SUGAR CREEK TWP. ‒ Rosy Weaver has no children, but she’s surrounded by kids.
She refers to her German shepherds, Bolt and Smoke, as “the kids.” The teen girls who work for her as horse grooms at Glory Meadows Farm? Well, they also are “the kids.” Even the harness racehorses themselves.
“It’s a lot like raising kids,” she explained.
Weaver buys yearling horses. She teaches them to consistently pace or trot, a racing gait different than a gallop. She gets them comfortable pulling a sulky (the sport’s name for a chariot, which carries the driver). She races each for two years, before selling them. Then, like a proud mom, she loves to brag on them from afar, for every win, place or show they accumulate without her.
“It makes me feel like my job was well-done,” Weaver said.
Weaver, a 38-year-old owner, trainer, businesswoman and occasional driver, has raced her way into a mostly boys’ club sport.
The finish line, though, wasn’t always so clear.
The oldest of six children, Weaver was raised Amish in nearby Mt. Eaton. For a bit, she flipped burgers at the former Alpine Alpa restaurant in Wilmot. Next came a gig as a horse groom and second trainer at Ruby Hostetler’s Flowing Mineral Farm. Finally, she started to buy claiming horses of her own at Northfield Park in Northfield, where she’d run her stable for 15 years.
Then three years ago, Weaver landed at Glory Meadows.
In a way, the destination was a homecoming to her personal starting gate.
All horses are not created equal
At Glory Meadows, she owns all or pieces of most of the two-dozen-plus racehorses in her stable, and trains several for other owners.
“When you buy a horse, it’s like an unopened present,” Weaver explained.
What will that horse become?
“They all want to go fast, but if you let them go too fast, too soon, you will ruin them,” she said.
A horse could turn into another Elegant Gigi or Sunburned Vern, Weaver’s pride and joys for many reasons. Or perhaps another A Real Legend. He’s Weaver’s best horse ever. A favorite son for his accomplishments on the track. He paid bills and earned her respect in harness racing circles.
“Helped get me on the map,” she recalled.
In 2022, A Real Legend clocked a blistering one minute, 55 seconds mile at Northfield Park. The trip in the $55,000 Ohio Sires Stakes race set a world record for 2-year-old trotting geldings.
However, there also are horses like Got the Money Honey.
A statuesque standardbred beauty, he cost $42,000 as a yearling. That horse looks like a champion in the barn. Big, strong and sculpted like a statue. On the track so far, though? Eh, not so much. One of Weaver’s many ongoing missions is to make that young horse better.
“Some would rather eat hay than work,” she said with a laugh.
Each horse, Weaver said, has a unique personality.
Pink Jammies, who wears plenty of pink-colored accessories on the track, is basically a prima donna spoiled brat. She also happens to be a very good racehorse — as long as all the humans around her do exactly what she wants, how she wants it, at the time she wants it done.
“Drama queen,” Weaver said with a sigh.
Despite a downward trend in popularity, harness racing still creates $2.8 billion in annual economic impact in the Buckeye State, according to a 2024 report by the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association. That figure covers everything from breeding and training farms to wagering.
So, there are plenty of harness racehorse trainers who earn an equine living. What makes Weaver different, say those who know her, is her almost instinctual ability to see potential in a horse when others don’t.
The most obvious example is probably Supreme Dance, a filly. Weaver bought her dirt-cheap for $8,000 last fall. She was small and skinny. But she’s feisty. This summer, she won five races in a row.
“Put her up against Got the Money Honey and she’ll smoke him every time,” Weaver said.
Dr. Dan Wilson, a veterinarian who worked at Northfield Park for nearly a half-century, has seen more harness racehorses, owners and trainers than just about anyone this side of the Mississippi River.
He admired what he saw in Weaver.
Wilson watched her break into the sport, then evolve, learn and grow.
“She is the best,” he said.
Wilson retired in 2021, sort of.
“Once this gets into your blood, you can’t get out,” he said.
In retirement, he and Weaver started buying horses together. The first was a dud. Others, such as Rose Run Zoom who’s won almost $400,000 and Tom’s Queen, are among those who have excelled.
The ultimate test: Look me in the eyes
Wilson said Weaver is hands-on with all her horses.
“She knows everything about their personality … what they want or don’t want,” he said.
The 76-year-old Wilson and Weaver do their homework when selecting prospective yearlings. They analyze bloodlines and breeding. They study the horse’s physique and demeanor. They weigh their options.
There’s also the Weaver eyeball test.
“She looks them right in the eye,” Wilson explained.
Almost like she’s reading the horse’s mind.
Whatever insight Weaver gathers often means buy or pass.
“That’s a special talent, a gift,” Wilson said.
Weaver’s home base, the 33-acre Glory Meadows, lies just beyond American Eagle Hardwoods and a cornfield on Navarre Road SW. That’s in the extreme southwest corner of Stark County.
Glory Meadows is largely what used to be Flowing Mineral farm. The place where Weaver broke into the sport. Three years ago, the property owner needed someone to lease the old horse stable.
Weaver gladly obliged.
Plenty of elbow grease revived the place.
The sprawling layout includes a half-mile track, paddock, barn and adjacent pool room. The latter features an in-ground swimming pool so horses can swim to keep their lungs strong while rehabbing bone bruises. It’s next to spring water stations where horses can chill their muscles after a race.
“People don’t realize these horses are athletes,” Weaver said.
That’s why they enjoy superstar athlete treatment to help them perform better. Some get acupuncture and visits from a chiropractor. Others get in-house mobile magnetic therapy for inflamed muscles.
Nine months a year at Glory Meadows, Weaver and eight employees feed, care for and train horses.
The grooms — Katie, Tina and Fannie Hershberger — are each assigned a different group of horses. Second trainers, Robin Miller, Joe Yoder and David Swartzentruber do their thing. And a pair of maintenance workers, Rodrigo Oveido and Edi Lopez, keep things in working order.
Weaver’s heart lies on the farms
“(Rosy) has that special gift,” said Willis Troyer, whose Heartland Acres owns horses with Weaver at Glory Meadows.
Their business relationship was serendipitous.
Three years ago, Troyer worked with Weaver’s brother-in-law as roofers. Troyer had wanted to own a racehorse since he was a boy. In short order, Troyer was introduced to Weaver. All of that just so happened to unfold at the same time Weaver prepared to move into Glory Meadows.
“I was at Northfield, then Willis came along,” she recalled. “And none of this could have happened without him.”
Every January, all the operation’s essentials, including horses, and some employees head to Aiken, South Carolina.
Weaver lives in a camping area near a track there for three months. The annual trip is a must. It’s impossible to get anything done in frigid and sloppy Ohio weather until April rolls around.
Most summer nights are race time. Horses on trailers hit the road to pace and trot against competition on the Ohio county fair circuit and at tracks such as Scioto Downs and Northfield. Some of those long days at far away locales don’t end until shortly before dawn the next morning.
Each fall is a beginning and an end.
It’s a time when newly purchased yearlings are broken on the track. It’s also a time when Weaver sells her 3-year-olds, usually to owners she knows and trusts, not on the open market.
“She’d rather make sure it’s a good home and not about the money,” Wilson said.
“It’s still my least favorite part,” Weaver said.
After all, it’s like watching your kids leave home.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule — she’s been known to allow a horse or two to stick around.
Sunburned Vern, one of Weaver’s early claiming purchases, died at age 20 this year while she was in South Carolina. He was buried on a nearby farm where she lives with her two dogs.
It’s the same farm where Elegant Gigi — her all-time favorite — still roams.
Now, a 7-year-old broodmare, Elegant Gigi’s racing days and $152,000 in earnings are behind her. But she’ll always be special for what she represents. And for her heart, grit and determination.
Weaver had bought her for $7,000. Elegant Gigi was skinny. She wouldn’t eat. Weaver finally bought an emotional support goat, Frankie, as a last resort. That goat managed to coax Elegant Gigi into eating. The horse filled out. Weaver finally was able to unwrap the racehorse buried deep inside.
She just can’t say goodbye to that horse.
Not now or ever.
One day, Elegant Gigi will get the same burial treatment as Sunburned Vern.
“She’ll never leave my farm,” Weaver said.
Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 or tim.botos@cantonrep.com.On X: @tbotosREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Rosy’s racehorses: Stark County owner/trainer carves her niche in longtime male sport
Reporting by Tim Botos, Canton Repository / The Repository
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
