by Kimberly French, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Kimberly French

Louisville, KY — When the ball dropped to usher in 2015, there probably wasn’t a happier person on the planet than Daryl Bier to see 2014 come to an end. After enduring personal and professional tragedies throughout those 365 days, he was on the brink of walking away from the sport, but the optimism he experienced after purchasing world champion Wind Of The North late in the season is why he decided to stay in the game.

“I tried to buy him for almost a year and was thrilled when I finally got him,” said the Smyrna, Del., resident. “I think he can be a top horse and trot in 1:51. He and Bando (Bandolito) are the only reason I’m still going on. I only have a two horse stable and they are it, but I have so much faith in them both. I’m also very excited to see what Wind Of The North will accomplish this season. Bando too, but he doesn’t owe us anything after what he has already done for us.”

Foto Won photo

Wind Of The North (inside) was a 1:52.3 winner on April 1 at Dover Downs.

Wind Of The North will make his next appearance on Friday (April 10) in the $27,500 Open Handicap Trot at the Meadowlands after his first score of the season in a sharp 1:52.3 in a $20,000 Open Handicap at Dover Downs on April 1.

The waters, however, will certainly be a little deeper at the New Jersey oval with the red hot Melady’s Monet leaving right beside him from post position seven; Lindy’s Tru Grit on the other side in the five hole; and the horse he held on to defeat in a blanket finish last week, Tough Mac, in the second spot on the gate. The seven horse field in this Open Handicap also includes the always dangerous Master Of Law, Rolls Blue Chip and Il Mago. Wind Of The North will be in rein to Hall of Famer David Miller and is 4-1 on the morning line for what is carded as the 11th race.

“I was very pleased with his race at Dover and think he will do well at the Meadowlands,” Bier said. “He cut the entire mile and went :27.4 for the first quarter, then finished in :27.2 without ever extending himself. He was in the same gear the entire way around the track.”

A son of Cantab Hall and the Pine Chip mare Talk To The Wind, Wind Of The North is the only foal from five siblings to earn any purse money on the racetrack. He was purchased for $5,000 at the 2011 Standardbred Horse Sale and was co-owned by Glen Zimmerman and Clifton Green until Bier and Joann Dombeck brought him home last October.

Conditioned by Green, Wind Of The North earned just under $16,000 as a freshman, nearly $100,000 as a sophomore and $105,150 in 2014. He trotted his world record mile of 1:51 on a five-eighths-mile track at Pocono Downs on June 28, 2014, with David Miller in the bike in a $21,000 non-winners contest. The gelding has a record of 56-14-11-6, collected $235,981 and his record this year stands at 5-1-1-1.

“After I got him I just stopped on him and turned him out,” Bier said. “I wanted to give him some time, then bring him back for a strong season in 2015. He’s done nothing wrong and I am very pleased with him. He’ll tell us where to go all summer long.”

Last year at this time, Bier and his long-time partner and Joann’s husband Charles, were anxiously awaiting what 2014 would bring for them with their stable star Modern Family and Dover Downs track record holder Bandolito. They thought both horses were poised for exceptional seasons and also had a new addition to the stable in December of 2013 with Punxsutawney, who had earned just over $300,000 in his first two seasons of racing with starts in a Hambletonian elimination and finals of the Kentucky Futurity and Canadian Trotting Classic.

It was on Memorial Day weekend, however, when the black clouds rolled in and they did not just blot out the sun, but nearly obliterated it from the sky for Bier and the Dombeck family.

It started out with Bandolito’s eighth place finish in the Molson Pace on May 30. After a brutal trip against some of the sport’s best, who he had competed admirably against in prior starts, the public’s third choice just didn’t seem to be the same after hitting the wire.

“One trip like that can ruin a horse,” Bier said. “He was so strong coming into the race and I thought we had such a good chance. For the rest of the season I kept trying to get him back to where he was, but I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be able to.”

USTA photo

Daryl Bier has won nearly 1,900 races as a driver and more than 400 as a trainer.

Less than two weeks later, Bier was wondering if he was ever going to return to full health after a freakish four horse accident in a qualifying race at Pocono Downs on June 12. Bier, who was driving Punxsutawney, broke his pelvis in four places and the horse had to be put down on the track.

“All I can remember was laying there thinking, who does this happen to?” Bier said. “It was just a training race, a qualifier, but I didn’t have much time to think about myself as I could hear the vet yelled to me that the horse had a spiral fracture, he had to be put down right then because there was absolutely nothing they could do. I couldn’t even move to go to him. I just had to lay there.”

Before he even had an opportunity to fully heal, the Grim Reaper arrived again on July 19 after Modern Family, the stable’s pride and joy, and one of the top horses in training, died nearly instantly after a fourth place finish in the $560,790 Maple Leaf Trot after coming home in :27.3. The horse had an aneurysm that would never have been detected even with modern veterinary care.

“It was devastating to everyone involved with the horse,” Bier said. “I don’t have words to describe it. I just don’t. He was everything and for something like that to happen to him…Charlie (Dombeck) was demoralized and wanted to get out of the business entirely after losing Modern Family in that way. To have to see that horse on the ground in the paddock like that is something I can’t erase from my memory.”

With his professional career in turmoil due to his injury and his stable nearly decimated, Bier received another staggering blow when his father, veteran horseman Arthur “Artie” Bier, passed away on Aug. 21, joining his wife who had died several years earlier.

“That was when I decided I had enough,” Bier said. “I wanted out so I packed my mother-in-law and family up to head off to Alaska for a week. I felt like Charlie did and I wanted to get out of the business as well. I am being utterly serious when I say I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Maybe I even had one.”

After Bier returned from Alaska, the opportunity to purchase Wind Of The North was available and he got on the horn to Charlie Dombeck.

“I wanted to put all my stock in at Harrisburg and just get out,” Dombeck said. “Even the Somebeachsomewhere foal from Higher And Higher was not something I wanted to keep. Daryl and I had a lot of luck and a lot of nice horses, for example Special T Rocks who was a world champion, but Modern Family was something special.

“My heart just wasn’t in it anymore after that loss, but Daryl kept telling me Wind Of The North could be just as good as Modern Family. He had all the faith in the world in him, so (my wife) Joann was telling me to buy a piece of him. She also owned Special T Rocks and that’s when I told her, ‘why don’t you buy him?’ So she went in with Daryl and we are just going to see what he does this year.

“We are also keeping Higher And Higher and her foal. He talked me out of putting them through the sale.”

So Wind Of The North is the primary reason Bier and the Dombecks did not just fold up their tent and leave for what they thought might be greener pastures, but their perspectives have certainly changed as Dombeck just takes things as they come now.

Bier will be moving back to Florida to race before the end of the year, but he’s come a long way from just six months ago.

“Last year at this time, I had a top pacer and a top trotter,” he said. “Now I have one of each again, although they are my only two horses. We’ve staked Wind Of The North to the Cutler and the Cashman and think he can do well enough to be invited to the Maxie Lee. Thankfully, I have Bando back as well and he’ll tell us what to do, but Wind Of The North is the horse that kept Charlie in the business and gave me the hope to stay in it as well.”