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Tony Alagna, A Bright Star on the Illinois Horizon

© Kimberly Rinker

Conditioner Tony Alagna, 29, who supervises the race horse training end of Doc and Pat Walker’s Fox Valley Standardbreds operation, was bred and born into the sport of harness racing. His parents are both successful Standardbred trainers: mother Donna Lee Ozment conditions a successful stable at Balmoral Park, while father Pete maintains a stable in southern Illinois. Uncle Bill Alagna, conditions horses and is a regular on the Prairie State county fair circuit, while younger brother Pete, 27, is a blacksmith.

“My parents have always trained harness horses, and it was just a natural thing for me to want to do,” Tony says. “It was what I grew up with, and it was what I loved to do. When most kids were on summer vacation from school going to camps and going on trips, I was grooming horses for my parents. My idea of camp was attending the Harness Horse Youth Foundation camp where people like Margot Taylor and her daughter Ellen challenged me to learn more about the business other than what a ‘crit davis’ was. It was a great learning experience. I also loved being able to have the responsibility of taking care of the horses during the summer. I know that I had to drive my parents crazy!”

Born and raised in Champain-Urbana, Tony’s parents trained at the local county fairgrounds. After attending the local high school, Tony went to Riverton High School in Riverton, Illinois, and graduated at age 16 as a Junior when his parents divorced. He received a scholarship from the Harness Horse Youth Foundation, and attended a local college briefly, but decided the horses were his “true calling” in life.

“Harness racing was just my life and what I really wanted to do,” Tony recalled. “I would go to the fairs and take care of my horses. Mom has photos of me warming up horses at Decatur, when I was 11-years-old, so how could I not just naturally graduate into the horse business?”

Tony credits his family with giving him the foundation of learning the harness racing business, and cites other experiences, such as when he was second trainer for the Pinske Stable in the mid-1990s.

“I think that learning in the business continues on a daily basis,” he said. “Of course, working with my family was an invaluable experience. They trained mostly two and three-year-olds and that is what I enjoy the most. I like to have a few race horses but my true love is trying to bring a young horse to their full potential.”

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