Hinsdale, IL — Wyatt Avenatti knew early on he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father Dave and his grandfather Earl Jr. and become a harness racing driver. Naturally he often talked to them about the Illinois horse industry and its ups and downs.

The 27-year-old resident of Chrisman, Ill., vividly remembers his grandpa telling him: “There are going to be rainy days and droughts, mostly droughts.”

Driver Wyatt Avenatti has his sights set on a third consecutive Illinois County Fair driver title. Terry Young photo.

Wyatt started his driving career in earnest in 2016 and in a four-year span drove between 200 and 300 horses each season and his driving wins grew steadily. However, in 2020 his boyhood dream to be a successful driver looked to be just that, a dream.

“I’m a healthy 23-year-old learning my craft when suddenly the doctors told me I had cancer. I was stunned. They said it was Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that is part of the immune system and that I had to shut everything down immediately and start Chemo treatment. Five days later I did.”

Wyatt was told by his doctors that his cancer had about a 95 percent survival rate and it is a cancer that he can beat with treatments.

“I had less than 100 drives in 2020 and my money won total was way, way down,” said Avenatti.

After going over the $100,000 mark the previous few years, horses Wyatt drove made only $46,049.

“It was a rough year and it got rougher when my dad had a stroke. He’s fine now. My wife Kelli had a job in town, but she was there in the morning to do most of the work. I used to get very tired and could only help out for a couple of hours a day, so we had to cut down from a 14-horse stable to eventually just four horses.”

Nevertheless, Wyatt persevered and got stronger. Mentally he never deviated from his positive attitude. He said the disease wasn’t going to ruin his life and it hasn’t.

Just a couple of years later Wyatt won his second straight Illinois County Fair circuit driver championship. He had 100 more drives in 2021 than the year before and zoomed to 416 in 2022. Last year his drives jumped to 584, his winners vaulted to 93, and his money won shot up to $428,111 as he crisscrossed the state many, many times.

After Wyatt’s high school graduation his father Dave cut the Avenatti stable in half equally. His older brother Matt took his half and decided to campaign in Illinois.

“I didn’t want to compete against my brother, so I headed to Kentucky with my horses,” continued Wyatt. “At The Red Mile I got to race against Grand Circuit drivers. It was a great learning experience. In Illinois guys like Casey (Leonard) and (Kyle) Wilfong drive their horses similarly to the Grand Circuit drivers. I’ve tried to adapt my style of driving like them.

“With the harness racing situation in Illinois still not good, I replaced some of my ICF horses with Kentucky-breds. I’ll be doing some driving in both Illinois and Kentucky this year. I’ll compete at Springfield and later in the year when Hawthorne opens.

“I’ve was fortunate to get some good horses to drive there last year from trainers Kevin Miller and Steve Searle. They gave me better shots to have success. I’m looking forward to seeing them again.”