Thousands of people have attended Harness Horse Youth Foundation horsemanship camps over the 40 years of the organization’s existence. But what do attendees really get from the camps? Is it a chance to work with horses and meet new people? Sure, but it is much, much more.
Dave Brower, 47, is author, track handicapper at Cal-Expo and is a broadcaster with CBS Sports. Renee Mancino, an attorney, is the executive director of the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association. Angelica Wittstruck, 26, is a forensic mental health counselor. And Harry Landy, 24, is an up and coming trainer/driver. They have grown up into widely varied careers over a broad time range. Yet their memories of HHYF – and its importance in their adult life – are very similar. With the deadline for 2016 HHYF Summer camps looming on May 15, they have reminisced.
Brower, a former Meadowlands Racetrack track handicapper, attended a day camp at the New Jersey track in 1984. He recalls that “attending that camp opened my eyes. If not for that camp, I would never have left the grandstand. I saw all the other jobs related to racing.”
Mancino’s family had always owned horses, but attending camp in the early 1980s at Scioto Downs in Columbus, Ohio gave her a new perspective. “Being on the backstretch with other stables opened up an entirely new world. I saw different ways to do things. And I really learned what the industry was all about.”
For Landy, who attended camp at age 9 (the age for campers have since changed slightly), it was a life-altering experience. “I knew I always wanted to be a driver and a trainer even then, but where else can a kid get experience? Working with the Trottingbreds was ideal for me, they are so professional, but also due to their size. I worked with Justaway, and of course, Sweet Karen. I saw the understanding that they had of less experienced kids. There was no doubt about what I wanted to do after that. Because of camp, I actually raced Trottingbreds the next year in Pennsylvania. My parents own a training centre in New Jersey and they were very supportive so we bought four Trottingbreds that I drove when I was ten,” he adds.
Wittstruck went to camp in Harrington, Delaware in 2003. “We saw so many different aspects of the business,” she says. “We visited a breeding farm, saw farriers at work. It was so thorough. Even at that age, it had a profound effect,” she says. “I wanted to be an equine surgeon like Dr. Patty Hogan. But then I learned I can’t stand the sight of blood.” Wittstruck attended Catholic University of America, graduated with her degree in psychology and philosophy, and then went on to John Jay College of Criminal Justice to earn her Masters Degree. Although she is not involved in horse racing on a full time basis, horses play an important role. “I always rode, and I spent a few summers jogging horses for George Casale. I currently work in a program that gives homeless veterans a chance to get riding lessons,” she explains. “There are a lot of innovative programs out there, just like the HHYF camp is. I remember Miss Ellen (Taylor) mentioning that she had worked with at-risk kids. Horses change people. They make them more patient, more kind.”
Horses certainly changed Brower. “The exposure to racing, the camaraderie was awesome. I still remember seeing Nihilator with his armed guard. But I was a city kid. My exposure was going to be as a fan, as a bettor. Camp changed that,” he says. He saw an ad for the camp on an MSG (cable network) racing replay show. “I went on to get my Journalism Degree and did an internship for Sports Eye. At that point, there was no looking back. I did whatever jobs I could. Teletimer, press box attendant, you name it. After visiting it when I was a kid, who would have thought I would end up in the press box nearly every night? It would never have happened if not for HHYF.”
Landy grew up in New Jersey, but attended camp at Saratoga. Ironically that is where he is stabled now. “I currently train twelve. We have had some success. We’ve won Pennsylvania and Maryland Sires Stakes. I really want to train higher end horses.”
Mancino’s life has taken many twists and turns. Not just a former camper, but also a former HHYF scholarship winner, she attended the University of Nevada with an eye toward becoming a veterinarian. “I worked all through college and was working for a casino operator making good money as I was preparing to apply to vet schools – there are none close to Las Vegas, where I lived, so vet school was going to mean uprooting and moving several states away. My boss suggested I apply to law school and he wasn’t the kind of guy who was easy to say no to. I took the LSAT and scored well. I applied to law school on a Friday and was accepted on Monday. It allowed me to stay out west,” she says. “Attending camp really helped my confidence and I was paddocking horses in the summer starting my freshman year in college,” she continues. “I love the backstretch, but it’s a hard way to make a living. After getting my law degree I had a practice that specialized in equine law – representing horsemen, insurance work, breeding contracts, syndicates and so on. I served as special counsel to the Minnesota Racing Commission starting in 2012, but was commuting back and forth to Las Vegas. My husband wanted to relocate back to Ohio, and the OHHA opportunity came along,” Mancino adds. Her OHHA office is located just a few miles from the track where she first attended camp.
While they are all adults in the real world now, each camper still has vivid memories of their youth camp attendance. Brower shared his memory of Nihilator, not just with the armed guard but winning a million dollar race.
Mancino’s Scioto Downs memories are different. “(Hall of Famer) Howard Beissinger worked with us at that camp. We were just a bunch of kids, very few of us had any experience at all and here is this star of the sport helping us,” she remembers. Kind of like having Peyton Manning teach you how to throw a tight spiral or Lebron James teaching you to dribble a basketball. “We had a variety of kids. Mostly guys, a few girls. I remember we stayed at the fairgrounds. There were some 4-Hers, too.”
“Camp was awesome,” says Landy, who was named Saratoga’s up and coming driver two years ago. “It was intense, and we learned about everything. We saw a ball game. But we also had kids with no experience at all. Ellen Taylor does such an amazing job, and we need to get the word out about HHYF. The camp highlight for me was the driving exhibition. I won, but I got to pick who my co-driver was. I picked my dad. That was really cool.”
Wittstruck, who attended camp most recently, remembers her first experience with Trottingbred Mr Mojo, who was one of the original horses purchased by HHYF when they went from borrowing horses at each host track to providing their own horses to campers. “Sitting behind Mr Mojo, that was my first time in a jog cart,” she recalls. “But most amazing to me was the way everyone came together. Eddie Davis Sr. was an instructor. So was the late Brad Hanners. The whole backstretch community was there to work with us and insure the next generation would have a positive experience. It had a profound effect.”
As HHYF moves into the next 40 years, it will strive to fulfill the original mission of providing significant hands-on experiences for the next generation of harness racing participants and fans; making a difference in young people’s lives, just as it has since 1976.
(HHYF)