Jared Moyer at home in Maryland

From his earliest days, Jared Moyer enjoyed working with harness racing horses. His father’s cousin, Todd LaFountaine, had a stable and Moyer would spend his free time there helping out. When he turned 13, he began driving at matinees in his home state of Michigan and was set on the path to a career in the sulky.

After racing in Michigan and Chicago, Moyer decided to move east in 2014. He relocated to Maryland and has become a regular on the Mid-Atlantic circuit. Moyer, 29, is having the best year of his career in 2021, with 93 wins and $873,105 in purses, and is third in the driver standings at Rosecroft Raceway.

“I’ve been getting a lot of opportunities, a lot of drives, this year,” Moyer said. “It just took some time. It was kind of a new start coming here. In Chicago, there were always a handful of drivers that everyone would use. When you’re starting out, people wouldn’t just throw you on their horses and give you a shot. Moving out here, it seemed like people were more willing to give me a shot. It just kind of took off from there.

“I got hooked up with (trainer/driver) John Wagner when I moved out here and started working for him. I’ve kind of gone on my own now, but I’m still pretty close with John and he puts me on quite a few of his horses. That helps quite a bit.”

Moyer is in the second year of training his own small stable and has won a total of 31 races and $159,854. He has four horses with his wife, Kayla, who is a photographer.

“It’s been a dream of mine since I was a kid to have my own horses,” Moyer said. “When I was working for John, I had one horse. Then I ended up buying another one and started buying more. I had five or six horses pretty much all this year.

“I like driving horses more than training, but it’s nice to have my own horses. I don’t want to have a huge stable, probably 10 would be the most. It’s nice having the four that I have. I just try to get them to be the best they can be. It’s fun.”

As a driver, Moyer’s triumphs this year include a Delaware Standardbred Breeders Fund final and Virginia Breeders championship with 2-year-old female trotter Shes All Woman plus a Virginia title with 3-year-old female pacer Kelseys For Real and a Maryland Sire Stakes crown with 2-year-old male pacer Donnys All In. All three were trained by Wagner.

Moyer drove Shes All Woman throughout the season, winning four of seven races and $111,200.

“She was pretty awesome,” Moyer said. “It was pretty cool to get to drive her. She’s just a good racehorse. When she started out, she showed a ton of ability. She was a little temperamental at times, but she never showed much of that on the track. She’s game every time she goes to the track, you always know what you have. She always showed up.”

Moyer has always dreamed of driving top horses. He was 14 when Life Guard On Duty, trained by LaFountaine, won the 2006 American-National Stakes for 3-year-old male pacers at Balmoral Park.

“Watching Life Guard On Duty race was always cool,” Moyer said. “I knew I always wanted to drive one like him.”

Moyer got his first pari-mutuel win on Dec. 26, 2010, with My Lil Flirt at Sports Creek Raceway in Michigan. Several weeks later, the then 18-year-old discovered he had his own fan club, founded by future harness racing television personality Jessica Otten and her friend Brianna Kreil (now Page).

“They made fan club shirts and would wear them when I was driving at Sports Creek Raceway,” Moyer said. “I was just starting out. It started off as a joke, but they would wear them all the time. It was pretty funny.”

As for his future, Moyer is simply focused on taking advantage of his opportunities.

“I just want to race as much as possible,” Moyer said. “Any chances that come up, I’m going to take them. I like the thrill of driving. It never gets old, winning a race. That’s all you want to do. It’s a feeling that never goes away. You just always want to get to it again.”

by Ken Weingartner, for the USTA