LEBANON, Ohio – Head out to Barn 5 at the old Lebanon Raceway at the Warren County Fairgrounds race track at sunrise on any given day and you’ll find a Standardbred driver and his groom feverishly at work, exercising, cleaning and feeding 19 race horses that are housed there.

At work are 45-year-old veteran driver Kayne Kauffman and 16-year-old groom Justine Coven. One by one, Kauffman hitches the bike to each horse, breezing each for roughly 20 to 30 minutes. In the meantime, Coven cleans the stall of the horse that just departed for the track, ridding the stall of any horse manure, placing fresh straw as bedding, getting new food and water ready, then giving the returning horse a warm hose down. The two will perform this ritual for all the horses in the barn.

Kauffman has memories of riding in the lap of his grandfather as they sat in a sulky, going around the Darke County Fairgrounds oval in Centerville. His wife, Natalie, grew up around racing as well. 

“It’s still an adrenaline rush,” he said. “It’s a competitive sport. When you lose that adrenaline rush I don’t think you want to be in this anymore. One can enjoy all aspects about this business, but you don’t enjoy the hours.”

Kauffman grew up in Arcanum, Ohio, but his heart was in Greenville. That’s where his grandfather, Herman Baker, had a modest harness racing operation.

“When I was seven or eight, he made me a small pitchfork so I could help clean the stalls,” he said. “The first time I sat in a race bike by myself and went fast on a training trip I was probably 13 years old. I loved it. Right then, I knew that’s exactly what I wanted to do in life.”

Kauffman got his first horse at age 15. His first victory came when he was 16, in the first race he ever ran at the Darke County Fair. However, he interfered with another horse and was dropped to third place A few days later he won again with the same horse. His first pari-mutuel win came at age 18, at Scioto Downs.

Working in the same barn (and employed by Kauffman) is Coven. Standardbred racing is in her blood as well. Her grandfather, Herb Coven, is a legend in harness racing, having won driving titles at both Lebanon Raceway and Latonia.

Justine Coven is a member of the Trail Blazers 4-H Club in Lebanon, Ohio. She competes in English, Western and speed riding events.

Coven owns two retired Standardbreds and is highly successful in her own right. Unlike Kayne, Justine’s passion is in the county fair show ring where she rides her mounts. This past fair season she captured a pair of titles in two separate riding classes.

She prefers riding horses as opposed to driving them.

“Oh, I’ve jogged them around the track many times, but I prefer riding them,” she said.

Both will tell you that working with Standardbreds can be taxing.

“For me it all starts at daybreak, around 7:30 a.m.,” Kauffman said. “It’s not hard work, it’s just time-consuming. I get a chance to chill a little bit in the afternoon, then we’re back at the races.”

Kauffman is currently driving at Dayton Raceway. According to Racing and Sports, Kauffman has had 3,458 starts in his career, winning 306 of those and placing in 779 others.

Is driving and training more difficult now than it was then? “Absolutely,” Kauffman said. “Times have changed, everything has changed. Purses have improved and it’s more demanding now because the money is good. You have to produce. It’s like any other professional sport, you have to produce.”

Coven’s schedule is similarly rigorous. As a groom under Kauffman, Coven also arrives at the track at 7:30 a.m. seven days a week and her chores, with five race horses, end around noon. Once those chores are complete she grooms her two horses, rides them, then puts them back in the paddock. She’s home-schooled, allowing for a flexible schedule.

Kaufmann knows a little something about tragedies. In 2009, a fellow driver frantically called him in the wee hours to inform him that his barn at the old Lebanon Raceway track was on fire.

Kauffman lives just seven minutes away from the track and Barn 16, where he had stabled the horses he owned and those he trained for other people. When he and Natalie arrived at the track they were devastated. The entire place was in flames.

Two grooms (55-year old Ronnie Williams and 48-year-old Turtle Edwards), both of whom had been sleeping in the tack room where the fire started, died in the blaze. So did 45 horses, including 10 of Kauffman’s, five of which had just won the night before.

Kauffman lost most of his racing equipment in the fire. Most importantly, he didn’t know if he had the means or will to continue in the business.

“After the barn fire I pondered not training horses, just not driving,” he told reporters 14 years ago. “I didn’t know what to do with myself. All I’d ever known was getting up in the morning and going to the barn each day.”

“I love it and I’ve grown up with it,” Coven said. “I’ve been around horses all my life.”

Kauffman added, “You’ve got to love your animals. They all have different personalities. And I like getting up in the morning and coming to do the work. They say this business gets in your blood and I believe it.”