Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Odds On Racing's

Trainer of the Month
for January 2008

Howard Beissinger

Howard Beissinger, a four-time winner of the Hambletonian with Lindy's Pride, Speedy Somolli, Lindy's Crown and Speedy Crown, is one of harness racing's all-time top trainer-drivers with more than 1,350 career victories and $4.6-million in earnings. He is an old master of American trotting trainers, a horseman from the old school who grew up worshipping such legends as Sep Palin, Tom Berry, Fred Egan, Ben White, and Doc Parshall.

Howard Beissinger

Howard Beissinger was born on May 16, 1923 at Butler County, Ohio.   He became a leading driver on the competitive Chicago circuit in the 1950s, and later drove with success against the best in the sport at Roosevelt and Yonkers Raceways in the 1960s.   He won the first Hambletonian he ever entered by steering Lindy's Pride to victory in 1969. Two years later he scored another Hambletonian triumph with Speedy Crown, a horse foaled on the Beissinger family farm in southwest Ohio.

In 1978 he added a third Hambletonian to his resume when he guided Speedy Somolli to a world record victory. In 1980, Beissinger returned to Du Quoin and won with Lindy's Crown in 1:54.4, then the fastest race mile ever by a trotter. In 1991 Beissinger was seriously injured in a training accident that curtailed his training and driving activities.

Howard & Speedy Crown
"In my career I've certainly seen a lot of changes in the business," Beissinger said. "Harness racing is a much different business than it was 50 years ago. It used to be that all the major races were won by a handful of top horsemen. One of them was Curly Smart. Curly was a hard trainer. When he sent a horse to the races, the horse wasn't short. I remember back in the late 1950s when he sent Gold Worthy, a Worthy Boy pacer, to me to race at Yonkers. The horse's front legs were like stovepipes where he'd been blistered and blistered. But Gold Worthy was sound and he was tough, and he could pace in 2:00 on a half-mile track back then.

"Curly Smart didn't need a veterinarian to tell him what to do. He treated the horses himself, and he had a lot of success. Horses don't need to be warmed up as much today as they used to. We used to warm up a horse three trips. We never thought about doing it any differently. And you never dared cool out a horse in less than an hour--and maybe 1-1/2 hours would be better.

"Today horses are warmed up two trips--maybe only one--and cooled out in 20 minutes. The horses come back the next week and race good, so maybe we were doing it wrong years ago.

"It's harder to win a major race today, because there are so many more well-bred horses, and they're scattered in so many places. Horses are easier to develop and more natural, so you can see a winner come from anywhere now.

"Standardbred horses go a lot faster today, but I think that's strictly a result of improvement in the breed. It's not because we had better tracks or better sulkies. We had good tracks back then, and the Houghton sulky made in Marion, Ohio, was as good as any modern sulky. The training methods and equipment didn't make the horses go faster. We just have better-bred horses."

Career Driving Wins: 1,715 Career Driving Earnings: $11,747,864