Spotlight: John Urbanski

John Urbanski’s harness racing story began the same year that he was born, when his father traded a boat for his first Standardbred. A few years later, in 1977, his father and older brother Ned went all-in on harness racing and started the family business.

“I grew up right on the backside of Freehold Raceway. We lived in Union and we drove the hour everyday back and forth to the stable at Freehold Raceway.” Though he was still too young to work with the horses, he never strayed far from the stables; he ate breakfast and lunch at the backside cafeteria, hung out in the feed shed with a heater in the winters, and spent time at the nanny-stations at the racetracks on race days. “Great way to grow up, no doubt.”

As he grew older, he continued to share the love of harness racing with his family and earned his trainer’s and driver’s license. Soon after he started a family of his own, he bought his own farm in central New Jersey.

In his career, he has amassed over 2.5 million dollars in earnings as a trainer, all of those wins coming from horses that he owns himself. Much of John’s success comes from his do-it-yourself mindset. He is a farm manager, track man, farrier, shipper, stall cleaner, groom, and trainer all in one. He works together with his children, Alex and John, to take care of their ten active race horses, horses training down, broodmares and their babies- all in their backyard.

When you do it all yourself, there is a lot to be proud of. According to Urbanski, every day makes him proud. “The horse business is a funny thing. I buy the horses that nobody wants; I buy the throwaways and I do the best I can with them and some of the horses turn out to be real gems, they turn out to be really really nice income. They’re all proud moments, I don’t really have a lot of moments that were bad.”

One of Urbanski’s gems was Beau Rivage N, nicknamed “Freehold’s Grand Old Man” by Ken Warkentin because in his 14-year-old season, Beau visited the winner’s circle 11 times, making him the winningest horse at Freehold that year. He had nine second place finishes and eight thirds.

Urbanski also recalls winning the first ever Irish Heritage Race at Freehold. The race was sponsored by longtime harness racing fans Peter and Mary Grandich, who have sponsored dozens of races at Freehold over the years to raise money for various charities and to help bring fans out to the races. Urbanski’s horse, Real Mystical, went off at 60-1 odds from post eight with Irish Joe Hanney in the bike and made a four-wide move to go from last to first to win the race.

In addition to purchasing diamonds in the rough, Urbanski enjoys breeding as well. His most notable victory with a homebred was with Anna Jeans, his filly that won the New Jersey Sire Stakes at the Meadowlands as a two year old. It was a walkover victory, as she was just one of two horses in the final but that didn’t make it any less special for the Urbanskis. “The fact that we got there at all was an incredible story.”

But nothing makes John prouder than seeing his kids find success of their own in the industry and making memories with them at the same track he grew up at. His 23-year-old daughter Alex already has accomplishments as an owner, trainer, breeder, and driver, with most of her “firsts” occurring at Freehold Raceway. Her latest accomplishments being earning her provisional driving license and passing the exams to become qualified as a harness racing judge.

However, her proudest accomplishment was experiencing the first horse that she ever bred, Uilliam, grow up to make the races (she gives some credit to her Uncle Ned who helped along the way). He is out of Uilleann, the first Standardbred Alex ever owned, and he made his first trip to the winner’s circle at Freehold in September for the young trainer.

Just two weeks earlier, 22-year-old John James Urbanski made his first trip to the winner’s circle as a driver which was a thrill for the entire family.

Both of these wins represent full-circle moments for the Urbanskis: when the long hours that come with running a stable in your backyard finally pay off. They wouldn’t have it any other way; doing it all together as a family makes all of the hard work worth it. Other people may not consider their horses champions, but the Urbanski horses are valued members of their family, and family is what matters most to the Urbanskis.

by Katie Eick, for Freehold Raceway