Roberts: The Rosy Weaver Story

She went from flipping burgers in a diner to responding to a newspaper ad…then to grooming horses and becoming one of the country’s best horsewomen.  And the story of Rosy Weaver’s roots is one you’d never guess.

By Bob Roberts for Press Pros Magazine

Fate.

Some say it’s overrated. A myth, a mirage. Others won’t make a move without hoping fate has their backs.

In 2001, Rosy Weaver was just another teenager looking for her lane on life’s road map. Uncommitted and yet to be inspired, it’s hard to believe that fate was at the end of the spatula she was using to flip hamburgers in a restaurant in southeastern Stark County.

But fate was certainly printed on a page deep in an edition of the Bargain Hunter, a weekly newspaper that served the rural communities of Ohio. One day at the diner, an advertisement in the classified section caught Weaver’s eye. She ripped it out and took it home to show her parents.

“I’ll never forget it,” said Weaver. “It read, ‘Racehorse farm looking for a groom. To work six days a week. Possibly go to race.’ Everything I read was my dream. My parents didn’t encourage or discourage me. They allowed me to go and take a look. And that’s how I started. I put in my two-week notice at the restaurant and became a groom. I worked there for seven years for trainers Ben Miller and Jimmy Smith.”

Fate?

If so, it has not only turned a young Amish girl into a horsewoman, but a very accomplished horsewoman, one who this year established the record for most single-season victories on Ohio’s extensive county fair racing circuit.

Weaver won 100 races (plus two Fair Champions night races) and her stable earned $822,831 (which includes 15 raceway victories), both personal highs. She raced at 38 fairs and posted victories at 31 of them, including multiple victories at all but three stops. Her most successful fair was Marion (nine wins), followed by Dover (eight) and Paulding (seven). For the year, her victory rate was a sparkling 28%.

Weaver left the Amish way of life while serving her standardbred racing apprentice, but is grateful for the foundation it provided her.

“I left around 18 and horses had a lot to do with my decision,” said Weaver. ”I’m glad I grew up Amish. I had a great mom and dad who taught me how to work. Basically, I am where I am today because of them. They weren’t in racing, but had draft horses. I would drive them in the fields, not race horses on the track. As for leaving, you don’t see too many ladies in dresses and bonnets driving horses, do you?”

That the 39-year-old Weaver will be honored this winter at the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association’s annual banquet in Columbus as 2025’s county fair champion trainer is more of an accomplishment than the average fan might realize.

The success came after a nightmare experience with the stable’s feed supply last year.

“My three-year-old crop this year was almost extinct. Last year, when I returned from Aiken (her winter training center in South Carolina), I went to feed and I noticed there was way more corn than I’m used to having, but I didn’t want to complain because this was the first batch and I just got home.”

It turns out the corn was moldy, which, according to Weaver, “is okay for cattle and such, but horses are as picky as cows aren’t.”

“It was bad. All my horses got poisoned, and we’re talking about 40 of them,” said Weaver. “They should have all died, but none of them did. Most of them were turned out and never raced. It cost me and my owners perhaps millions of dollars. We were down to about five who could race, and while they trained good, when it came to racing, they were stressed and couldn’t handle it. One vet told me I was racing horses with a half-empty tank. The poison killed their bone marrow, which makes oxygen cells. It took them three days to replenish what a healthy horse does in an hour.”

With her 3-year-olds of 2025 severely compromised, it’s no wonder that 65 percent of her fair winners this year came from her two-year-olds.

“The numbers mean more to me, since I raced with half an arsenal. This has been my most rewarding year,” said Weaver. “I now truly believe in the saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I appreciate things more. I never thought anything would make me not want to go to work, but that did. I was afraid when I got to the barn, I’d find dead horses. I really don’t know what would have happened to me. I don’t think I’d be training horses anymore.”

Back to her beginnings in harness racing, Weaver was patient in learning her lessons from Miller and Smith, but once she realized that she wanted to make harness racing her profession, it meant striking out and starting a stable of her own in 2008.

“I kind of wanted to try it, but I didn’t want to just quit, so I had a couple of horses down at the fairgrounds in Dover,” she said. “I would work during the day at the farm and then go train my own at night.”

Her first winner as a trainer would come on Aug. 27, 2008, at the Stark County Fair in Canton with the maiden filly trotter Peggie Lane. Weaver drove her that day. They got a mile in a tortoise 2:14, and took first place money of $1,350.

Today, Weaver is headquartered at Glory Meadows Farm in Beach City. She has a staff of eight full-time employees that she considers the key to her operation.

“It really takes teamwork to be successful,” said Weaver, who lists assistant trainer Robin Miller, barn foreman Katie Hershberger, and first call driver Drew Neill for special mention.

“Robin has been with me for 12 years,” said Weaver. “He always stays back at the farm when we go racing. He never goes with us. You’ll never see him. He is silently amazing at my barn. He holds everything together. He’s so dependable.  I almost have to force him to take a day off. Katie is outstanding. She works so hard and is right there with me.”

As for Neill, who set an Ohio record for county fair wins, 166 this year, Weaver says, “Drew just doesn’t grab the reins and goes. He listens to what I say. He understands that horses are individuals. They are not all the same.”

Weaver’s crew, of which six usually go to the fairs, includes Joe Yoder, David Swartzentruber, Rodrigo Oviedo, Tina and Fannie Hershberger, and Edi Lopez.

What many casual racing fans might not realize about training county fair horses at traditional two-day meetings is that the trainers more often than not return home after the first day, no matter how long the shipping time.

“Absolutely, we go back home,” said Weaver. “We have to get more horses. Hicksville and Paulding are the farthest fairs for us, about 3 to 3 ½ hours. We race all day, then turn around and head home and do it again the next day. I hardly sleep in the summertime. You couldn’t do what we do year-round. I wouldn’t have a single person left working for me, and I’d be dead. I trade four months of craziness in the summer for six months of nothing in the winter. I don’t race after Nov. 1.”

Paulding and Marion, traditionally Weaver’s first two fairs each season, are pivotal to her program.

“I look at Paulding as being an advantage for our stable because first, not everybody has the opportunity to go south like we do. And second, not everybody has the opportunity to matinee their horses before the season starts, which we do in South Carolina. It makes my two-year-olds more experienced. Not necessarily better by any means, but certainly more experienced. Marion and Paulding are the first two fairs for me, so I always try to take the ones there that have manners.

Like I said, they aren’t always the fastest, but manners will make you money early.”

Weaver dominated at both fairs, winning a total of 16 races.

No matter what the fair, the Weaver caravan is planned and executed with military precision.

“In the morning, I get my tablet and write every horse’s name and every race they are in, what time they warm up or what race they warm up after, what bike they wear, what time they get hooked, what head poles they wear, and what side. If there were no list, if I didn’t try to prepare, then my staff wouldn’t know what to follow. And I pack everything before we hit the road. That way, I can never holler at a groom for not packing a harness.”

Once at the fairgrounds, Weaver tries to avoid putting her horses in the stalls available in the barn area.

“I prefer not to,” she said. “We race them right out of the trailer. I have a setup where both my trucks have water tanks, and I have generators, big plastic tubs, and water heaters. I hook up a pump that you just drop in the tub, and I can spray a horse with a hose like any wash stall. This way, they have nice warm water for a bath. And I also have cold water for them to drink.”

There is even a batting order for the horses inside the trailers.

“It could be a catastrophe if you race out of the trailer,” said Weaver. “Because if you have this horse in the first race, and then one in the second, and one in the eighth, and one in the twelfth, and have them stacked wrong, then you have to take a bunch of horses out to get to the one who is next and needs to get ready. I’ll load according to the races. Whoever is in first be on last, so we can just peel them out.”

Weaver’s favorite fair is the Hartford Fair at Croton.“There are more people at that fair than at any fair we race. It’s almost like stepping back in time when you go there,” she said. “I absolutely love it. People are happy, and glad to be there, and they are happy for you when you win.”

While Croton is her favorite, her harness racing nightmare is when she pretty much ships her whole stable to South Carolina for winter training and then back to Ohio. “It’s the least favorite two days of the year for me. When we travel, my entire business is on the road. I don’t sleep well for a while.”

Weaver is not only a trainer, but somewhat of an equine psychologist.

“I try to make a racehorse,” she said. “It’s my job to recognize ability and attitude and race them where they belong. I don’t want to race them over their heads. I don’t want them chasing horses in the Sires Stakes or Buckeye Stallion races. I want my two-year-olds to be around for their three-year-old year. I don’t want to ruin their competitiveness and desire. I think they know when they are finishing one-two-three. A hundred percent, so. You can literally feel it through the lines. And you can also feel when they feel defeated.”

Defeat? That’s not a word heard too often around the Weaver barn, an Ohio championship barn.