By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER

Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — To bring greater awareness to the agricultural community of the ag component of harness racing, the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation (OFBF) and the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Assoc. (OHHA) are forming a new partnership.

OHHA, a nonprofit organization serving the Standardbred industry, is supporting OFBF with $75,000 to fund promotions of the harness racing industry to its members, and for funding youth and career programs it leads.

OFBF will get OHHA’s message out through its publications, radio programs, and in person – as already happened at OFBF’s Ag Day at the Capital, where it introduced OHHA to its members and legislators.

“One of the things that we’ve had a difficult time publicizing is that we have Standardbred racehorses in virtually every county in the state of Ohio,” said Renee Mancino, executive director of the OHHA. “Within the United States, Ohio is No. 1 in the Standardbred racing business.”

Ohio has 66 independent county fairs that feature harness racing. Pennsylvania is second with only 27 such fairs, Mancino said. OHHA has 120 breeding stallions standing in the state and 71 commercial breeding operations in 33 counties.

“Our members are in every state, and yet, at its base, it’s agriculture; they’re consumers,” Mancino said. “At our largest Standardbred breeding operation, the producer purchases almost all of the alfalfa produced in the county for his breeding farm.”

Founded in 1953, OHHA has 4,000 members and many are also members of Farm Bureau. “I think it is a cooperative partnership – it’s been a lot of time in coming,” Mancino said.

“You don’t have to look very far to see the correlation between the equine industry and agriculture,” said Ty Higgins, OFBF’s director of media relations. “They do go hand-in-hand. Those horses are a major draw at county fairs. Ohio is ranked No. 1 in the country in racing; that adds to the bottom line for our members and their communities.”

OFBF is excited about the partnership, he said. It will assist Farm Bureau in helping young people who want to be a part of agriculture – whether it be in the equine arena or other parts of agriculture.

Mancino is pleased to help young people and is also pleased to see Standardbred racing and horses get exposure. She has been involved with these animals all her life.

“Standardbred horses are very versatile breed,” she explained. “They are intelligent, very willing. They will do whatever you want them to do, and they love to compete. Other times they are very calm and docile, ‘bulletproof’ as we say. Quite a few go into endurance racing or police horse work after they retire from racing.”

Where did the tradition of harness racing get its start? The earliest races happened in Madison County and southwestern Ohio in the 1800s.

“It was a natural outgrowth from when people used horses for transportation,” Mancino said. “It started with, ‘My horse is faster than your horse,’ and it kind of grew from there.”