Much like George Bailey in the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ Alex Urbanski knows exactly what she wants to do at a young age.

Unlike poor George, who needed divine intervention just to survive, the 19-year-old dynamo is actually doing it.

“For my age I feel like I’m ahead of the game,” Urbanski said. “I’m in a pretty good situation.”

Alex and her brother John are third-generation harness horsepeople and work with their dad, John, on their Jackson, NJ farm. Alex runs her own stable, the Alex Urbanski Racing Stables and is 100 per cent owner of two that she trains — Uilleann and Mister Love. She also trains her brother’s horse, Lunatic Fringe, while helping her dad with some of his.

After a third-place finish at Freehold Raceway in her farewell race on February 28, the 10-year-old Uilleann was retired by Urbanski and bred to Sunfire Blue Chip.

She will continue to race the 11-year-old Mister Love and is in the market to buy two more horses when she finds ones that she likes.

And while she is taking it week by week with Mister Love’s racing schedule this year, she has already set a long-range career goal.

“I’d like to have a stable of at least 30 horses eventually for myself,” Urbanski said. “At the farm we have 18, not all of them are racing. We have the broodmares and the babies. I’d like to have 30 of my own and my parents have plans of moving to a bigger farm so we can expand and keep all our retired horses.”

Does Alex plan on training all 30?

“Eventually I’d like to hire some employees so I don’t have to clean all the stalls myself,” she said. “But between me, my father or brother, we would be the trainers.”

Urbanski’s exuberance for the sport is a result of it being in her life from the time she busted out of her playpen.

She was born in Bayville where her dad stabled a few horses and moved to Jackson at age four as the family wanted to live on its own farm. Alex immediately got her first pony and began riding lessons.

There was an ever-so-brief moment when she quit riding in order to pursue club ice hockey, but that was just a whim even though her team reached the nationals in Vermont her last year of playing.

After approximately six weeks of high school, Urbanski left in her freshman year to be home schooled in order to work with horses. Aside from her ice hockey fling, Alex said, “I’ve always known this is where I wanted to be. I’ve known some of the horsemen since I was two years old just going to the farm while my dad was shoeing.”

Along with helping her dad, Urbanski attended the Harness Horse Youth Foundation’s summer camp and was one of four youths chosen to give a driving demonstration on Hambletonian Day in 2015.

Once the home-schooling started at age 14, Alex worked every day cleaning stalls for her dad before going off to her job at a pizza parlour. She was trying to make money to buy a horse and when Uilleann came up for sale, John bought her for $6,000.

“I worked that whole summer for my father and made $2,000,” Urbanski said. “I owned a third of her until I was 16, and that Christmas my father signed her over to me as full owner.”

Urbanski got her trainer’s license in March 2019 and began racing Uilleann last season. But the horse needed surgery and was unable to race much, leaving Alex still searching for her first training win in September. It was then that she purchased Mister Love from Maryland owner Marjorie Kazmaier.

Two months later, on November 30, Vinny Ginsburg gave Urbanski her first career win by driving Mister Love to a four-length victory in 1:57.2 at Freehold.

“I was over on the grandstand side of Freehold and watching him race with my friends,” Urbanski said. “I knew coming out of the last turn there was no shot he wouldn’t win. Immediately I got teared up and choked up and emotional. All I kept saying to Vinny was ‘Thank you so much, this means so much.’”

By season’s end, racing predominantly at Freehold, Ocean Downs, Yonkers and Harrah’s Philadelphia, Urbanski had two wins, four seconds and nine thirds in 60 starts, good for $18,700.

In her first 20 starts this year, many with Mister Love, she has one win, one second and three thirds for $7,258 in winnings. She also made her Meadowlands debut on Feb. 29.

“It was awesome,” she said. “When you go to the Meadowlands, you’re around top trainers and very high-class, high-calibre horses and it just is a good feeling to race top people like that.”

Aside from her training, Urbanski is also a part-time student at Ocean County College, where she is majoring in business. It’s probably a good choice for someone who plans on being in on all aspects of her operation, as Alex’s plan is to only train horses that she owns.

“I had an offer over the past summer from someone at Ocean Downs that asked me to train some horses for them at Freehold,” she said. “I turned it down. I want to run my own thing and just own and train my own. I don’t want to have to deal with other opinions and stuff like that, I like to keep it in the family.”

So far, she has dealt with a lot of older horses, including family favourite Beau Rivage N, who she grew up jogging. Beau Rivage N is now retired but was still successful at age 14 four years ago.

“He’s our little babysitter now for our babies, they grow attached to him,” Urbanski said. “I like the older horses, they’re just classier. They have good manners.”

And yet, Alex will break her fourth baby with her dad this year and plans on breaking more as she wants to train the horses she breeds.

“I feel like the future with racing is with the babies,” she said. “I want to breed and train. I was thinking about getting my (qualifying driver’s) license sometime this year if possible. If not this year than next year, just so I have it.”

It is all part of the rapid progress being made by a woman who feels she is way ahead of the game.

“My parents do nothing but help me and want to see me succeed,” Urbanski said. “They’re willing to help me with anything I ask of them and it’s been great. I thought by now that I’d still be struggling with Uilleann and trying to get my little cheques here and there.”

Instead, it really is turning into a wonderful life.

(USTA)