Bowling Green resident Steve Bateson is serving his fifth year as president of the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association. That is because someone thinks he is making a difference in the industry.

When the Wood County Fair hosts harness racing on Sunday, starting at 12:30 p.m., and Monday at 5 p.m., he’ll be in the broadcast booth for the OHHA radio network, which broadcasts on Facebook Live and its own website.

Bateson was elected president of the OHHA because of his passion for the sport. It began when he was elected to the board 14 years ago.

“When the opportunity came to get on the board, I remember the president called me and I told him, ‘If I’m going to be on this board, I’m not just going to sit there. I’m going to be active and try to make a difference,’” Bateson said.

“I kind of think I have. Early on in my tenure with this organization, because it was kind of an old man’s good-ole-boy type of an organization, I ruffled a few feathers,” Bateson continued.

“But I think by and large, I’ve gained the respect of a lot of people.”

Bateson became vice president nine years ago under then-president Kevin Greenfield of Perrysburg, so he has been in a leadership position for almost a decade. He has a full time job and his role as an officer for the OHHA is on a volunteer-basis only, but he finds the time.

$2 billion-plus industry

There are four pari-mutuel tracks and 66 Ohio county fairs that host harness racing. Bateson says harness racing is a $2 billion-plus industry in Ohio.

“That is between jobs, buying hay, buying grain, buying trailers, and so forth, but it’s over a $2 billion impact — the standard bred industry, it is so big,” Bateson said.

Not that long ago, harness racing was a nightly activity at county fairs, but it has remained strong, racing typically two nights a week at today’s fairs. Going back over a century, harness racing was king among sports.

“Harness is racing is really one of the oldest sports in the country,” Bateson said. “If you follow history, back in the turn of the century, the late 1800s, early 1900s, that was the No. 1 sport.

“It only makes sense. Before the advent of automobiles everybody had horses and people wanted to know who the fastest horse was.

“That evolved over time obviously. The ball and stick type sports kind of took over, and some of that changed, but as far as harness racing goes, and I explain that to a lot of folks, the only time a lot of people get to see a harness race is at their county fair.”

Bateson said Wood County played a huge role in that history, too.

“For those who maybe haven’t seen harness racing in a long time, or for those who don’t know much about harness racing, it’s a little bit of a niche sport, but it’s got deep roots not only in this county but across the state,” Bateson said.

“We’ve had some really prominent horsemen who have come from Wood County, and horses who have been stabled in Wood County over the years.

“There are guys who have reached the highest levels of racing and stabled in Wood County. Many of these folks are from multiple generations that have raced at the Wood County Fair.”

Sunday and Monday’s cards

Bateson promises that this year’s racing card at the Wood County Fair will be quality. On Sunday, there are 52 horses scheduled to run in nine races.

“We’ll have a relatively quick card,” Bateson said. “I think we’ll be done by 3 o’clock, but there are going to be some really good featuring events.

“We have multiple six and seven-horse fields, so we don’t have very many short, like four-horse fields. So, it will be kind of like a packed program with some very nice horses that will be there on Sunday. I think we’ll have maybe 10 races on Monday.

“On the pace side, there are several very nice pacers that are going to race on Sunday. On the trot side, because of the signature race, I think we’ll have some very good local horses there,” Bateson said.

On Monday, it’s not guaranteed, but Bateson is hoping Wood County trainer John Konesky III brings Stony Ridgetop, a trotter that has already achieved success at the Seneca County Fair in Tiffin.

Getting hooked on the sport

How does a guy like Bateson, now 55-years-old, get involved in harness racing? Someone throws him a bone, like E.L. Whitacre did when Bateson had just graduated from Bowling Green High School, and next thing you know, he’s hooked.

“I bought my first horse in 1986 from a guy in Rudolph, Ohio, named E.L. Whitacre. He was a farmer and he started driving and training, and still farmed and loved the business,” Bateson said.

“Farming became more of a hobby and racing became more of his livelihood when he got into his mid-50s. He got to driving horses later in life and he drove right into his 60s and I think he had some drives in his early 70s.

“That first horse I bought in 1986 was with some extra money that I got from my high school graduation party and my parents were not happy,” Bateson continued.

“I went to Ohio State, but I used some of my graduation money and bought a claiming horse and I had a partner, and we raced it probably four or five times in the early fall and it got claimed.

“I ended up getting another horse, and I didn’t end up losing any money. I made some money on the first one and I ended up getting another horse and basically dabbled in the horse business on and off until I was married in 1993.”

Once married, he had a chance to get out of the business, but that did not last long.

“When I got married, we moved to Indiana, and there were not any racetracks there are the time so I was out of the business until we moved back to Ohio in 2004 and within a year I was back in the business,” Bateson said.