Amateur Women Drive For Fun

"What I like is that there is no age or gender barrier when it comes to driving horses," added Bonomo. "And horse people really do like to help other horse people--people in general love to give advice and help others."

"The way I see it, the whole amateur movement was really used as a tool to bring in new owners to the sport of harness racing," Zendt said. "I've never considered it to be an issue that I was female. It was just something that I wanted to do and the fact that I was a woman really didn't matter to me. It's also a great amount of fun."

Gerry says that for the most part, he has seen little differences between the ladies and men who have competed in the Billings Series over the past two decades.

"My observation is that the lady drivers, for the most part, are more patient at the start of a race than their male counterparts, but equally, if not more, aggressive at the end of a race," Gerry said. "While there are plenty of exceptions in which the lady drivers have charged their mounts out of the gate and into the lead, my sense is that most of our lady drivers have been more willing (most of the time) to let their mounts 'settle in' before 'setting them going' in a race."

"From a publicity standpoint, the participation of lady drivers is 'pay dirt' for the Publicity Directors at the host tracks," Gerry added. "Their participation differentiates our races from every other race on a host venue's race card and makes for great copy. It makes for even greater copy when they (ladies) win. As John Manzi, the official scribe of the Billings Series who assigns each of us a name that reflects something about us, can attest, it makes for fun reporting."

"Clearly, when you can refer to competitors in a race as Leslie 'Little Boots' Dunn Zendt or Kelly 'Can I Help You?' Rucker or Jamie 'A Smile To Die For' Rucker the Billings races take on a different character than a nightly quotient of $4,000, $6,000 or $8,000 claiming races."

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