George Teague

It only took two decades for George Teague, Jr. to become an "overnight sensation" in harness racing. The hardworking second-generation Delaware horseman followed in the footsteps of his late father, George Teague, Sr. As a teen, George's first job in the sport came working for well-known trainer Jim Case. A short time later, Teague opened his own stable. He trained and drove a small group of horses for local owners. Along with some friends, Teague bought a pacer, Roller Baron, for $3,000, who became the stalwart of the new stable. From then, progress continued every season. For years, Teague attended yearling sales and purchased modest-priced colts and fillies, owning at least 50 percent of them.

At the 2002 Fall Classic Sale in New Jersey, Teague liked a filly so much that he went to $10,500 to buy her, but the filly was turned down by one of his patrons because she was so big. Teague then offered Rainbow Blue to his longtime owners, Kevin and Ron Fry, who reside in his hometown. As a 2-year-old, in 2003, Rainbow Blue had six wins in seven trips to the post and earned $102,674. Rainbow Blue was the toast of the sport as a 3- year-old, in 2004. She won an amazing 20 races in 21 starts and banked $1,195,010, the most ever earned in a single season by a female pacer. Her 1:49.2 clocking in a Fan Hanover Elimination equaled the world record for a sophomore pacing filly on a mile track, and she was honored as the Horse of the Year, Pacer of the Year, and 3-Year-Old Filly Pacer of the Year for 2004.

Teague has also trained such stars as Starter Hanover, Mattuity, Total Truth, Future Destiny, Isabella Blue Chip, Southwind Lynx, Danae, Artcotic, and Western Ace. Among his clients have been former New York Jets receiver Wayne Chrebet and World Heavyweight Boxing Champion George Foreman. Drivers will tell you horses conditioned by George, with valuable assistance from his second trainer, his sister, Brenda, are always ready to put in a big effort. George and Brenda, who race horses as “Teague, Inc.,” won this past year’s Norman Woolworth Owner of the Year Award from the U.S. Harness Writers’ Association.

Jim Arledge, Jr.

Jim Arledge, Jr. is an Ohio native, who as a trainer has expanded his horizons well beyond the borders of the Buckeye State in recent years, and has been among the sport’s busiest and most successful conditioners. In 2007 his stable won $1.9 million, a career best, and among his top horses in 2007 were the Bluegrass Stakes winner and Breeders Crown runner-up, Sand Shooter, the Stanley Dancer Memorial runner-up Mythical Lindy, and the Little Brown Jug runner-up Hot Rod Mindale.

Jim also trained Pink Ribbons, an outstanding trotting mare who drew national publicity for the sport when her owners donated a percentage of her earnings to cancer research. Arledge won both the 2006 and 2007 Achievement Award, presented by the Ohio Chapter of the U.S. Harness Writers’ Association, in recognition of his outstanding achievements in those years, and in 1996 won Ohio’s Kaltenbach Award for being the leading trainer in the Ohio Sire Stakes.

Dan Ater

Dan Ater has been involved in harness racing for 40 years as a trainer/driver. He has won leading driving titles at Lebanon Raceway, Scioto Downs, Northfield Park and Balmoral Park. Among his top horses were Western Resolve, Firm Belief, Capital Request, Strikin Bug, Tiger Tinch and Master Pine. Ater is a director of the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association, has been a Deerfield Township Trustee for 12 years, and is a member of the Ohio Farm Bureau. Ater and his wife, Jacky, reside in Clarksburg, Ohio. He has four children, Kyle (also active in the sport as a driver), Nick, MacKenzie and Daniel.

Hugh “Sandy” Beatty

If you look at Hugh “Sandy” Beatty’s record as a driver you immediately note that he has been supremely consistent, and has never recorded less than double-digits wins as a driver in each of the past 30 years—and also as a trainer since records were first kept in 1991. You also note that the past three years have been the best in his career. The Columbus, Ohio native has won more than 1,100 races, has driven the winners of nearly $4 million at Ohio’s fairs and pari-mutuel tracks, and more than one in six of his driving wins have come since the start of 2005. He returns for the third-straight year as an instructor at the USTA Driving School.

Dr. Barry Carter

Barry Carter, D.V.M. - Dr. Carter is an equine surgeon based at Firethorn Equine Services in Lancaster, Ohio. Barry, who also serves as a Director of the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association, received his undergraduate at Michigan State University and his surgical residency at The Ohio State University. While at OSU, Dr. Carter also served as a Clinical Instructor for the university. In over 18 years of medicine, some of his notable equine athletes have gone on to win the Little Brown Jug, the Jugette, the Breeders Crown as well as the 2005 Hambletonian winner, Vivid Photo.

Danny Collins

A native of West Virginia, and a former assistant on Jan and Soren Nordin’s “Team Nordin,” Danny Collins has settled in Hilliard, Ohio, and has had a great deal of success—not only in Ohio but on the Grand Circuit. He has trained 175 winners from a relatively modest number of starters since 1991, and is coming off another very good year. Clearly, the star of his stable in the past three years has been Van Anna, who as a 3-year-old won $159,759, and scored victories in the $120,000 Courageous Lady, a Tompkins-Geers Stakes, and multiple divisions of the Ohio Sire Stakes.

For her efforts on behalf of one of Collin’s key patrons, Bob Kaufman, Van Anna was named Ohio’s 3-Year-Old Filly Pacer of the Year. In 2005, Van Anna also won the Ohio Triple Crown—the State Fair Stakes, Ohio Breeders Championship, and Ohio Sire Stakes Final. Collins was the early developer of the $961,000-winning Free For All trotter Hez Striking, and the $411,000 winner Hesza Laser, and has also campaigned such recent stakes stars as Belle Of The Ball, Rose Run Gold Rush, and Double Eagle.

Rick Cox

Rick Cox, from Ridgeway, Ohio, is a professional horse trainer and horse adjustor. He has trained horses for 30 years, but recently closed his training business to concentrate on his adjustment services and buying, training, and then selling young barrel racing prospects. He began adjusting horses eight years ago to help the horses that his family barrel races. With his vast knowledge of horses and horse experience, this developed into a part-time business that has become a full-time business. Rick has a very broad base of clients, which include not only Quarter horses, but several Standardbreds as well. Rick has won and placed on several different horses at the All-American Quarter Horse Congress, numerous barrel horse futurities, AQHA events, NBHA and IBRA sanctioned barrel races and many open horse shows. He is married and has two daughters.

Kenny Edwards

Kenny Edwards is the man many go to when they have a question about shoeing, and the man who once served as the staff farrier at Ohio State University answers many of them as part of a regular column in Hoof Beats magazine. He is a native of Columbus, and currently resides right here in Delaware. A longtime driver and trainer, Edwards usually races his stock at Ohio’s raceways and fairs, with the occasional out-of-town trip. In 2007, the stars of his stable included R Miracle Missy, One Magic Kat, Lord Langford, and Spur On Begonia.

Joe Faraldo

In amateur driving circles he’s known as “Smokin’ Joe;” in legal circles he is a principal in a law firm in New York City; in horsemen’s circles he’s known as a tough and unflinching advocate for collective bargaining rights; and in USTA circles he’s known as one of the longest-serving members of the Association’s Board of Directors, who has also in the past served the USTA as its chairman of the board. Of these, he’s no doubt proudest of having won a points title in the Billings Amateur Driving Series, and for having been named the national Amateur Driver of the Year in 1997.

He was the founder of the North American Amateur Driver’s Association, which hosted the 1988 World Cup—and will host the same international tournament this year—and he has driven in amateur races around the world. Since 1980 he has been the president of the Standardbred Owners’ Association of New York, and in 1994 was presented with Harness Horsemen International’s highest award, when he became that organization’s Man of the Year.

Lon Frocione

Lon Frocione, who in 2006 resigned from the U.S. Trotting Association Board of Directors after having first been elected to that body in 1987, has long been associated with the growth of the amateur driving movement in America, and in 2006 represented the United States in the biennial World Cup of Amateur Driving, which was contested in Italy. He has also been known as a prominent owner, having fielded such stars as Sportsmaster, who won the 1991 Woodrow Wilson Final, Nialon Todd, and Palmer Hanover. He owned the latter in partnership with Delvin Miller, John Simpson, Jr., and golfing great Arnold Palmer. He is a director of the Morrisville (N.Y.) College Foundation, and is a member of the Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame. Away from the track he is the president of Deli Boy, Inc., a food service distributor.

Kent “Chip” Hastings

Chip Hastings serves as the USTA’s liaison officer and heads the Association’s regulatory efforts. After having begun his association with the sport as an owner, driver, and trainer, he later moved into the judges’ stand, and has served as either an associate or presiding judge at more than a dozen tracks, including the Meadowlands and Rosecroft Raceway. He has conducted numerous officials schools for the USTA, and has lectured at other seminars and officiating schools around the country.

He is currently part of a USTA team which developed a new Internet-based application which will track the fines and suspensions history of harness racing licensees in North America. In 2006 he was elected to the Little Brown Jug Society, the group with oversees the annual pacing classic; is the president of the Delaware County (Ohio) Fair Board; and has also served as part of harness racing’s “Big Event Team,” which provides backstretch security services for the sport’s leading races, including the Jug.

Jerry Knappenberger

There are two important things in Jerry Knappenberger’s life: harness racing and the Ohio State University Buckeyes—and sometimes it’s hard to know which comes first. Actually, it’s harness racing, and for the past few years he has served as the general manager of the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association. In 2006 “Knappy” was elected to the board of directors of Harness Horsemen International.

For many years, Knappenberger, who resides in Newark, Ohio was an assistant to the late Ohio Hall of Fame trainer-driver Terry Holton. Today, as a horsemen’s executive, he works on behalf of the thousands of members of the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association, administering its programs, representing them before the Ohio Racing Commission, and leading a number of public relations programs designed to “sell” Ohio harness racing.

T. C. Lane

Joined the USTA as its director of officials in 2002 following a stint with the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association, for which he served as the Associations representative to Ohio’s county fairs. Before joining the OHHA, Lane graduated from the Ohio State University, where he majored in Agricultural Economics, with a strong emphasis in equine science. T.C. is also an owner, trainer, and driver of harness horses, having raced throughout the state. He has also served as a member of the committee which makes USTA promotional grants to county fairs, and one which developed an Internet-based system for the reporting and tracking of fines and suspensions data

Aaron Merriman

Aaron Merriman continues to be among Ohio’s top drivers, despite still being considered among the sport’s “young guns.” The Northfield Park-based catch-driver, who is the son of driver-trainer Lanny Merriman, won 484 races in 2007, 13th-best among all drivers in North America. At Northfield he recorded 449 wins, the most by any driver at that track. Merriman was a bit of a late-bloomer; at age 16 he was thinking more about high school sports and about getting a automobile driver’s license than he was about harness racing and a “QF” license.

He got started in the sport when an uncle, Gary Merriman, bought him a horse he could groom, jog, and enjoy watch racing. But Aaron then began an on-again, off-again college career at the University of Toledo, and only got into racing, as a groom, to earn pocket change. He earned his “real” driver’s license soon thereafter, and began training a small string. From there it blossomed; he was offered a few drives at Northfield in the winter, where he began to find the success he has enjoyed to this day. Aaron, who will turn 30 on June 30, has already won nearly 2,800 races as a driver, and driven the winners of more than $8.6 million.

Virgil Morgan, Jr.

While trainer Virgil Morgan, Jr. is considered to be an Ohio star, he has, in recent years, taken his winning team on the road, and has won quite a few Grand Circuit or other major stakes. In 2007 he ranked sixth among all trainers in North America in terms of purse money won, at $4.1 million, and again won the training title at Scioto Downs, and finished among the top trainers at several other raceways. His major stars in 2007 were Mr Big, winner of the Dan Patch Award as the sport’s best older pacer, and Mypanmar, who won $367,000 last year.

Morgan has won two national training titles, in 2000 and 2002, and was the runner-up in four other years. Morgan came to love the horse business when traveling to the tracks with his father and uncle. At age 17 he bought his first horse, trained it, and sold it at a profit. Early on in his career, he was an assistant to Randy Owens before venturing out on his own, first at the Meadows. In recent years his top performers have included the open stakeswinners Allamerican Captor, Chotat Milk, Tady Strikes Again, Mattropolis, and Mypanmar. He has sent out more than 3,800 winners and has harnessed horses who have won more than $26.6 million.

Ryan Stahl

Ryan Stahl is one of the top young driver/trainers in the state of Ohio. The 30-year-old native of Willard has driven more than 1,400 winners in his career to purses of $4.2 million. The 2007 season was his best ever as he won 373 races and his mounts banked $1.5 million. He was the second leading driver in both wins and earnings in ’07 at Northfield Park. Stahl was the 2006 recipient of the Peter Haughton Memorial Award, presented by the Ohio Chapter of the United States Harness Writers Association to the young Ohioan who is an "up-and-coming" star among harness horsemen.

Ron Taubert

Ron Taubert wears three hats in the sport of harness racing: he is a longtime driver trainer, operates a Web site dedicated to the sale of harness horses, and for many years has been part of the USTA’s Racetrack Support team—and thus as an expert in the installation and operation of track computer systems. He is currently part of the USTA working group which has developed eTrack, the USTA’s newest Internet application for racetracks. Ron, a native and resident of Dayton, Ohio, has driven 600 winners in his career. Over the years, he has also worked with such top driver-trainers as Skip Lewis, who trained Seahawk Hanover.

Phil Terry

If, when you drove onto the Delaware County Fairgrounds today, you had seen Phil Terry directing traffic it wouldn’t have been out of character. The man who today directs the marketing effort for the Little Brown Jug was first associated with the race more than 30 years ago, during his college years at nearby Ohio Wesleyan, when he directed traffic on the fairgrounds.

Phil is a former sergeant on the Delaware City Police force, served as the Clerk of the Delaware Municipal Courts, and first entered the official Jug family as its director of security. He became its marketing director in 1998, and has directed the expansion of its simulcasts, created the Jug Future Betting Pools, and was a driving force behind the building of the Laverne Hill Jugette Barn. Phil was cited with a President’s Award by USTA president Phil Langley in March of 2007. Terry serves as the secretary of the Little Brown Jug Society, and is a past president of the Ohio Chapter of the U.S. Harness Writers’ Association.