Hunter Myers won 2,451 races in a span of just twelve years. (Press Pros Photos by Heather Wilder)
A career, and life, far too short, one of harness racing’s brightest meteors is being remember for how much he did in such a short amount of time.
By Bob Roberts for Press Pros
Many of their heads were bowed in an exacta of shock and sorrow. Slowly, they made their way – the wrong way — around the wind-whipped clubhouse turn at Northfield Park.
The route is the traditional clockwise journey that horses and drivers travel when they retrace their steps to the winner’s circle.
The March 23 procession at sunset on a cold and windy Sunday night would eventually end in the limestone crescent where victory is celebrated. But not this evening. Not at this moment.
Those gathered — family, friends, and fellow horsemen and horsewomen — were there to mourn the loss of Hunter Myers. It had been just three days since he died from injuries suffered in a March 19 race at The Meadows. Silence was substituted for applause at his home track situated between Akron and Cleveland.
Months later, the stabbing pain of his loss somewhat lessened, and those who knew Myers best spoke freely and fondly of the young man who is gone at 27.
“He was a kid, about 19, when he moved up here,” said Amy Hollar, the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association representative at Northfield Park. “His mother (Kelly), being protective of her son, would send me messages asking me to make sure he does ‘this and that’ and to ‘keep an eye on him.’”
Myers was from Pickaway County’s Williamsport, Ohio, located south of Columbus and west of Circleville, with a population of about 1,000.
“I’m from central Ohio, too, so it was easy for us to bond,” said Hollar. “He drove for us (Amy’s husband is trainer Calvin Hollar) and had numerous wins. We had a filly (Prettygirl Dragon) who won five in a row this year, and Hunter drove her for four of those wins.”
Myers drove for 12 years, his first winner coming at the lines of Uptown Dreamer on July 11, 2014, at the Jackson County Fair in Wellston. He was 16 years old. The trainer of Uptown Dreamer was his father, Mike.
An owner-trainer combination that played a significant role in Myers’ development was Sam and Jodi Schillaci, a married couple and veterans of many seasons at Northfield.
“When he first started coming around, he was driving up here every night from central Ohio, driving a horse, here and there,” said Sam Schillaci. “I got to know Hunter, and after a year or so, he moved here. I started using him on some horses. He was an extremely talented young man.”
Schillaci’s opinion would become fact.
At 27, Hunter Myers was accumulating milestones…on the occasion of one of them, above. (Courtesy of Raymond Lance Photo)
Myers would drive 2,451 winners. His most successful year was 2022 when he won 464 races, ranking seventh in North America. Last year, he drove 455 winners, good for ninth among the top performers on the continent.
“He was really good,” said Hollar. “But I didn’t see him on the Grand Circuit because he enjoyed his homelife. Traveling around the country for three or four months would have taken him away from Chloe (his fiancée) and Hayden (their son), and he wouldn’t have liked that. He was a country boy.”
On and off the track, Myers’ best friend was fellow driver Chris Lems.
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“We were pretty close,” said Lems. “His fiancée and my fiancée are best friends. We were always joking around. One thing I’m going to miss for sure is that he could impersonate anybody. It didn’t matter if it was the way they talked, the way they walked, or the way they laughed. He could do all of it.”
Hollar says Myers was always the life of the paddock party.
“You are basically together for six hours every night, and Hunter wanted everybody around him to have a good time,” she said.
“He would find these goofy YouTube videos that were the most childish and dumbest, and he would sit there and laugh and laugh. If you walked by him, he’d say, ‘Look at this, look at this!’”
Lems, 11 years older than Myers, remembers watching his backstretch buddy mature as a driver.
“Like a lot of young kids, he was too aggressive, all run and gun,” said Lems. “I think going over to The Meadows helped him.
Speed doesn’t carry as well over there as it does at Northfield. You have to trip your horses out, and Hunter learned to do that from Ronnie Wrenn and Mike Wilder. Those guys helped him mature as a driver.”
Hollar recalls Myers being supportive of rival horsemen.
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“He was always upbeat, one of the first to congratulate somebody for a milestone or a big win. I’m trying to think of a time when he was upset, but he was never one to take out his disappointment on someone else. But he could be a smartass.”
Schillaci had such confidence in Myers that he looked upon him as vital to his operation.
“He became like a second trainer for me,” said Schillaci. “I got to rely on him a lot. I kind of turned the whole stable over to him as far as driving. He was turning into a really good driver. He had determination.”
Schillaci offered the ultimate compliment to Myers when he reflected upon his own life.
“Unfortunately, Jodi and I never had children. But if Hunter had been my son, I’d be very proud of him.”
Myers had cared deeply for the Schillacis. In an interview following his 2,000th victory last year, he reflected on the impact the couple had on him.
“They will never understand what they have done for me,” said Myers.
Myers’ last winner came at Northfield Park with Motor City Man, a 12-1 longshot, on March 18. It was the night before the accident at The Meadows that claimed his life.
It will be one of the good memories that will remain with Chloe Fisher, his fiancée and the mother of his son, Hayden.
“Thankfully, I was able to capture a lot of photos and videos of Hunter and Hayden for the short time they had together,” said Fisher. “Hunter was very loving. He wanted to take care of us.”
Fisher, 24, first met Myers at Scioto Downs, where her father, Mike Dowdall, was a horseman.
“He was a typical teenage boy. I told him to get his stuff together, and he did. He became the right person at the right time. And he was a great dad. He changed diapers and got up in the middle of the night to care for Hayden.”
There was a sentence in Myers’ obituary that may best sum up his life. It read: “He truly never met a stranger.”
It turns out, a handful of strangers got to meet him. Myers was an organ and tissue donor. He lives on in death.
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