For Magee, the dirt of Timonium’s main track has a green pasture in and of itself this meet. He’s started the seven-day stand with four wins from his first eight starters.

In his career, Magee has 1,000 wins from fewer than 4,500 starters while generating purse earnings of more than $20 million. It’s quite a milestone in the onetime exercise rider’s accidental career.

“I didn’t want to train horses when I was approached about doing it,” Magee recalled. “When [his first owner] approached me, I said, ‘I watched so many people fail.’ He said, ‘It doesn’t mean you’ll fail.’”

Magee struck out on his own with that first five horses, winning four times in 2007. Then 11 the next year, 31 in 2011, and by 2017, he won 127 races while logging total purse earnings of more than $2.5 million. It remains his best year and included, among other things, his lone graded stakes placing, which came when Line of Best Fit ran third in the then-Grade 1 Delaware Handicap, won by the great Songbird.

Yet, reaching even farther back, Magee’s success training horses seems even more unlikely. Winning races was far from top of mind for the Ireland native for many years.

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“I was a cocaine addict for many years in the ‘80s and ‘90s,” he said. “Some dark places, and been to a lot of programs, like eight or nine of them, to get clean.”

By 2016 Magee’s operation had been humming along pretty well, but he still hadn’t won a stake. That changed that October, when Nicaradalic Rocks won the Maryland Million Sprint over a field that included the great, albeit soon-to-retire Ben’s Cat. 

Magee has gone on to win seven stakes. The most recent came this past April with Classier, who won the off-the-turf Henry S. Clark Stakes at Laurel Park. 

Sunday Magee was joined in the post-race celebration by his wife Kelly, jockey Carol Cedeno, longtime owner Helen Marshall, and trainer Ann Merryman, among others. The track presented him with a gift and a sign to commemorate the moment.

Drug addict to reluctant trainer to 1,000-race winner: the last of those had a pretty nice ring to it, a milestone on a complicated journey.

“I always tell everybody if I die tomorrow, I’m good to go,” Magee said. “I lived and believe me, I never thought this thing would ever happen. I always thought I would struggle with this and never thought that we would be, you know, successful.”

NOTE: An earlier version of the article ascribed Seanow’s recent victory to Magee and indicated that the horse had been retired and left the track. In fact, he was claimed August 4 by trainer David Howard, who is also the owner of record. Seanow won for Howard August 25, and, says Howard, as of August 28 remains in Howard’s possession. We regret the error.