Harness racing had a big day in one of its northernmost outposts on Friday, August 21, when a quartet of harness racing stars put on a show of speed at the Orleans County Fair in Barton, Vermont
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Fran Azur, a native of nearby Newport, Vermont, first saw harness racing at the Barton Fair in the 1950s and though he now lives near Pittsburgh, he never forgot where he came from. He now owns top open class pacers Noble Falcon and Blueridge Western, and he and trainer Kevin McDermott arranged to ship the two geldings to Barton for an exhibition race, along with their respective regular drivers Brian Sears and Tim Tetrick.
“Just to do something for the fair,” was Azur’s motive, and he provided $16,000 in purse supplements for the two-day meet, where horsemen, largely hobbyists, ordinarily compete for purses less than $1,000, usually in double dashes on one day. He also underwrote promotional costs for the event. Azur has a home near Barton and also owns several businesses in the area, including a Scottish Highland Cattle farm. Azur flew Tetrick and Sears to Barton in his jet for the day, and the two drivers spent hours greeting horsemen, fans and signing photos.
The horses’ primary task was to attempt the Vermont state record mile of 1:59.4, set at the Rutland Fair in the late '90s and co-held by two horses. The track record of 2:01.2, fell hard and fast as Noble Falcon (driven by Brian Sears) won the exhibition mile by a short nose in 1:56.2. “I don’t think I ever saw that many people at the races, even when I was a kid,” said Azur. The crowd estimate was about 1,000, triple the previous best turnout at Barton and about 250 more than the total population, 742, of Barton. “Usually when you get people cheering so hard, it’s because they have a bet on a horse, but this is all non-betting,” noted Azur. "This was the most fun I ever had at the races.”
“I have been training horses for 20 years and I don’t think I ever had tears in my eyes at a race before this,” said trainer Kevin McDermott. “They cheered when the horses stepped on the track; they cheered when they turned to go to the gate; they cheered at every quarter mile marker. I was proud to be a part of this. There can’t be a better owner for the sport than Fran Azur.”
Kim Brooks, who co-ordinated the event at Barton, echoed McDermott’s sentiments. “We can’t thank Fran Azur enough and we’re already talking about what to do next year. He wants to find a way to help support the horsemen who race here regularly.”
The event was covered by three regional daily papers, plus the statewide radio station WDEV and the regional CBS affiliate television station, WCAX out of Burlington, Vermont.
The horses also got a great deal of attention from fairgoers, says Brooks. “There cannot be two horses of any breed, anywhere, with a better disposition than these two horses,” she declared. “From the time they got here (on August 19) ‘til the time they left, there were people in front of their stall until close to midnight. They always came to the front of the stall to see their visitors. We had kids that stopped by two and three times a day, dragging their parents.
“Tim and Brian must have had very sore hands from all the autographs they signed, not just for fans, but they signed race bikes for horsemen, who thanked them for coming. We had a lot of people who came to the fair just for harness racing, and that hasn’t happened in a long time.”
(Harness Racing Communications)