Harness Race Driver Bartlett Marks Successful 20 Year Career with Hall of Fame Induction

Who knew that a race at the Topsham Fair track in 1998 would launch a 17-year-old basketball player from central Maine into a stellar career of harness racing?

Twenty years of hard work and thousands of races later, Augusta native Jason Bartlett is considered one of the top harness racing drivers in the U.S., with more than 7,000 career wins and $95 million in purse earnings.

To mark his achievements in the sport of harness racing, Jason will be inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame on June 3, becoming one of only four harness racing driver inductees.

Now a resident of Goshen, New York, Jason is a top driver at Yonkers Raceway, one of the country’s premier harness racing tracks located just outside New York City. Over the course of his 10-year span at Yonkers, he’s been named driver of the year seven times and earned the Rising Star of the Year award from the Harness Writer’s Association in 2008. For the first half of 2018, the 37-year-old was the top earning driver in the U.S., with 455 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishes out of 902 races.

Learning from the "Bottom Up"

Jason credits much of his career success to his grandfather, Richard Bartlett of Windsor, who, with Jason’s mother, helped raise him and instilled in him a drive for excellence, respect for the sport, and a love of horses. A long-time horseman and trainer, Dick pushed Jason to excel, but always had his back.

“I was very fortunate because my grandfather had a lot of horses. Early on, young drivers, they make a lot of mistakes and it’s hard to pay the bills on a horse every month,” he said recently. “It was a slow process at first, but my grandfather did what he could to get me on as many horses as he could. The only way you’re going to be able to get better is by getting out there and doing it, so it was slow at first, but my grandfather, he was in my corner the whole time.”

It helped that from an early age Jason was around horses regularly, helping out his grandfather who, at 78, still trains standardbred racehorses at the family barn in Windsor. That’s where Jason’s love of horses and enthusiasm for harness racing took root.

“I was always at the barn on school vacations and weekends, helping out as much as I could,” he said. “I just grew to love it. I grew to love the horses. So, it was always in my blood.”

Harness racing is a sport that goes back to ancient Greece, when horses pulled multi-wheeled chariots carrying two or more drivers in dangerous Olympic-style races for the entertainment of kings and citizens. Today in the U.S., harness racing takes place on 1/2-mile to 1-mile tracks where standardbred horses pull a “sulky,” a lightweight, 2-wheeled cart, with a single driver. It represents a $30 billion industry nationally and adds an estimated $29 million annually to Maine’s economy.

Although Jason mucked stalls from the time he could hold a shovel, it wasn’t until his early teens that he showed an interest in working directly with the horses as a trainer and a driver and at the time, basketball was Jason’s main sport. He excelled as a point guard at South China’s Erskine Academy and continued to play in college at Southern Maine Community College, where he was named Division II All-American by the United States Collegiate Athletic Association and earned an industrial electrical degree.

Jason’s grandfather started him jogging horses, then training them for the track. Around the age of 16 or 17, he asked his grandfather if he could drive some horses in races at a few local fairs. His grandfather agreed and gave Jason the worst horse he had. “I didn’t let him drive no-good horses,” Dick said. “He learned right from the bottom up.”

As it turned out, learning to drive not-so-good horses ultimately gave Jason the best training: he began winning races in Maine. With each race, he became more certain about harness racing. A dream of racing horses for a living eventually outpaced basketball, his favored sport.

When Jason asked his grandfather for help with his new dream, Dick told his grandson he would have to work hard at it. From that point on, Jason worked with different trainers and horses and raced as much as he could.

“He didn’t just walk around with his whip, snapping it on the ground, that kind of stuff. He studied, he watched, and he did great,” said Dick. “When he was with me, we won more than 200 races.”

Just a few years after his first race in 1998 at the Topsham Fair, Jason was recognized by the Maine Harness Horsemen’s Association with a Rising Star Award and was later named Maine’s leading driver three years in a row, from 2005-2007.

On to Big City Tracks

But the harness racing season is a short one in northern New England, so after getting married in 2004 and starting a family, he decided to try racing in New York, where there is more opportunity to earn a year-round living to support his family.

One of Jason’s earliest supporters, Donald Richards, who has been involved in Maine harness racing for more than 60 years, knew Jason would succeed in New York. “I knew he’d do really well,” Richards said. “I knew all the other drivers he drives against, and he was as good as them.”

His grandfather, although his staunchest supporter, was incredulous when Jason told him he wanted to try racing in New York. “I said, ‘Jason, you want to go to New York?’,” said Dick.

His grandson assured him he had done his homework – studying the races and the drivers – and with 2,000 wins to his credit, was confident he could successfully compete. In 2007, they picked out the 10 best horses in the barn and away he went. About halfway there, Jason had second thoughts and considered turning around, but his mother convinced him to keep going.

His grandfather, at home in Windsor, bought a satellite dish so he could watch his grandson race. Between his races, Jason would call home and ask his grandfather for a critique. And he got it. “The first year or so that he was down there, geez, I was hard on him,” Dick said. “He’d even call me in between races and say ‘What am I doing wrong?’ and I’d give it to him.”

But in short order, Jason proved he was right. He trained and raced horses not only in New York, but Pennsylvania and New Jersey, finally settling in as a driver at Yonkers Raceway. Not only could he hold his own against seasoned drivers from a wide market, he became a regular in the winner’s circle and a consistent high earner.

His abilities on the track got the attention of the U.S. Trotting Association, which selected him to represent the United States at the World Driving Championship, one of the most prestigious horse racing tournaments in the world, three times: in 2009, 2011 and 2013. He missed the 2011 championship after a head injury in a car accident just before the event. He finished sixth in the 2009 championship and eighth in 2013.

More Than Just a Great Driver

Over the years, as Jason built his career at Yonkers Raceway, he has been occasionally subject to criticism for not expanding outside his home base, but he has steadfastly ignored the chiding. His career is important to him, but his family more so.

At Yonkers, he said, he has a steady schedule so he knows where and when he is going to be for the most part. The Grand Circuit is great, he said, but it requires a lot of traveling, which would take him away from his home, his wife and two sons.

It’s important to Jason to be able to attend his children’s sporting events or coach their teams and being at Yonkers makes that easier. Jason was raised by his mother with help from her parents, so when he and his wife, Kristen, began a family, they wanted their children to experience having two involved parents.

“He makes time to be sure he is at the kids’ games, even if he gets home at 2 in the morning and they have to be there at 7 a.m. He gets up, and he’s there. If he has to miss a game, it kills him,” said Kristen. “I think he gets slack for not traveling sometimes, but at the end of the day, like he (says), his family comes first.”

His family – his wife, children, mother and grandfather – will be with him when he is inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame in June. His induction came as a surprise, but he is humbled by the privilege.

“It’s something I never expected,” he said. “It shows the hard work I’ve put in, but also the people along the way that helped me get there. It’s not all me, that’s for sure.”

Jason credits getting a lot of support early in his career and through the present day for his successes, but his early supporters point out that he has put his whole self into the work, and it’s who he is as a person that makes the most difference.

“Jason is as good a human being as he is a driver – actually, maybe better,” said Scott Dillon, a horse owner with whom Jason owned horses and for whom Jason drove horses. “He’s just a good overall person – well liked by everyone within the industry and outside it.”

With Jason’s career successes, there’s a lot for a grandfather to be proud of, but it’s the man he has become that is most treasured by Dick Bartlett.

“I’m proud of him because even through the success he’s had, he has not been cocky, and he knows where he came from.” When Jason comes home for Windsor Fair week, Dick pointed out that he’s always happy to drive for the people who have helped him get to where he is today. “He doesn’t want to get paid because he says those are the people that have helped him get where he is,” Dick said. “I’m just proud of him for the way he’s turned out.”

True to form, Jason reflects on his success with gratitude. “Not everyone can say that they love their job, and I’m very fortunate that I can say that,” he said. “For me, it’s never ‘I need to go to work today.’ I’m excited to go to the track and compete.”

As for Maine’s crop of talented young drivers, Jason advises them to “embrace mistakes” and “accept criticism.” And when you do make a mistake, Jason says, “You have to be able to come off the track and say, ‘it was my fault.’ The trainer doesn’t want to hear excuses. I think you get more respect by owning up to it.”

Love of the sport, good sportsmanship, and a competitive drive are inherent qualities for Jason, just like the ties to his home state. “Our families are there, so Maine is always going to be a part of us,” he said, adding that when summer rolls around he misses the Maine fair circuit. He tries to get to the Windsor Fair every year, not to drive but to hang out with many of the people who helped him along the way.