Killer Instinct is a laidback guy

Hightstown, NJ — Killer Instinct (Southwind Frank) is a laidback guy, but he always knows when it’s time to go.

“He loves to race,” said Melanie O’Donnell, who co-owns and trains the 6-year-old harness racing trotter. “One day he was getting therapy, and the races were on the TV in the barn. He heard the call to the post, and he perked right up. It was so cool. He stepped up, like, ‘I know that sound.’ He knew it was time for the races. Some other people were there and saw him do it and thought it was awesome too.”

Killer Instinct won the 2021 Pennsylvania Fair Championship as a 3-year-old in his first start for O’Donnell and partner Corey Hendricks, who had purchased the gelding a week earlier. It was the final start of the season for Killer Instinct. Since then, he has won 17 of 76 races, hit the board a total of 49 times, and earned $235,600 while racing at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows and MGM Northfield Park.

“Every horse has an individual personality,” O’Donnell said. “He’s just so easy to be around. He’s easy to train, not high maintenance. He likes to play with your hair and stuff. He’s just a nice horse.”

Killer Instinct is one of six horses trained by O’Donnell, an Ohio native who followed her dad, Tom, into harness racing. But horses were almost always a part of her life.

“I’ve loved horses ever since I was little,” the 39-year-old O’Donnell said. “I was probably around 5 when I started around them. It wasn’t the racehorses, we had pleasure horses at the time, and I just always felt comfortable around them, like a natural. We had the babies and I just loved everything about it. It’s funny, I go through pictures from back then, and I’d have a horse shirt on. Once it’s in your blood, that’s what they say.”

O’Donnell’s father began in harness racing as an owner in the late 1990s, and eventually turned to training his own stable. O’Donnell started with the racehorses in 2004.

“I started working for a guy named Pat Smith where we were stabled at the Canfield, Ohio, fairgrounds,” O’Donnell said. “I started learning about how to put the harness on and all that stuff. I ended up getting horses with my dad and it grew from there.”

The first horse O’Donnell worked with extensively was a pacer named Never, who was owned by her dad.

“I learned how to jog and train with him,” O’Donnell said. “He was a stud horse, and no one could believe he was a stud, he was so quiet. He was my buddy.”

O’Donnell began her own career as a trainer in 2020. She won four races that first year, and has increased that number annually, from eight to 18 to 24 this past season. In 2023, she also set a career high for purses, with $251,241.

In addition to her success with Killer Instinct, who earned $121,076 last year, O’Donnell saw now 8-year-old trotter Windsong Patriot pick up $80,131 and late-season newcomer Activation, a 2-year-old, earn paychecks in the Pennsylvania Stallion Series final, a division of the Keystone Classic, and two Kentucky Sire Stakes events at Cumberland Run.

“I don’t want to have hundreds of horses, but I would like to get more,” O’Donnell said. “We’re trying to get younger horses, just upgrading. We have our own training facility with a half-mile track. We kind of outgrew (Canfield) so we bought a farm. It’s more work, but it’s exciting to have.”

O’Donnell’s stable this season includes 2-year-old male pacer Gonnabelegendary, a son of Bit Of A Legend N-An Original who was purchased for $25,000 under the name Barmaid Itchip at the Ohio Selected Jug Sale this past September.

“Hopefully, he will live up to his name,” O’Donnell said. “We have a couple horses (this year) for the sire stakes, so hopefully we do well with them.”

As for Killer Instinct, his next race is Thursday (March 28) when he will face seven rivals in the $21,200 Open Handicap at The Meadows. He will leave from post six with driver Hunter Myers and is 5-1 on the morning line. For his career, he has won 36 of 117 races and $359,419.

“We brought him back (at age 4) and won through the non-winners condition races, and here we are,” O’Donnell said. “He’s not a big horse, but he’s tough. And when it’s time to race, he always shows up.”

by Ken Weingartner, for the USTA