by Ellen Harvey, Harness Racing Communications

Freehold, NJ — When Pamela Agro-Primiani heads to Freehold Raceway to see her mare Ariane Hanover race this Friday (April 29), she’ll take Route 537 west. But for Agro-Primiani and her friend Gary Kay, with whom she co-owns the 4-year-old pacer, the road started with an errant hand.

“My friend Gary and I drove by the New Jersey Horse Park on a Saturday in the fall of 2008. We were just looking around and the Standardbred sale was going on,” recalled Agro-Primiani. “On Sunday he (Gary) went back to just walk around again; it was late in the day. He was looking at the computers (showing videos of yearlings in the sale). They were selling a filly and started the bidding at $1,000, but there were no bidders. The auctioneer got down to $100 and Gary was so far away, he couldn’t even see her. The auctioneer said, ‘Will somebody give me $100 for this horse?’ So he threw his hand up. He never even turned around.”

Agro-Primiani’s first clue about her new horse came with a phone call.

USTA/Ken Weingartner photo

Gary Kay and Pamela Agro-Primiani flank Ariane Hanover.

“He called me and he said, ‘Umm, can you come with the trailer? We’ve got to pick up a horse.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ Gary’s a Thoroughbred trainer; we were just looking around, goofing around at the sale. He said, ‘I raised my hand thinking I would start the bidding and next thing I know the guy said ‘sold.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, what does she look like? Does she have two legs coming out of one hole?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, I didn’t look at her.’

The average price for a yearling at public auction the year that Ariane Hanover sold was $18,847. Of only eight horses of racing age selling for $100 or less since 1990, she is the only one to race for a purse, let alone make money. Unraced as a 2-year-old, Ariane Hanover has won four of 17 races and earned $16,960.

A daughter of Red River Hanover, out of the Jenna’s Beach Boy mare Anacapri, Ariane Hanover’s fourth dam was the prolific broodmare Romola Hanover, whose successful offspring included 1966 Pacing Triple Crown winner Romeo Hanover.

“She was a late foal (May 29) and little,” Agro-Primiani said. “We brought her home and I asked, ‘What do we do with her now?’ He said, ‘I’m friends with (Standardbred trainer) Dave Pinkney, I’ll give her to Dave as a present.’ Dave didn’t want her; he said, ‘No thank you. I have a lot of horses in my barn. She’s real little. If you want, I’ll lend you a harness and I’ll come down to your farm and show Pam how to hook her up. She can start messing with her.’

“We turned her out for a year and we let her grow. We just let her be a baby and see if she does any growing. In July of 2009, Gary tried it again with Dave to see if he’d take this filly and he still wasn’t interested. She grew a tremendous amount, she’s huge.

“I went back to line driving her, walking around this makeshift Thoroughbred track Gary had on his farm in Millstone. He has a homemade half-mile Thoroughbred track. Neither of us had a blessed idea what we were doing. I got a five minute crash course on how to put a harness on and that was it. I spent almost a month walking behind her, line driving, I didn’t even have a cart. I was by myself, just me and Ariane. Gary was busy with his Thoroughbreds.”

The year to grow had given Agro-Primiani and her $100 horse plenty of time to get acquainted.

“She went right along with the program,” she said. “I spent so much time with her, between grooming her, picking up her feet, going through the motions. If I asked her to walk through a wall of fire for me at that point, I think she would have done it. She was sweet, easygoing and eager.

“After a month of walking behind her with the lines and from everything I read in the training book (Care and Training of the Trotter and Pacer), I knew I had to get a cart and let her go a little. So Gary called a friend of his, Kevin Reid, and he was nice enough to say, ‘I have a beat up jog cart here, in pretty bad shape, but I can lend it to you if you like.’ I was just happy not to be walking behind her anymore. I didn’t care what it was.

“I started out jogging her a mile every other day and then two miles every other day and two miles every day and just going the wrong way on this narrow Thoroughbred track. That was from August to November (of her 2-year-old year). Just jog miles, jog miles, jog miles. She had been free-legged, no hopples. She started picking up speed; she went right on the pace all by herself.

“One day I was going around and Gary said, ‘You look like you’re going too fast,’ so he grabbed a stopwatch. He timed her and said, ‘You just did a mile in 2:45.’ This was on a sand Thoroughbred track. That’s when we decided maybe we should try to train her ourselves.

“We were going to bring her to Dave Pinkney’s stable, but he had no stalls. He said she could only stay for 30 days and didn’t know how much he could get done with her. He said, ‘Girlie, I’ll tell you what, Girlie. I’ll start teaching you and you start jogging my racehorses and that will free up time for me to work with your filly. I worked with him and he had a whole lot of horses coming so it was time for us to leave.

“November came and Gaitway (training center) was close; they had room so they went there. We got a stall in (trainer) Jerry Evilsizor’s barn. Jerry right away took us under his wing. Next thing I know, every day in the barn, Jerry was spending more and more time with us.”

The two soon forged a relationship where Agro-Primiani was a very hands-on owner, providing the muscle, while Evilsizor coached.

“He told me how fast I should go, when to turn her,” Agro-Primiani said. “He got on her to see where she was and what she needed next. He never took his eyes off us. If I looked like I was going to make a big mistake, he’d stop me.

“I’m 40 years old; I’ve been working with Gary (as a Thoroughbred groom) since 2007. With the Thoroughbreds, it always bothered me that someone else warms the horse up, someone else breezes the horse, someone else rides the horse in the race. A lot of your fate is left up to other people in the Thoroughbreds and I guess that is why I never really enjoyed it. Everyone I’ve asked for help in this sport has been happy to help. Julie Miller, Louise Pepin, Kevin Reid, they all helped.”

Ariane Hanover made her first few starts at Freehold Raceway in less than stellar fashion, collecting no checks. Agro-Primiani’s trainer said it was time for a change.

“Jerry said, ‘We can’t keep racing her at Freehold, they’re going to close and we have to start exercising our options.’ We raced her a couple times in non-winners of one at Freehold and she got over excited, very green, broke stride, we had made nothing at this point. Jerry said she has to go to the Meadowlands, let her open up on the mile track. She was fifth in a maiden race and I was thrilled. Jerry said next step will have to be Pennsylvania so we all went up to the Poconos.

“It was a torrential stormy rainy day. Gary said maybe she should scratch, the weather is bad, we don’t know what this filly will do. But I said, ‘No, we are entered, we’re in, we’re going.’

“She had the four hole and she got away fourth and dropped back to fifth and was quite a distance from the first pack of horses. When she went behind the tote board, she was fifth and when she came out the other side she was third. Coming up the stretch the announcer said, ‘There goes Ariane Hanover sliding into the pocket,’ and she won.”

Agro-Primiani’s sister Sheryl Agro tagged along and posted a You tube video of the race.

“I couldn’t speak for a week, I had no voice,” Agro-Primiani said. “I was screaming. I didn’t know where to go, I’m jumping up and down. I was a wreck, a complete stumbling wreck. It had rained so hard you couldn’t even go in the winner’s circle, we had our picture taken out on the track.”

Things started to look up for Ariane Hanover and her rookie owners after that rainy night. Two more wins followed at Freehold, along with five other paychecks. The $100 horse had brought in 10 checks in 16 starts, totaling $15,160 for 2010.

“We gave her the winter off and brought her back February 15 and started jogging her,” Agro-Primiani said. “She won her qualifier (at Freehold on April 8) very easily. We raced her back a week later and she won (again at Freehold in a career best 1:56.3).”

Ariane Hanover will compete in race six on Friday at Freehold, post time 2:10, from post three with driver Steve Smith. Agro-Primiani says when trainer Jerry Evilsizor warms up the mare, she doesn’t totally have her mind on business.

“She will, and people don’t believe me, but when she goes out to warm up she will look for me,” Agro-Primiani said. “She can find me in the grandstand.

“I am just so thankful to Gary. This horse has helped me realize a dream I thought was otherwise impossible.”