The U.S. Trotting Association has nominated veteran California-based driver Jim Lackey to represent the USA in the 25th International Harness Drivers Championship, to be contested in Moscow on April 15

.

For Lackey, a winner of nearly 3,300 races in his career, it will mark a return visit to the competition and third trip to Russia; he raced in Moscow in 2002 and was so taken by the experience that he vacationed there in 2003.

The tournament will be conducted at the historic Moscow Hippodrome in honour of the 75th birthday of Alla Polzunova, a famed Russian horsewoman who has been a leader in the Standardbred racing and breeding industries in her native country for many years. The experiences gathered on Lackey’s first trip to Russia made him want very much to try it all over again.

“It may have been the best week of any week I’ve had in my life,” Lackey said. “I’m an only child, and it was like having a new family to be part of. Russians have always been depicted as cold and quiet, but believe me none of the stereotypes are true.”

The championship will be a two-day event; prior to the day of racing the competitors, who will come from countries around the world, will be given a tour of the Moscow Stud Farm. The tour will feature a demonstration of a “Troika,” in which three Russian Orlov Trotters, harnessed abreast, pull a wagon. The day at the farm will be followed by a celebratory dinner at which Madam Polzunova will be honoured.

Lackey was introduced to the sport by his father, a one-time assistant to Hall of Famer Bion Shively, and has early memories of shipping a string of horses from California to Quebec, when Lackey’s father asked him – as a small nine-year-old boy – to clamber back in the trailer to water the horses along the way to Canada.

He began his own driving and training career in the mid-1970s, and drove his first winner at East Moline Downs (Illinois). He later gravitated back home to California and went to work as an assistant to Russell Valles Key, whose driving colours Lackey wears after permission was granted by Key’s widow. Over the years Lackey has consistently been among the leaders at the California tracks, and has also driven throughout Canada when racing in the Golden State has been “dark.”

That experience meant driving the Russian trotters posed no particular problems. The Russian trotters spring from mating North American Standardbreds and Orlovs, and they are said to be a bit more “coarse” in their appearance than horses seen elsewhere in the world.

“They are slower, but well-behaved,” Lackey said, adding that he can’t wait to be behind one again.

---

This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.