MONTICELLO, NY — Monticello Raceway, forever known in the world of standardbred harness racing as the “Mighty M,” opened on June 27, 1958.

Since its halcyon heydays, the half-mile oval track has weathered the test of time. Although the large crowds no longer fill the once-mighty grandstands, racing continues year-round during the day from Mondays through Thursday, with a worldwide audience watching and betting on the simulcast racing action.

In harness racing, which for years was mostly dominated by male drivers, women have progressed. Once considered to be more at home in the paddock in the role of grooms and trainers, they now are frequently making their mark as drivers.

In some cases, they are triple threats in the sport—as owners, grooms and drivers. Marianna Monaco and McKenzie Sowers teamed up a couple years ago to merge their respective stables into Monaco and Sowers Racing, which calls Barn F home at Monticello Raceway.

They drive at their home track and venture around the state to Freehold, the Meadowlands and Yonkers.

Sowers grew up around harness racing in New Brunswick, Canada as part of a harness racing family. Her grandparents on both sides of the aisle—Phil and Joan Sowers, and Dean and Iris Bustard—were noted horsemen and horsewomen north of the border.

According to Sowers, her father started training and driving as a 16-year-old, then later took a break to raise a family while working as a long-haul trucker, before getting back into harness racing in 2017.

She got her first drive at the Cumberland Fair, finishing fifth with Eat Your Enemy—an appropriately named horse, considering what she was told by male drivers in her early days on the bike.

“It’s not a female-dominated sport… It was always, ‘You’ll never drive.’... Well, I got my first drive at 17,” on the way to posting 12 or 13 wins, and still counting.

Asked what it was like to sit in the low-slung seat of a sulky, Sowers told this sports scribbler a couple of years ago, “Your heart pounds going behind the gate. You feel the hoofbeats, the horses breathing. And everybody urging their horses on.”  

“It’s something different,” she said of harness racing. “It’s not something everybody you talk to on the street does; it’s something that’s in your blood.”

At present, Sowers holds a provisional license, but last year she took to the track at Monticello against the likes of Jimmy Devaux—who, piloting Luvcruchess, aced his 7 thousandth career win at the Mighty M on June 27.

She recalled him saying, “Go get ‘em,” as she was in the sulky seat behind her older racehorse Penny Spirit, an event Sowers recalled as “pretty cool.”

While Monaco and Sowers don’t have the largest stable in the field, they train and own a couple, and “just make enough money to keep going” while providing a forever home to two of Sowers’ aging horses and preparing for the birth of a foal.

“Women are the heart of racing; they really are,” said Sowers, who recently earned her registered nursing degree. “The grooms, trainers and a lot of drivers.”

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Marianna Monaco is also a three-pronged threat in harness racing, and in 2017 made her mark in golf as winner of the New York State Women’s Amateur Golf Championship, and posted two recent victories in the Dutchess County Amateur.

On her 23rd birthday in 2018, Monaco celebrated the day by getting her first harness racing win at the Goshen Historic Track, followed a bit later by her first win at the Meadowlands on September 11, 2020, and posted her first pari-mutuel victory in the GSY Amateur Series at the Meadowlands, wrapping up that season with six trips to the winner’s circle.

“Lear Seelster had the 10 hole, got away tenth and circled them from last at 32-1… it was my first Meadowlands win.”

The GSY Series is named after its founders: Jeff Gural, Jason Settlemoir and Dave Yarock.

“I spent most of my nights as a kid on the fence at Yonkers Raceway,” said Monaco, explaining that over the years her parents owned a few horses.

The 28-year-old, who has a degree in criminal justice, said of women in the sport, “Today we see many more females training and driving on a regular basis. It seems as though more and more are beginning to make history in the sport, putting women on the map... Harness racing has been known as a male-dominated sport,” Monaco continued, “but it looks like women are becoming more competitive every single day.”

She noted that she has been very fortunate to have “supportive owners through the good and the bad times… they say the best way out is always through, and we make sure that we make it through together and keep moving forward.”

Who were her greatest influences? Those “would have to be the ones who never thought I could do it,” she said. “They have motivated me and pushed me harder to be the best that I could be. They have fueled the fire within me to be better, competitive, motivated, and have a strong backbone.”

Monaco added a bit of sulky philosophy to her story. “Grit, passion and perseverance have gotten me through difficult times, and have made me even better in the good.”

And of the human/horse relationship, Monaco told Ken Weingartner from the U.S. Trotting Association that when she walks through the stable door, her horses are just as glad to see her as she is to see them.