Swartz (above) won in the fifth race Wednesday to bring his career total to 1,998. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Three wins shy of 2,000 entering Wednesday’s racing card at the Urbana fair, New Carlisle native Russell Swartz’s story of the horseman next door with the horse of a lifetime is a hard one to beat.
Urbana, OH — He stands regally in a stall on the Champaign County fairgrounds, ears pricked toward the celing, big brown eyes as smooth and liquid as Kentucky bourbon.
His stance is princely, the way a special 2-year colt should present himself.
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All his 62-year-old owner/driver, Russell Swartz, has to do, “Is see him and I get tears in my eyes. All I have to do is think about him…and I get tears in my eyes.”
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The object of his affection is an under-sized but well-proportioned equine that is fittingly named Ready Russell. Swartz calls him, “The best colt I’ve ever had in my life. And it chokes me up a little bit saying it.”
Ready Russell won his first three races and trotted the half-mile in 1:55. He was on his way to a fourth straight win at the Ohio State Fair when he broke stride.
“I was mad at him, really mad,” said Swartz. “But I go over it in a couple of days. And he has the ability to do more than that. He is just an exceptional colt, just an incredible colt. I can’t say enough good about him.”
While Ready Russell was ready to run at Champaign and Swartz said, “I was going to race him here, because that was when I was a little mad at him. But I want to point him to the bigger races. Like Sunday, at Northfield Park (Cleveland where he’s going for $50,000). If he wins, he get half of that…$25,000.”
High expectations for a two-year-old?
High expectations? “I do…he’s just an exceptional colt,” said Russell Swartz of his two-year-old, Ready Russell. “I can’t say enough good about him.”
“I do, I do,” said Swartz. “He’s made almost $60,000 this year so far and probably has the opportunity to go to the $300,000 finals.
That isn’t just because he loves the colt, it’s because he never fathomed he would own one like him.
Swartz purchased the horse at the Select Sale in Circleville where most of the best horses in Ohio are sold.
And Swartz thought he had no chance at buying Ready Russell.
“I scratched him off my book because he had a full brother, LT Lover Boy, that last year as a 2-year-old won about $300,000,” he said. “And I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get him bought.
“The owner of the farm from where I got him, Midland Acres (Doc Mossbarger) told me, ‘You ought to look at that colt.’
“I told him, ‘I ain’t gonna be able to afford him,’ but Mossbarger told me he was a little small and he thought I could afford him.”
Going on Mossbarger’s advice, “I didn’t even look at him, I just went and bought him because I respect his opinion.”
For $37,000.
That, too, brings tears to Swartz’s eyes because, as he said, he’s already won $60,000 in four career starts.
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“I just hope I can keep him going in the right direction,” he said. “He’s still real green and still learning.”
The right direction is just several left turns with some speed down the backstretch and frontstretch with nothing more needed than being the first horse to stick its nose under the wire.
While Ready Russell stands alone, Swartz has been around hundreds of trotters and pacers for 50 years, give or take a few years, ever since he wandered into a barn when he was 8 years old, and traipsed around fairgrounds when he was 9 years old.
“When I was younger I didn’t have a lot of friends,” he said. “I had a couple but not a lot. So I’d go out to the horse barns and horses didn’t have an opinion. If you pat them, you became their best friend. I learned how to like ‘em and I got to help people take care of ‘em.”
Russell Swartz with his equine protege’, two-year-old Ready Russell.
And he knows how to steer them around the half-mile fairgrounds tracks in a sulky, like this week at the Champaign County Fair.
On Tuesday night, the skinny as a No. 2 pencil won three races in front of a fully stuffed grandstand, bringing his career total just three wins shy of 2,000.
And on Wednesday, he was entered in five races with 2,000 wins just three lengths away from his grasp.
“I’d like to get there, but I don’t know that it’s possible tonight,” he said. “I’ll get there.”
Five races is quite a night for a 62-year-old man who says he’s thought about hanging up his whip, or at least slowing down.
“I’m actually happy where I’m at, but I wanted to slow down a bit,” he said. “Ever since I’ve said that, I’ve gotten more horses (37) than I really need.”
Swartz started Wednesday night with 1,997 wins and was entered in three races. And how’d he get there? With a passion for horses and for harness racing.
He began in 1982 at Toledo Raceway and in 2009 he won 175 races, placed 161 times and showed 177 times.
His best money year was 2008 when he won 175 times and earned $628,601.
“Two thousand wins these days doesn’t mean much to the younger guys,” he said. “They drive for anybody. Back in the day, you needed a big stable of horses to be driving a lot and winning a lot.
“Everybody drove their own horses back in the day, but now it’s more that the owners let other people drive ‘em,” he added. “There’s a lot more opportunity out there now.”
But with Ready Russell in his barn, why should Russell Swartz not be ready.
Trust it. He is!
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