Rose Run Aimee went from kicking handlers and stalls to become one of the state’s most promising fillies, running track records and leaving followers asking for more. (Press Pros Feature Photos Provided).
This fast-rising filly has gone from kicking the stalls to kicking sand on the competition. The amazing turnaround story of Rose Run Aimee.
By Bob Roberts
Columbus, OH – Walt Disney couldn’t write this script on his best day.
There are horse tales and there are horse tales. And then there’s what’s going on in the northwest corner of Ohio. The unfolding story of Rose Run Aimee, a pacing tomboy turned fairytale filly, is one that sells tickets and popcorn at a theater near you.
Dr. Jill Dentel, 35, the majority owner of the three-year-old pacing filly, spends most of her waking hours working as a licensed veterinarian. James Ehrsam, who trains the daughter of Breeders’ Crown champion Racing Hill out of the Western Terror mare, Private Performanc, is also a great juggler of the clock on the wall. While Dentel is wrapped up in vaccines and surgeries of small animals at her Countryside Animal Clinic in Wauseon, Ehrsam heads a road crew in nearby Swan Creek Township.
Veteran racing columnist Bob Roberts writes harness racing for the Ohio Harness Horseman Association.
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And Rose Run Aimee? She has given up running through fences and kicking the walls of her stall to pace a hole in the wind. In fact, she’s not only won seven of 16 lifetime starts, a leg of the Ohio Sires Stakes, and $115,711, but has, not once but twice, equaled the Scioto Downs track record for sophomore pacing fillies with matching miles in 1:49 4/5.
Rose Run Aimee was originally purchased at the Buckeye Classic Yearling Sale for $11,000 by a partnership of four gentlemen, William Rufenacht and Gene Roth of Archbold, Oh. and Jeffrey Bankey of Fremont, In. They owned half of her. Trainer Russ Sutherland, stabled at the Fulton County Fairgrounds, owned the other half.
“Her early training didn’t go so well,” said Dentel. “She was just, and I hate to say a nightmare, but she was a nightmare. She did everything wrong. She tried to run Russ in the infield, and into fences. She would kick the walls of her stall all day and try to run over anyone who came near her.”
Rose Run Aimee wouldn’t relent. Just before she turned two, Sutherland banished her to a nearby farm.
“And the people there didn’t particularly didn’t love her, either, because she kept running through their fences,” said Dentel. “I don’t know how she didn’t hurt herself, but thankfully, she did not. I know this because I was the vet at the farm.”
Come February of last year, after she had exhausted just about everyone who tried to jog her, Sutherland offered to sell Rose Run Aimee to Dentel.
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“I really didn’t want to buy her,” she said. “But after he asked me three times, I talked to Ehrsam. He said he’d sat behind her and she had talent. I finally said yes. I always wanted a horse that I could go to the fairs and have fun with, so I bought half of her for $5,000 and the other three gentlemen kept their half.”
Rose Run Aimee would become the first horse that Dentel would get to the races. Are you listening, Walt Disney Studios?
Returned to the Fulton County Fairgrounds, and now in the care of Ehrsam, Rose Run Aimee finally began settling down.
“He turned her into a civilized citizen,” said Dentel. “He put a lot of miles in her. James trains her and we take turns jogging her. She listens so well. She’s now the perfect gal.”
Rose Rune Aimee’s racing career started in a claiming race in August of 2024.
Rose Run Aimee’s racing career began with a qualifier at Delaware on June 25 of last year. She finished last of six, but qualified in 2:01 1/5. It was then off to the county fair circuit where she would make nine starts over three months with very good results.
Following second place finishes at Oak Harbor and Bowling Green, Rose Run Aimee broke her maiden, hitting the winner’s circle on Aug. 7 at Attica. Timed in 2:03 4/5, her margin of victory was a length.
“It’s the only race I missed,” said Dentel. “I was in between farm calls. I watched the race on my phone and it kept rebooting. About the time she hit the three-quarter pole on my phone, my friends we’re texting me congratulations. I knew she won before I saw that she won.”
A second score came on familiar turf when Rose Run Aimee won at the Wauseon’s Fulton County Fairgrounds, breaking the two minute barrier with a 1:59 1/5 clocking. Fittingly, Ehrsam was in the sulky that day.
“She was starting to get it,” he said. “The ability was always there.
“But she was still immature,” said Dentel. “In the turns, she would throw steps in, constantly a half a step away from running. I went over her, other vets went over her, and I was told just give her time. Let her grow up. That was the primary reason she stayed at the fairs last year.”
Yet for the year, Rose Run Aimee raced 10 times, with three wins, three seconds and a third for earnings of $22,711.
While the filly got the better part of the winter off, the daily routine of Dentel and Ehrsam continued as a marathon in stamina.
“My alarm goes off at 4:15 every morning,” said Dentel. “It gives me time to get ready for work, let my dogs out, and give them breakfast. Then, I’m at the barn no later than 5:30. James is already there feeding the horses we care for. I jog Shorty (her nickname for Rose Run Aimee) and he takes out to the track a gelding that’s we’ve got. We come back in, bathe the horses, and put coolers on them. By 7 a.m. it’s time for both of us to go to work.”
“Guys on my road crew know where I’m coming from,” said Ehrsam. “I’m already dirty from the track. Yeah, I’m sure there’s a little manure on my work boots. But it’s all worth it. Who would believe we have a Sires Stakes winner and a track record holder.”
Rose Run Aimee began her 2025 campaign with a May 1 qualifier at Northfield Park. She finished second and was clocked in 1:57 3/5. It was followed by her first pari-mutuel start of the season in the first leg of the May 9th Steve McCoy Series at Scioto Downs.
It was not only Dentel’s first ever visit to the Columbus track, it was her first trip to a pari-mutuel track of any sort. It would be a memorable one. Rose Run Aimee was on her toes, not only winning off by five lengths, but posting a 1:51 3/5.
“I’m watching, nervous as hell, from the paddock and all I could see were horses flying by,” said Dentel. “I didn’t realize we had won. Somebody said, ‘hey, get in the golf cart and get over to the winner’s circle.’ I couldn’t believe she won and I couldn’t believe she went in 51 and 3.”
Although stunned by the rapid victory, Dentel, while unhooking Rose Run Aimee, asked Dan Noble, who drove her, if he was available to drive her in the Buckeye Stallion Series nine days later at Northfield.
“He looked at me kind of funny and said, “Jill, no. You’re going to the Sires stakes.”
About the date with the Sires series. Listen as Dentel comes clean about the nominating payment.
“My partner Bill Rufenacht is budget friendly, or, as he likes to say, he’s frugal. He doesn’t like to waste money, so when it came to staking time, I won’t lie. I didn’t tell Bill I staked her to the Sires because I knew Bill wouldn’t like it.”
Paid in full and a week later, they were back at Scioto racing for a purse of $65,000 in the first of five Ohio Sires Stakes legs instead of racing for $20,000 in the Buckeye Stallion Stakes. Rose Run Aimee paced a big mile, chasing home the 3-5 favorite Odds On Hialeah and finishing second, beaten just 1 ¼ lengths. The race was timed in 1:50 3/5.
Two weeks later on May 30, in the second leg of the McCoy, she dominated, winning by 2 ¼ lengths in 1:50 2/5. The effort set her up for another showdown with Odds on Hialeah. Again, she finished second. Revenge would come a month later, but first was the $30,000 McCoy final on June 13.
It would be a memorable evening. Rose Run Aimee powered to a wire-to-wire 4 ¼ length victory in a track record equaling 1:49 4/5 mile for three-year-old fillies.
“In the winner’s circle, Dan told me, ‘you know, I’ve sat behind a lot of good horses, but this is a great horse. She’s special,’” Dentel recalls.
Dentel and Ehrsam are unconventional in their approach to preparing for big races. They put multiple weeks between starts for Rose Run Aimee. There was a three week gap between the McCoy final and the July 5 leg of the Ohio Sires Stakes back at Scioto Downs, a much anticipated third showdown with Odds On Hialeah.
“Before the race, Noble said to me, ‘You haven’t raced her for three weeks,” said Ehrsam. “I told him, ‘just go to the front, you’ll be alright. After the race he told me he was amazed.”
That’s because Rose Run Aimee not only beat Odds on Hialeah by a length, she once again equaled the Scioto Downs track record of 1:49 4/5.
“Did we celebrate?” said Dentel. “It was the 14th race and by the time we got done at the state barn it was 12:45 in the morning. We drove home, fed the horses breakfast, and went to bed.”
Since the big score, Dentel’s phone continues to ring with offers to buy Rose Run Aimee.
“I’m not selling,” she said. “I’m single. I own a vet clinic and a farm and I’m not interested in any kind of offer. Few things in life make me as happy as this filly. It’s more than the money she’s earned; it’s how much fun I’m having with her.”
The next Sires Stakes leg is Aug. 10 at Northfield Park.
“We may stay home and train her,” said Dentel.
Naturally. Dentel and Ehrsam doing things their ways, setting records and cashing big purse checks with a mare who’s learned her manners.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dentel and Ehrsam changed their mind. After 26 days without a start, they raced Rose Run Aimee at Scioto Downs on Aug. 1. Against a field of eight older fillies and mares, she finished third, beaten a length in 1:50 2/5.
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