Ricky Kopiec, a “little stable” groom, has won honors as Caretaker of the Year in the annual competition sponsored by Harness Tracks of America and Hanover Shoe Farms.

Kopiec, 48, has worked for the small stable of Chicago horsewoman Kim Rinker for 15 years, and also for a number of the smaller stables at Maywood Park in Chicago.  He doubles at night as the “number puller” and saddle pad washer at Maywood, a task he also performed when Sportsman’s Park was a fixture on the Chicago scene.

As all previous winners of the honor, Kopiec’s work ethic and endless days and nights caring for his charges are symbolic of all good caretakers, and Ms. Rinker, in nominating him, wrote that although Kopiec “is small in stature, he is a giant in the responsibilities he carries on his shoulders on a daily basis.”

“He is a non-stop worker,” she wrote, “whose indefatigable attitude starts by feeding horses for various stables at 4:30 each morning. 

He then jogs a number of horses for another trainer and his brother before arriving at my barn every morning at 8:30.

His quiet and patient demeanor often helps calm nervous horses in the barn and while jogging on the track.  After he finishes helping me, he’ll often dart off quickly to another barn to begin jogging more horses, and usually is still on the track as it is about to close at one in the afternoon.”

Ms. Rinker said that when Kopiec cared for a trotter named Prairieland Raider – an $8,000 claimer that won only $25,000 – he acted like he had Mack Lobell himself, and treated the horse accordingly.

“He is the kind of person that often gets ignored in the big picture of harness racing,” Ms. Rinker wrote. “He’ll never stand in the winner’s circle of the Hambletonian or Little Brown Jug, but like so many other unsung heroes in harness racing, he doesn’t have those aspirations. He is happy with his place beside the cheap claimers and the overlooked state-bred maidens.  And they definitely are happy with him.”