by Tom Kelley, Balmoral Park Publicity Department

Crete, IL — One of harness racing’s brightest young stars, Tim Tetrick, recorded his 2,000th career driving victory in Tuesday night’s second race at Balmoral Park. The 24-year-old Crete, Illinois resident guided the four-year-old trotter Iverman to a resounding 6 ½ length triumph in 1:56.4 over a fast track.

“I’ve been aware that I was getting close to this number for the past few weeks,” said a relieved Tetrick. “Even when you’re winning races it still feels like it takes forever to get to that point.”

Born into a family that has always been heavily involved in harness racing, Tim is the son of driver-trainer Tom Tetrick who has campaigned horses throughout the Midwest for many years. Older brother Tom Jr. and younger brother Trace are also standardbred drivers. “As soon as I started going to the track on weekends with my brothers and my dad I knew I wanted to be a driver right away,” Tetrick explained. “I’ve always been very competitive and driving on a nightly basis really appealed to me.”

After graduating from Fairfield High School in 1999, Tim embarked on a full-time career as a driver-trainer. In 1999 he visited the winner’s circle 11 times in his 40 starts. Compare that to the 3,528 starts and 563 victories he posted in 2005 and you can see just how far this personable young man has come in the sport.

Horses driven by Tetrick have earned $15,408,987 to date and he has proven that he deserves a seat among the elite on the tough Chicago circuit by capturing driving titles at both Balmoral and Maywood Park. Tetrick is also gaining plenty of national recognition as well with more than 150 wins this season, which currently ranks him fifth among all drivers in North America.

Immediately after being greeted for a winner’s circle ceremony by his fellow reinsmen it was right back to work for Tetrick who had drives in eight of the 10 races on Tuesday night. “I’ll be able to sit back, reflect and celebrate a little more after we wrap up tonight,” said a smiling Tetrick. “Right now though it’s time to get to work on getting up to the 3,000 win mark.”

The humble young star also had plenty of praise for the folks that helped him achieve this goal in such a short amount of time. “I’d really like to thank all the owners and trainers that have put me up on their horses week after week and have shown confidence in me throughout my career,” said an appreciative Tetrick. “It’s a very tough group of drivers we have competing here in Chicago and if you don’t get “live” horses to drive it’s awfully tough to get to the winner’s circle.”