by Kimberly French, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Kimberly French

Louisville, KY — He’s thrilled his dad is taking a hold of the reins and guiding horses to victory in pari-mutuel contests, but Kevin Switzer, Jr., has no problem beating him out at the wire.

“I love the fact he is still driving and that we race against each other,” explained the 23-year-old Cumberland, Maine, resident. “When I race against him, it makes me want to win even more. We are both very competitive, especially with each other.”

Currently, the younger Switzer is the second leading driver in Maine and is the second leading driver in North America with a .370 UDR in the 300-499 starts category behind Shawn Gray, who also hails from The Pine Tree State. The elder Switzer is not allowing his son to outdistance him. Kevin Sr. is the leading driver at Scarborough Downs and is the 10th leading driver in the same category with a UDR of .326.

Derek Davis photo

Kevin Switzer, Sr. has 2,848 career wins as a driver and 799 more as a conditioner.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever been leading driver there (Scarborough) and I’ve raced there for most of my career,” the elder Switzer, who also trains his own stable, stated. “I have pretty close to 2,900 wins and I guarantee most of them are right there on that piece of dirt. At 54, I finally get to be leading driver, so yeah it is an accomplishment. I don’t get up every morning and stick my chest out that I’m the leading driver, but it’s nice. There are a lot of good drivers there and it’s competitive. Believe me, there is not one win them boys gave me. They make me earn every piece of dirt I cover.

“I’ve had some luck this year,” the Cumberland Center, Maine, resident continued. “The whole thing with the driving end, is if you drive for a trainer with a big stable that classifies them right, they will win races and if the horses are in the right race usually they will win. With my stable, I classify them right and I do drive horses for other people, not really top ‘A’ trainers but I’ve been drawing good posts and getting inside trips. It’s just all been working out for me.”

Understandably, his son is very gratified by his dad’s success.

“I’m very proud of what he has accomplished,” Kevin Jr. said.

Both generations of Switzers have grown up around horses. Kevin Sr. was initially exposed to Thoroughbred racing as a child and once he was introduced to harness racing, he decided Standardbreds were more to his liking.

“It’s what I always wanted to do,” he said. “We have our own breeding farm and race our own foals. We used to have a lot more mares than we do now because with the economy, we’ve had to cut back, but we’ve had a lot of success with our horses and I’m lucky I can get up every day and enjoy what I do. Most people have to wait until they are retired to feel that way.

“I have a real nice mare that’s made about $400,000 and I’ve driven some real nice horses in my career,” Kevin Sr. continued. “I had a colt back in the 90s that was undefeated in the Sire Stakes and he was probably the most determined horse I’ve ever driven. He actually won a race on a broken leg. He just would not surrender and when the race was over he couldn’t walk. You have to admire a horse that will lay that much on the line for you.”

As with any person, there are certain moments in the elder Switzer’s career that hold special meaning.

“Some years back I set the track record at Lewiston Raceway, which of course is no longer open,” he said. “I also won the $100,000 Final of a Delaware Sire Stake and that was really exciting. The horse set a track record and I was just some guy that came down from Maine to race these two horses and hardly knew anybody there. It wasn’t like my track where I compete against the same guys night in and night out and we all know each other. I was just a guy from somewhere else that won a big race and it was the same night the Red Sox won the World Series, so it was like the stars aligned for all the guys from New England that night.”

Kevin Jr. jogged his first horse when he was around eight and began training horses with his father and uncle when he was around 12. He knew while he was attending high school that he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps.

“I grew up around it and it was what my father did, so I guess it kind of ran in the family,” he said. “When I first started out my goal was to win the Meadowlands Pace and the Hambletonian, but now it’s more about making enough money to support my wife and my soon-to-be 2-year-old son Garrett. I don’t think I’ve really accomplished anything yet, but if I am the leading driver in the state by the end of the year, then I will have accomplished something.”

While he certainly enjoys the competitive side of racing, there are other aspects that exhilarate Kevin Sr. in equal measure.

“I like to drive by the grandstand and hear the crowd cheering,” he said. “I’ll put my whip up to stir them up a little bit. This is racing and it’s supposed to be exciting; in fact it is exciting. I always toss my whip to the kids behind the fence if I win the last race. We are like a circus and are trying to get people to come watch us perform. We don’t have any clowns or lions, but we need people to come to the track and watch our sport. We need to bring people in.

“And we are a hardy bunch,” he continued. “We are out there no matter what. In the freezing cold, driving rain and even if they cut the purses, we don’t sell any horses and are right back out there doing it again the next Saturday night.”

The elder Switzer is not sure how much longer he’ll be driving horses and is contemplating a transition to simply conditioning them.

“I’m actually thinking about finishing this year and maybe racing one more summer before I retire as a catch driver,” he said. “It’s a young man’s game and when I race at Delaware over the winter I always let Tim Tetrick and Ron Pierce drive my horses. I’ve learned a lot just by watching them and I’ll always train horses until the day they carry me down the aisleway. What else would I do?

“(John) Campbell made a comment one time, they were interviewing him at a Hambletonian and I believe he might have been driving a horse for his brother (Jim) and they were asking him a bunch of questions and I believe his comment was, ‘This is what we are here for, this is what we do.’”