Schadt is celebrating the one-year anniversary of her Odds On Acres farm, a 100-acre training facility located in Crete, IL that she designed. The 43-year-old Oak Lawn, IL conditioner in just three short years has trained the winners of over $2.7 million in purse earnings, not bad for the former racing office employee and small-time trainer.
Robin saw her dream come to fruition after teaming up with Dana Parham of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in the summer of 2000. Parham-a successful, self-made businessman-had envisioned owning racehorses for many years.
"Dana and I met through a mutual friend," Robin recalled. "He has a successful aquarium and cabinetry business in South Florida. We had several lengthy phone conversations and at the time, I had no idea that he wanted to get into the harness racing business on this level. At the time I wasn't looking to attract any owners and initially, Dana and I wanted to see if our relationship would click."
"When we met, Robin struck me as someone who wanted go in the same direction that I was going," Dana, 53, said. "Her life was established, and I was looking for someone who was old enough to know what they wanted to do and were still young enough to do it."
Robin's love for equines began at an early age, when she was growing up with her parents, Edward (a Chicago cop) and Betty (a homemaker) in the south Chicago suburbs, along with sisters Carmen and Cindy (now 55 and 36), and brother Robert (now 40).
"I hung at the livery stables in Hickory Hills," Robin remembered. "I cleaned stalls so that I could ride horses on the weekends."
After graduating from Oak Lawn High School in 1978, Robin studied accounting and business at Morraine Valley college in Palos Park for two years. It would be another eight years before she ventured to the now defunct Sportsman's Park in Cicero, Illinois, but her love for horses never waned.
"I met my beau Mike in 1988 and he brought me to the track," Robin said. "It was my first experience with harness horses. I started hanging out in the clubhouse and soon was introduced to Chuck and Sandy Gates. They invited me back to their barn and I was in heaven. Soon I started visiting them on the weekends and before long, I quit my full time job to work on the backstretch."
