A pair of veteran harness horsemen will be returning to their roots this summer for the 2011 live racing season at Running Aces Harness Park
. The duo, a driver with over 2,500 wins and a trainer with almost 1,000 victories, were both born in the state of Minnesota and learned their early racing lessons in the Gopher State before beginning well-traveled careers throughout North America.
Lemoyne Svendsen was born in Albert Lea, Minnesota and graduated from high school there in 1976. Since he has driven 2,553 winners and earned almost $8 million in purses for horse owners. Along the way, the 53-year-old reinsman has won driving titles at Quad City Downs in Illinois, Thunder Ridge in Kentucky, and currently is atop the driver’s standings at Cal-Expo in Sacramento, California. He competed at the lone harness meet at Canterbury Downs in 1986, but hasn’t raced in his home state in the last 25 years. During that span he has also been active at Los Alamitos in California, Windsor Raceway in Ontario, Maywood and Sportsman’s Parks in Chicago, Fairmount Park in southern Illinois, Prairie Meadows in Iowa, and Hoosier Park and Indiana Downs in Indiana.
“I still have a lot of family in Minnesota and am excited to return to race at Running Aces,” Svendsen says. “Because I’ve got a real good shot at winning the driver’s title at Cal Expo this year, I’ve got to stay until we close June 18. But starting Tuesday, June 21, I plan to be at Running Aces every racing night throughout the season. If I get enough work, I think I can do some good.”
Mooney (his nickname since childhood) virtually grew up in a jog cart at the Albert Lea county fairgrounds, the base from which his father Lorenz raced a stable of trotters for 35 years. His dad, with help from his son during Lemoyne’s teenage years, developed many nice colts, including Coleman’s Baby, a track record holder at Quad City Downs. Never missing a racing opportunity at the early county fairs in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, Svendsen’s father was ultimately elected into the Iowa Harness Racing Hall of Fame.
Lemoyne will be joined in Minnesota this summer by his wife Jodi, who has been battling breast cancer at a clinic in Indiana for the past year and recently received a good prognosis, and his teenage son Sonny. They plan to stay in Albert Lea near relatives and make the two-hour commute up I-35 to Running Aces twice a week. The track races live on Tuesday and Wednesday nights then returns to action on Saturday and Sunday nights.
Trainer Mark Anderson, 51, was born in Red Wing, Minnesota, the second oldest of eight children. His father Dale moved the family to a 40-acre farm in Bay City, Wisconsin, just three miles from the Minnesota border, from which the family stable operated for decades. While Dale Anderson won approximately 1,000 races in his lifetime, it was his father (Mark’s grandfather) Eskel Anderson of Ordonville, Minnesota, who co-founded the state’s county fair harness racing circuit. The owner of a chicken hatchery, Eskel was one of the first to own and race standardbreds in the state.
Five of the eight Anderson children eventually pursued harness racing careers, in no small part due to a pacer named Frosty Anderson who they had a hand in caring for during the late 60’s and throughout the 70’s. In one campaign the stable stalwart won 22 out of 24 races and was named the Minnesota Horse of the Year. While Mark Anderson’s younger brother Jon has campaigned successfully at Running Aces the past two seasons, this will be his first season at the new track because he has been successfully campaigning a large string of horses at Cal Expo in California and Fraser Downs in British Columbia over the last decade.
Mark will arrive at Running Aces this week with ten horses and 958 career training victories for nearly $5 million in purses won. He has sported a UTRS average (equivalent to a baseball batting average) over .300 in eleven of the past twenty years, including a lofty .348 finish in 2010. It has been 30 years since he abandoned a limited driving career to concentrate on conditioning horses for peak performances, leaving the driving to specialists in that area. His plans call for using the services of Dean Magee, Running Aces’ leading driver in 2010 and who recently surpassed 4,000 career victories, as well as Svendsen once he arrives, to pilot his horses when possible.
Opening night for the 2011 season is Tuesday, May 31 with live racing scheduled four nights a week throughout the months of June, July and August. Post time every Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday will be 7:00 p.m.
(Running Aces)