Why We Love Harness Racing
I guess it is best said that we have been blessed in our healthcare business, and when the opportunity came to return to harness racing, we did! Harness racing has been in our family's blood for 50 years; the goal to “ring the bell” is like a dangling carrot, and we love the thrill of what we are doing and, hopefully, success will follow.
Jon P. Wiesman
For much of his career, Jon was behind the scenes running the breeding programs at Lauxmont, Cane Run, and Al Libfeld and Marvin Katz. His forte was aggressive reproductive management, where he was the first to ship semen to the USA from Canada in 1992, when the foal could only be registered in Canada. His first embryo transfer was successfully performed in 1993, followed by oocyte transfer with ICSI in 1997. He orchestrated the cloning collection in the quarter horse Royal Blue Boon and Peptoboonsmal with Emtran. In 1996, he developed and patented the Equine Express II semen transport system, which changed the mindset of the entire horse breeding industry by opening the door from having to transport a mare to a regional farm to shipping cooled fresh semen and maintaining her residency safely at home. In the fall of 2005, he shut his operation down due to health concerns and began a career change to the pharmaceutical and healthcare world in 2007. In 2016, his son Colby wanted to get back into the standardbred business, and together they have built a small boutique broodmare band that resides at Kentuckiana Farms.
Colby P. Wiesman
Colby is President and CEO of the family’s business HR Healthcare and has become a seasoned executive as he leverages his extensive experience to drive the overall corporate strategy, guide product development, manage financial operations, and oversee the day-to-day business operations.
In his role, Colby holds direct responsibility for positioning HR HealthCare as a market leader within the industry. His educational background includes attending the Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, an incredible foundation in business education
For most of his life, Colby has had an interest in the horses growing up on his parents’ Jonalee Farm in York, Pa. His father fondly remembers if a foal had been born during the night and he was not awoken to see its arrival, he would through a fit the next morning, so the horse industry has always been in his blood.
In 2016, he bought the first horse without telling his parents who really did not want to get back in the business and that was the seed to get where we are today.
It was agreed to from the start that we would not accumulate livestock we would be extremely selective and build a small band boutique breeding operation around a couple of blue blood families with the goal of breeding world class trotters.