Lebanon’s Kayne Kauffman guides Go Accordingly to a wire-to-wire win in the first race of Monday’s eight-race card at the Miami County Fair. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Miami County’s most noted, and most active, horseman quietly goes about his business of training winners. Quietly? He says he doesn’t do interviews, but he did this one for Press Pros. Mike Polhamus shares his love for horses and competition on opening night of the Miami County Fair racing.
Troy, OH — If you want to talk to a man about a horse in Miami County, Mike Polhamus is your man.
But be prepared to do most of the talking because Polhamus is a man of few, and even fewer, words.
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The Troy native horseman is a super nice guy, but as he says, “I prefer to let my horses do the talking.”
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And they talk with an air of success on the harness racing county fair circuit, especially at the Miami County Fair.
The first Polhamus horse to do the talking Monday was Go Accordingly. On the first race of the two-day Miami County Fair program, Go According went accordingly, wire-to-wire, never challenged, in 1:59 and a fraction.
And what did Polhamus say before the race? “Yeah, he has a chance. He can win.” From Polhamus, that was an eloquent speech.
Polhamus, who has been around horses from the day he scrambled out of a cradle, built his own barn on the Miami County Fairgrounds and on Monday 26 racers occupied stalls.
As a group stood chatting in front of a stall occupied by Occupational Hazard, the horse kept kicking the walls.
“He’s cantankerous,” said Polhamus. “He kicks the wall and knocks off his back shoes. He’s very full of himself.”
In another stall was a mare named Illegal. And at the other end of the barn stood Illegally Funded.
He’s trained so many horses…so many races run…that he can’t begin to guess. And yet, Mike Polhamus watched with the railbirds during Monday’s racing at the Miami County Fair, in Troy.
“Illegal won $100,000 so I used that money to buy the other horse and named him Illegally Funded,” said Polhamus.
The subject arose about naming horses, some clever, some absurd, and Polhamus smiled and said, “I never saw a horse in the winner’s circle with a bad name.”
Polhaus, 66, a lifer in the barns has no idea how many horses he has trained?
“I couldn’t even guess. Thousands?”
He has no idea how many winners he has had both as a driver in his younger days and a trainer. Thousands?
He says he has no favorites but he is proud of one 5-year-old standing in his barn. “Not really any real favorites, but there has been a few. It’s kinda hard to pick one out of all I’ve ever had.”
Then one came to mind.
“In the 1990s I had a horse called Nardie Jeff and he was an amazing animal.”
And then another popped into his mind.
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“Two years ago I had a 2-year-old called Rumble Strips. He set a world’s record at Delaware for 2-year-olds that still stands,1:53.2,” said Polhaus.
“He’s back in training after I turned him out for a while and he hasn’t raced but I’m getting him ready to get back racing.”
Polhaus admits that there is nothing he’d rather do than live his daily life surrounded by horse flesh.
“A couple of years ago I told my son that I might sell out, buy an RV and see America,” he said. “And my son said, ‘By the time you got to Indiana you’d be looking for a horse.’”
Two for the books….Hal McCoy (left) has fifty years of writing about the Cincinnati Reds…Mike Polhamus (right) has 50 years of teaching horses how to win.
Polhamus broke into a broad smile, shook his head, and said, “Yeah, he’s probably right.”
Polhamus is humble and some may call him brusque or off-putting, but it is more a shyness and a demeanor that doesn’t like a spotlight aimed at his eyes.
“I’ve been asked to do interviews about 50 times and always said no,” he said, as he granted this interview to Press Pros Magazine.
“My dad was a farmer by trade in Troy but he always had about 20 racehorses,,” he said about his background.
“Horses just get to your soul,” he said. “I’m very blessed. I get up every morning and get to do what I like to do. Come here and be with horses.”
Polhamus seldom climbs into the sulky these days, “Just two or three times a year, but I like the competition.”
He leaves the driving to Lebanon’s Kayne Kauffman, who won his 4,000th race last season and Polhamus says, “He does 90% of my driving.”
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Kauffman was in the seat for Go Accordingly’s easy win Monday night.
And because he built a barn and stables all his horses at the Miami Count fairgrounds, he trains on the track.
“I grew up on these fairgrounds because my dad trained horses here and I’ve been here my whole life.”
And he won’t be going anywhere soon.
“It’s the greatest thing in the world to train horses,” he said. “People ask me when I’m going to retire and I tell them, ‘When I die.’ What else am I going to do? I know so many people who hate going to work and I feel for ‘em.”
And how does one go about training horses when they are so much like people, each with its own personality and demeanor?
“To be honest with you, I don’t know,” he said. “It just comes to me, what each horse needs. How they need trained. You can’t train ‘em all the same.
“But I’ve done it for so long, I just know…but no matter how old you get you can always learn something,” he added.
The man is definitely a Marlboro Man with a harness, the strong, silent type.
Can you say Horse Whisperer?
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