The View From Iowa

In my first post I talked about one of the best things about harness racing, hope.  Few people in this world have more hope than an owner of a young colt training down for the first time.  There’s something harness racing has also given me that is as important, if not more important, friends. I have friends here in town, friends at the office, friends at my children’s school, but they’re not the same as my “horse racing” friends.

 Harness racing is like the web before the internet existed, and in this day the web is just wider.  In the last week I’ve spoke on the phone or online with friends from California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Florida and as far away as England and Australia. 

 While I don’t see most of them very often (and some I have never met in person) we all share a bond that doesn’t exist with my friends at the office.  We often follow the same horses or the big races and can pick up a conversation where the last one left if was a day or a month ago.  We know each others horses, we share stories about our families and we relate in a way unexplainable to people who have never experienced it.

For anyone that may have seen some posts on this blog, I’ve had all of them removed.  The other blog is strictly dedicated for discussion of Iowa harness racing members, and I don’t want to put those limitations on this blog.  I don’t know where this will take us, but I’d love to hear from everyone out there.

 To begin, my name is Dan Roland.  My wife and I have a farm in Iowa with two trotting stallions, a handful of broodmares and (at the moment) seven horses in training.  Throw in two kids (7 & 5) along with a couple cats and dogs and its a full house.

 Like everyone, we have our ups and downs in racing.  We’ve had state champions and we’ve had the heartbreak of having to put down our favorite horse.  One thing that maybe puts us in a unique subgroup within the sport is we only race horses we have bred and raised ourselves. 

 This past week we had the exhausting and invigorating joy of welcoming two new additions to our family.  One of the things that keeps us plugging along is that experience of bringing a foal into the world, seeing it take its first breath, first step, first drink.  We take special pleasure in trying to come up with unique names.  Our current stable includes Smokemifyagotem (from the Men In Black movie), Heybattabattaswing and Jeri’s Kid.

 Jeri’s Kid may not sound like such a clever name, but the story behind it is special.  Jeri’s Kid had seizures shortly after being born.  A mad race to the university followed the foal in the back seat of the truck and the mare in the trailer (a 75 minutes drive with a 60 minute tranquilizer). The vets at the university said he would be a vegetable if he was a human, so we started to call him Short Bus.  My wife Jeri, the owner of said foal, hated the name and told everyone in no uncertain terms they were not to call him that.  My cousin’s son was over one night and you could see the light bulb come on over his head.  “Hey, you guys should name him Jeri’s Kid, like the labor day telethon.” Why she hated Short Bus and laughed at Jeri’s Kid I’ll never know, but it stuck.

With a lot of work by the doctors and the gentleman who was helping us at the time he survived to become a big dog for the kids to hang on.  By the time he was a yearling you would never know anything was wrong with him.  This past July, when he won for the first time, I think it was one of our best rides home.

There are so many problems in harness racing.  So many challenges.  I’m sure we’ll spread out into those over time, but for a little while I’d like to focus on some of the good things that keep us all going.  Hope is one of mine.  Hope in what can be.