good clients if you didn’t go to Florida.”

The decision to stay in New York for his first winter, and countless ones beyond, paid dividends early on as Levine won his first graded stake with I’m It in the 1980 Grade 3 Grey Lag Handicap at the Big A, one of just five wins the fledging stable would post that year. He would go on to improve his stock each year, leading to his first year with more than $1 million in total purse earnings in 1985, a threshold he met or exceeded in 28 of the 40 years since.

The consistent stable became a mainstay on the New York circuit through the 80s and 90s, and Levine picked up several Grade 2 and Grade 3 victories on the NYRA circuit and beyond, including Pimlico Race Course’s Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan and Keeneland’s Ashland [then a Grade 2] in 1985 with Koluctoo’s Jill.

By 2006, Levine was one of the most prolific stables based in New York, winning at all levels with a diverse group of horses and win rates at 20 percent or better. The one thing that evaded Levine was a Grade 1 win, but that would change when Roddy Valente’s New York homebred Bustin Stones stepped foot in the barn.

2007 was a banner year for the stable, which boasted what was then a career-best 141 wins on the year and over $4.7 million in total purse earnings. Among them was the belated debut of the sophomore colt Bustin Stones, a chestnut son of City Zip that missed his juvenile season due to knee issues. He debuted on March 24 with a wire-to-wire romp by seven lengths over fellow New York-breds.

Levine admitted there was not much early hope for the colt, whose half-siblings had failed to impress on the racetrack.

“He was a small horse and the couple of other horses out of the mare before him weren’t very good,” Levine recalled. “We actually sent him down to Florida with the intent of selling him because he was so small, too. The guy on the farm, Jimmy Crupi, called me up in March and had started breezing him and he said he was the fastest horse on the farm. He chipped both his knees as a baby and we did knee surgery, which is why he didn’t run until he was three.”

Bustin Stones was well worth the wait, going a perfect 3-for-3 as a sophomore with a pair of stakes wins in the Times Square division of the New York Stallion Stakes Series, and the Screenland at Belmont Park. Persistent knee trouble reared its head again and forced Bustin Stones to miss the rest of the season, but he returned with aplomb as a 4-year-old to take the Promonroe at Aqueduct in January 2008.

Bustin Stones had not yet tried open company, but passed the test with a determined head victory in the Grade 2 General George Handicap at Laurel Park, his lone start outside of the Empire State. Bustin Stones would then receive the toughest challenge of his career in Aqueduct’s Grade 1 Carter Handicap, where he was sent off as the second choice in a field of nine that included Group 2 Godolphin Mile-winner and post-time favorite Spring At Last, dual graded stakes-winner and Grade 1 Preakness alum King of the Roxy and the in-form Lord Snowdon.

As he had done in each of his five other starts, Bustin Stones took the early lead and dictated terms, but was pressured early by Executive Fleet through splits of 22.52 seconds and 45.14 over the fast footing. Despite the early pressure, Bustin Stones dug in strongly on the inside to fend off his rival by a half-length after a prolonged stretch duel, stopping the clock in 1:22.91 for the seven furlongs. Spring At Last could only manage to defeat one rival after chasing three-wide and weakening.

The Carter was Bustin Stones’ final race before retiring to stud at Dr. Jerry Bilinski’s Waldorf Farm in North Chatham, N.Y., ending a career that never saw the brave sprinter headed in six starts. On his past performances, there are only 1s on his running lines.

Levine said the Grade 1 triumph is something he will cherish forever, especially as he continues to train progeny of Bustin Stones to this day.

“It’s something you always remember. If you look at his charts, six races and he was never headed. It’s hard to find past performances like that,” Levine said. “All his babies are like him. Some might not have the talent, but they have the speed and if you get them in the right spot, they’ll win races. They all love the slop, too. Some go long and some like the grass, but most are sprint oriented.”

Along with Bustin Stones, Levine also trained Coyotes Lakes, a three-time winner of Aqueduct’s 1 5/8-mile Grade 3 Gallant Fox [twice in 2001 and once in 2002]. The hard-knocking gelding retired in 2003 with a record of 63-20-8-3 and is Levine’s career-high earner after banking more than $500,000 while in his care.

“I’ll tell you, he knew where the wire was. He was amazing,” Levine said of the Arizona-bred son of Society Max. “We claimed him out west for $50,000 and then he just became king of the marathons. We would point for the Gallant Fox every year, and come March we would just kick him out in Florida and bring him back to Saratoga to get him ready for the winter. He was some cool horse.”

As Levine continues through his 46th season training in the Empire State, he reflected on the early days of his career and said it was the winters at Aqueduct that kept him rooted here.

“Early on, the winter racing was a jump start for a lot of trainers. You stay and claim a horse or two and you start getting the New York-breds,” Levine said. “When you go to the sales, you can get a New York-bred for $50-or-60,000 and can get lucky, so that kind of keeps you going.”

Levine, who prides himself on being an early riser with a careful dietary regimen for his trainees, expressed his satisfaction with a career that thus far has yielded more than $77 million in total purse earnings.

“I’m proud even when I win a $10K maiden claimer; I still get the same out of it as I do a stakes race,” Levine said. “If you didn’t get the charge out of it, you wouldn’t do it. I’m happy with everything. I’m at the point in my life where I’m enjoying it now. When you’re young, you have the pressure to keep it going and make a name for yourself. I’m kind of past that, and now I’m just really enjoying the game.”