Greenville’s Ronnie Gillespie (above) breaks from the county fair circuit to race Thursday night at Scioto Downs, in Columbus. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Julie McMaken Wright)
He was 16 when he bought his first horse for $500, and sold it a month later for $20,000…proving that Greenville’s Ronnie Gillespie was cut out for the harness racing game, and closing in on a thousand wins as one of the state’s favorite ‘fair’ drivers.
Columbus, OH— A county fair features cotton candy, corn on the cob, FFA livestock shows, live singing, amusement rides…and harness racing.
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As Ohio’s fairs move from county to county during the summer, up and coming sulky stars follow the calendar. and fans follow the horses and their drivers.
And some super star trainer/drivers like Ronnie Gillespie, a Greenville resident who looks as if he would be more comfortable behind a microphone on a county fair stage than behind 1,200 pounds of horse flesh.
Fair goers and race competitors are not fooled. Gillespie is a fan favorite and some follow him from fair to fair to watch him win.
Win? That’s Gillespie’s middle and last name. He has ridden behind a starting gate 4,466 times and was first across the line 979 times, closing in on the coveted 1,000 wins.
In 2022, he won 128 races and $686,880, all from a humble beginning in Macon, Mississippi, which not only doesn’t have a stoplight, it doesn’t have a stop sign.
Gillespie was a mere 16 when he bought his first horse for $500, trained it for 30 days, then sold it for $25,000 That’s when horse blood began coursing through his veins. It led to him winning the overall Ohio state fair all-around championship two years in a row, appearing in more than 100 races and won close to 40.
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Fair racing came easy for the amiable Mississippian.
“From where I was from in the deep south, I started out in county fairs,” he said. “And you make your rules as you go because at the end of the day you have a lot of inexperienced drivers on the track.
“So it is who can outsmart who,” he added. “That’s basically how I became successful at the fairs. I learned the game real quick and what it took to do it. Not that I call myself smart, but I knew I was out there with a lot of younger guys.
“I always dealt with older guys and they always told me what you have to do,” he added. “Fortunately I had the gift to do it and got it done.”
Indeed he did, from the right end of a horse.
In 2023 he won a career-best $781,931 both at the fairs and at big-name tracks like Scioto Downs, Miami Valley and Dayton Raceway.
But he has a special affinity for the fairs.
“It’s more entertaining,” he said. “You got people who come to the big tracks because it’s a higher level, but fans come to the fairs to enjoy seeing you drive, and you get to meet the people.”
And that’s where Gillespie is a shining star, where fans want to talk to him, get his autograph and pose with him for photographs.
“I got more fans at the fairs and that makes me feel good,” he said. “I’ll never forget my first fair when I was back at home. A guy from Indiana would take a vacation, like in July, and come to Mississippi.
“The first time, this kid walked up to me and said, ‘Sir, can I have your autograph?’ I’m not more than 22 or 23 at the time myself and I’m thinking, ‘Who’s he talkin’ to?’ I didn’t consider myself nobody.
“How I became successful at the fairs…I learned the game real quick and what it took to do it. Not that I call myself smart, but I knew I was out there with a lot of younger guys.”
“I said, ‘You talkin’ to me?’ And he said, “Yeah, I want your autograph,’ and he was dead serious.”
A star was in the embryonic stage and that Indiana man is fully grown and still shows up a fair where Gillespie, now a youngish-looking 53 circles the tracks, usually in front.
“That’s what I like about the fairs. . .the fans. They take it seriously,” he said.
And the beginning of his love affair with the equine set?
Being from the deep south, and the most remote part of the deep south, Gillespie said he was in the country where animals outnumber people by about 100 to 1.
“My dad happened to take me to a little small race one day and I just fell in love with it,” he said.
That’s when he bought his first horse for $500. He saw the horse standing in a pasture and told the owner he was looking for a standardbred. He asked how much Gillespie had and he said, “I ain’t got no money.”
The man said he’d let him have it for $500, “And my dad bought it for me. I was about 16 years old. I didn’t even know how to read a stop watch.”
That’s when it became evident he was a horse whisperer with a knack for training them. He took the horse home for 30 days.
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“This guy came by looking to buy the best horses in our area,” said Gillespie. “I wasn’t lookin’ to sell it. I was just happy to have a horse. I sold him for $25,000. Here I was a 16-year-old kid selling a horse for $25,000.”
He celebrated by buying a big car and put a big stereo system in it, “And my dad said, ‘Hey, don’t spend it. You gotta invest your money.’”
What Gillespie did was invest his money and his time on the world of horse flesh.
“I did that multiple times,” he said. “I would go buy a horse for $500 or $600, train it, then sell it for big money.”
And on the track?
He hails from humble beginnings – Macon, Mississippi – and two years ago he earned $789,000, proving Ronnie Gillespie is one of the best at getting the best out of a standardbred.
“The horse that made me famous was a horse by the name of Bo’s Sahbra,” he said. “My dad and a friend went to an auction where they sold cows. He was the only horse in the sale. I didn’t even go with them.
“My dad bought the horse because it was a standardbred and he was a mean horse, too,” he continued. “If you walked toward his stall he would charge you, want to eat you up. I trained him and made him famous, what I call famous, carrying him around to matinees.”
For years, Gillespie didn’t know anything about parimutuel tracks because there weren’t any around Macon. He just drove the fair tracks until a man spotted his talent and said, “You better get you a parimutuel license.” He didn’t know a license to race was needed.
“I went to Paducah Downs in Kentucky to get my license. They told me I had to qualify in four or five races.
Qualify?
“They gave me my license and believe it or not I won the driving title there that first year,” he said. “I just went there to get my license and drive some horses.”
Yeah, right. And a star was born, a star who said his most memorable race was driving Sugar Instead to the 2023 2-Year-Old Filly Trot Ohio Sires Stakes Scarlet Championship.
That’s championship is a lot of words for a little guy with a heart as big as a horse’s, and most comfortable at a county fair track.
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