It’s all in the family for Bryan Quevedo

For 21-year-old Bryan Quevedo, harness racing is all about family.

The Sacramento, CA native recently scored his first two pari-mutuel victories at Running Aces with Robbie Burns N, on June 2 and 9th respectively and spends nearly all of his time working in the barn with the rest of his family members.

“I was 16 when we came to Minnesota for the first time with my family,” Bryan recalled. “Then, after that meet was finished, went to New Jersey to try racing out there. It worked out well for us—now, we just go between Running Aces and the New Jersey tracks every year.”

Bryan’s father, Edwin, came to the United States from his native Guatemala when he was just 16, Bryan offered.
“Dad first got involved with Thoroughbreds in California and then started working with guys like Gilbert Garcia at Sacramento,” Bryan said. “He said Gilbert taught him a lot about horsemanship.”

Making the transition from Sacramento to the Midwest did not faze Bryan, as his family made the trip during the summer months, while he and his brother Adrian, 23, were out of school.

“It was summertime, so it was a good chance for me to learn a lot about the horses,” Bryan noted. “We ended up going to Congress Hill Farms after that in New Jersey, and now go back there in late September, after the Running Aces meet is over. We have 11 horses stabled at Running Aces and ten stabled at a farm not far from the track, and we swap them out and give them time in the field in between races. We try to run things in Minnesota that same way we do when we’re in Jersey. We try to keep the horses happy. Between my mom (Fabiola), my Dad and Adrian, we make it happen.”

Bryan said racing horses is completely a family affair and that besides driving and training, he also grooms and paddocks horses.

“Everyone wants to be a trainer-driver, but my main goal is to be as good as a trainer as my dad is,” Bryan stressed. “Driving I really like; I like going fast, but at the end of everything I really want to do good for my parents and if that means that I get better and am decent at driving so it helps out my folks, all the better.”

In 2023 Bryan drove in a quintet of Freehold qualifiers and a trio of Meadowlands qualifiers, winning his final try of the year in 1:58.3 with Skyway Professor for trainer Paul Fusco, besting four rivals. This year he’s had 15 pari-mutuel starts to date, with two wins and a second for $11,394 in earnings, and a total of nine qualifiers.

Bryan scored his first pari-mutuel win on June 2 at Running Aces with the 13-year-old Robbie Burns N (Live Or Die) in 1:55.2 over a sloppy track. The pair won by nearly five lengths with a modest :30.1 final panel. The gelding is owned by the family’s Triple Q Stables.

“Dad always told me to try my best and to be safe,” Bryan stressed. “He’ll always give me pointers and criticisms and I try to learn from him. I got parked in my very first race here at Aces which was rough and took down my confidence and then winning took my confidence back up. I really wanted to make my parents happy.”

Bryan’s father Edwin, 40, has been training horses since 2014 and to date has harnessed 599 winners to $4,555,257 in earnings. Had his best season in 2021, when he had 97 winners who earned $1,145,495 racing at Philly, Freehold, Big M, Yonkers & Poconos.

On June 9, the Bryan and Robbie Burns N revisited the winner’s circle as Bryan steered the New Zealand gelding to a 1:57.3 clocking after the horse made an uncharacteristic jump behind the gate. The Live Or Die, p, 2, 1:51.4 ($728,264) gelding is out of the Christian Cullen ($771,592) mare Kurahaupocharm and upped his career earnings to $493,297 with this latest win, the 38th of his career in 143 lifetime starts.

“He broke behind the gate; I’m not sure if he wasn’t getting ahold of the track well or not,” Bryan said. “But we got going again and he raced really well to come on and win.”

Bryan says that most of his days and nights are spent racing horses and that he rarely has time for much else in his young life, and that he loves every minute of it.

“Dad and I switch back and forth between our training duties, and we definitely all work together as a family,” he explained. “We do get to go home to Guatemala now and then, to celebrate our Holy Week—which happens around Easter time and last year were able to go there for a month at Christmas.”