Listen & Learn equals success for Glispie

Dean Glispie has a methodical and common sense approach to training harness racing horses—not unlike the system he used during his 16 years as a high school basketball coach.

“I relate a lot of what I do with the horses to those high school basketball players,” the 63-year-old Washington Court House, Ohio naïve stated. “Ultimately, it all about reading your player. Some of them I’d have to grab by the jersey to get their attention, and others just needed your acknowledgement that they were doing well. It’s the same with horses—as a trainer, you do whatever it takes to get the best out of them.”

Dean, who now resides in Sedalia, Ohio, just a stone’s throw from his hometown, is a second generation horseman who fell in love with harness horses at the ripe old age of six.

“My dad (Kenneth) bought his first horse in 1968 when I was 6 years old, and I was hooked,” Dean recalled. “He got into the business first as an owner and had Mark Ferguson training for him and then Ed Meyers in the early 1970s. Dad owned Heinold Hog market—with several locations in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. There were a couple of farmers who liked to go to Scioto Downs and gamble,  and he went with them once and thought it was really cool and then started going with them before buying his first horse.”

That first horse was Diane Chase, a pacing mare by Chase Me, out of the Athlone Guy mare Flaxey Girl. She took a record of p, 4, 2:07.3f and earned $2,738. Ken’s second horse was a mare named Pleasant Princess, p, 5, 2:07.4 ($12,113); a daughter of Royal Valley-Princess Kar Su-Brown Prince.

“Those two mares got him hooked on the business and back then we’d go see them every weekend,” Dean said. “Ed (Meyers) put me on the jog cart early and when I was 8, he turned me loose and let me jog one by himself. I lived for those weekends just to be near the horses.”

Dean attended and graduated from Madison Plains High School, participating in basketball and other sports, but his mind was always at the barn.

“As a kid you dream of being a pro basketball player, but I knew that really wasn’t in the cards for me,” Dean stated. “My mom (Mary Ann) wanted me to go to college in the worse way but I got my qualifying license at age 14 and then my fair license, and I drove the night I turned 18 at Scioto with my ‘P’ license and won the first and last races with dad’s horses, which was quite a thrill.”

Dean has no problem recalling those horse’s names, either.

“Pearl’s Son p, 5, 2:00.2 ($17,120) a son of Captain Courageous-Sampsons Pearl-Sampson Direct

and Love Money p, 3, 2:00f ($39,022), by Golden Money Maker, our of the Reed’s Knight mare Lovely Reed. That was just the start of things, and eventually, I took over the training of dad’s horses and my mom and dad helped in the barn with the care of the horses.”

During those first year, Dean trained a stable of six to eight, with his parents helping him at the London Fairgrounds. But then he got the itch to do something different.

“I was 24 and felt that I needed to learn more and had a chance to work for one of the best, so I went to work for Chip (Sam Noble),” he offered. “I worked for Chip as a second trainer for six years, and the biggest thing he taught me was horsemanship. He’d always say, ‘you can’t train a horse by the book—if you can’t read them, you can’t train them.’ What Chip meant was that you had to work with a horse’s personality, with their demeanor. Chip’s general horsemanship was just outstanding, along with being a great trainer-driver. He didn’t say a lot, but if you asked him, he’d tell you or explain something to you. I was training for him when he was at the top of his game, with horses like Nobleland Sam, and others. He always kept a stable of right around 40 head, and with four or five second trainers, which was a very manageable number.”

After his stint with Chip, Dean returned to training on his, focusing at first on young horses, but then deciding he preferred the overnighters instead.

“We raced mostly at the pari-mutuels,” he said. “Probably the first really nice horse I had was a little pacer named Dream Escort, that my parents bought for $200. The horse was at a fairgrounds and my parents happened to be there, and the trainer who had him at the time had just come in off a training mile with the horse, who already had one bowed tendon, and in this training mile, he bowed the other one. So, he told my folks, ‘I’m done with this horse, I’m sending him to the Amish. So, my dad asked him, ‘what’ll the Amish give you for him?’ and the trainer said ‘$200,’ so my dad gave the guy $200 and brought the horse home. We worked on that horses legs and got them to where they were tight, and in his first nine starts for us he had four wins, four seconds and a third.”

Dream Escort p, 6, 1:56.4f was a son of Happy Escort-Fairest Dream-Bret Hanover that won $86,225 from 163 starts, with 25, 32 seconds, and19 thirds for Dean and his folks. The second of 12 foals, Dream Escort was a full brother to Movie Escort p, 5, 1:57.3f ($109,236).

“We kept him until Mom and Dad sold the farm and then they sold him to a guy in Indiana as a pet, and he ended up living a good life,” Dean said.

Three decades later, Dean has amassed 301 wins, 335 seconds, and 319 thirds for $2,685,306 in career earnings. His best year came in 2023, when he secured stats of 41-38-37 and $457,530 in seasonal earnings. Last year (2024) the horses he trained earned $328,543 from 23 trips to the winner’s circle, and in 2022, his horses earned $409,615 from 29 triumphs.

Dean now trains at Dan Ater’s old farm, in Clarksburg, Ohio, with girlfriend Sandy Hanners and his son Damon helping out with barn chores, for their stable of 13.

“I used to train babies but the last few years I’ve gone mostly the overnight horses route,” Dean explained. “We buy 2-year-olds coming three and do our best to make them into conditioned horses. I might go to the Meadows or Hoosier Park here and there, but I prefer to stay close to home and to race close to home.”

One of his best horses the last few years came in the form of Rocks Shining Star, a son of Rockin Image-Bikini Star-Jenna’s Beach Boy, who took a mark of 1:48.2 in a Meadowlands overnight on July 1, 2023, for driver David Miller.

ROCKS SHINING STAR WINNING AT THE MEADOWS

His latest stable star is Howaboutayankee p, 3, 1:49.3f ($139,322), a son of Dancin Yankee-Opie’s Girl-Art Official, owned by the Always Finish Second Stable (Daniel Dreyfuss & Michale Kerns).

Purchased on Dec. 19, 2023, this youngster (now 4 in 2025) won seven of 21 starts in 2024, along with three seconds and three thirds, earning $138,282 and taking a mark of 1:49.3 at Scioto Downs with Trevor Smith at the lines in an overnight event.

Seaside Star is another Glispie trainee, a 3-year-old altered son of Downbytheseaside-Rock N Roll Xample-Rocknroll Hanover, who his owners acquired on Sept. 25, 2024. Most recently the gelding was third at Miami Valley Raceway in 1:56.4 with Brett Miller at the lines in a non-winners of one.

Other recent additions to the Glispie roster include Quote Me Not, a sophomore by Art Major, and the second foal out of the Bettor’s Delight mare Quote Me, who is a full brother to the mare Beyond Words N p, 5, 1:51f ($328,530). Dean also has high hopes for Be My Princess A, a 3-year-old Somebeachsomewhere filly, who is the 14th foal out of the unraced Live Or Die mare Sabrina Bromac, dam of ten winners, seven of which earned over $100,000.  Be My Princess A is  owned by Curtin ANZ Stables of Coral Springs, FL.

“Over the years I’ve changed my training methods a bit in that I used to train two to three trips,’ Dean noted. “Now, we’re more about teaching them speed and I never train my horses more than one trip and I’ve been successful. I train them every three days and show them speed, but I only go one trip and it’s worked for me.  And they move every day except Sunday.

“I’ve had a passion for this work for as long as I remember,” Dean added. “It’s a seven days a week kind of profession and even if you’re sitting in a chair at the end of the day, you’re thinking about still thinking about the horses. What I’ve learned over the years is that there’s no teacher like experience, and that’s what I like to do. I like to pay attention and listen and learn.

by Kimberly Rinker, for Harnesslink