The average person spends about 50 years in the workforce. Clocking in, clocking out. Workdays starting at 9 a.m. and ending at 5 p.m. Success is measured in paychecks and promotions. Bob Davis has spent the last 50 years chasing adrenaline and wins on the racetrack. There is no clocking in and there is never any clocking out. Workdays start at 4 a.m. and never have a set end time. His success has been measured by his own personal gratification. While others work to live, Davis lives to work. The average person may spend about 50 years working but Davis spent them living – in harness racing. Bob Davis was born on July 20, 1946. He had no ties to harness racing or the horse community and up until the 1970’s, Davis had his focus fully on his own home improvement business. In 1975, he was introduced to harness racing. “A friend of mine suggested we get a horse,” Davis explained. “He was already into it and so, we bought a horse and it was a lot of fun. To me, it was kind of new at the time. The horse did good.” While continuing to make a living with his regular gig, Davis’ routine expanded to visiting the track to watch his horse race. Early success led to even more involvement with the married training team of Reynold and Connie Spagnola along with his co-owner Larry Spagnola. That’s when one horse began multiple horses and Davis found a new passion on the track. “In 1976, we got really lucky. We bought a horse called Little Price. He went on to be a real champion,” said Davis. “In 1977, he made more money than any other horse ever made in Saratoga and ended up winning the July Trotting Championship. Then he set a world record at a mile and a half. It was just a lot of fun. I think he won 12 or 13 races and was Trotter of the Year. I was hooked.” Davis spent about five years owning horses with the Spagnolas. In the 1980s, he became partners with Percy Davis, finding great success with a horse named Streetwise. “I mean he just kept winning and winning,” Davis said. “He was just another horse that you just got hooked on. So, I ended up with a barn full of horses with Percy in the ‘80s, like from 1982 through 1986.” In that time, Davis ventured into the world of driving, getting his fair license. After spending some time driving at fairs and enjoying the new adventure, Percy Davis convinced him to drive at Saratoga and get his P license. “I got my ‘P’ license and he put a bunch of horses in for me to qualify. I had my ‘A’ license in about two or three weeks. Back in those days you needed 12 qualifying drives and you needed five guys to sign for you. So I had [Percy Davis], Harold Story, Bill O’Donnell and a couple other guys – real top names signed for me. And I had all good horses to drive back then. So I got my ‘A’ license, I would say, within a month,” recalled Davis. In 1987, Davis had a career-defining driving opportunity with Determined Chase for trainer Dave Corlew. He only got the opportunity to drive from time to time but it was an opportunity for him to compete outside of Saratoga and on the Grand Circuit. “He was in at Buffalo in a Grand Circuit race [W.N. Reynolds]. Either Harold Story or Herve Filion drove him [regularly]. Harold drove him at Saratoga, Herve drove him at Yonkers. Neither one could make it out to Buffalo for one reason or another so Dave came to me and said, ‘you’re the only other guy that has sat behind this horse.’ He was kind of quirky to drive. He told me he wanted me to go out there and drive him in this big race. It was an $87,000 purse and in 1987, that was a lot of money back then,” said Davis, who would start from post seven at odds of 9-1 in the Buffalo stakes affair. According to Davis, Clint Galbraith had a horse in the race that was 1-9 and unbeaten, drawn inside with a 10-for-10 record. “To make a long story short, we got to the front and held him off and we won the race. After that, I had the nickname Buffalo Bob for a while,” Davis laughed. “It was really exciting. Probably the most exciting part of harness racing for me. That’s stuck with me all these years. I mean it’s just something you never forget, winning a race like that. I mean, when I look at the win picture, I see guys like Ron Pierce and Clint Galbraith and Ted Wing. I mean I see all guys that are in the Hall of Fame that I beat. I still had my ‘P’ license at the time, I hadn’t gotten my ‘A’ license yet, so that really got me off on the right foot.” Davis continued driving but just for fun. He considered himself a part-time horseman and in 1991, despite just recently getting his training license, got out of the harness racing industry as an active participant to concentrate on his real-world business. It wasn’t until 2011 when Davis found his way back into the realm of harness racing. “I would come up [to the track] in the morning, in the afternoon and at night. Most of the races were at night back then. So I would come to the races all I could, while still running my business,” said Davis, who closed his business in 2016 and retired from one world at age 69 to become a full-time trainer in another. “Training has never been my passion. My passion has always been to drive a horse. I mean, the most fun I’ve ever had in harness racing was driving,” said Davis. “When I first came back in 2011, my friend Danny Mitchell said to me, ‘you know, you haven’t driven in 10 years, you can be an amateur driver now.’ So, I said I’d give it a try.” At the time, the amateur races were known as the Billings where a weekly series was held at different tracks. As Davis explained, there were two different kinds of Billings – one, you brought your own horse and the other, the Billings Travel, you would go to a track and the trainers would put their horses in and you would drive them. Travel included tracks across the East Coast of the United States all the way up into Ontario, Canada. “The first one was at Yonkers and I had a horse that I thought I’d try in them and boom, we win the race. And again, I’m into it,” Davis said. “It was great. I got to drive at virtually every track on the East Coast and did really well. I won the Billings Travel like three out of four years in a row. It was pretty good because back then there were some really good drivers – Hannah Miller, Joe Lee, and some other excellent drivers – so it was really rewarding for me to win. “The Billings Travel was different because you were always driving a horse that you didn’t know. The most fun I’ve had in harness racing is amateur driving. And I’m still not done doing it.” This year, Davis turns 80 years old in July. He has operated a full stable since 2016 at the Saratoga Springs half-mile harness track while also driving his own and picking up a catch drive now and then. He plans to reduce his stable to between two and four horses, with a couple of them being amateur horses. “I’m going to do a little more amateur driving before I’m done,” Davis said. “Every year I say I’m getting older and I must be almost at the end of my driving career, but I feel so good. And, knock on wood, I have no problems. I still have all my senses, sound body and mind. So I’m going to do a little more driving until I think I can’t. Everybody tells you when you get to be 70, 80 years old that you got to stop driving, but my eyesight is 20/20, my hearing is perfect, my reflexes are good, so I’m going to keep driving until I see some of that stuff fail,” said Davis. Right now, Davis gets up at 4 a.m. every day. His schedule includes letting his dog out, eating breakfast and heading to the track around 6 a.m. He checks his horses out and then gets to Mark Beckwith’s stable by 7 a.m. where he helps jog, train and tow horses throughout the morning. He usually handles eight to 10 horses for Beckwith and finishes around 9:30 a.m. before heading back across to his own barn. He has four horses in the barn now and says he can handle them pretty quickly, getting done by 11 a.m., in time to run up to the paddock and start warming up. The days can vary, but sometimes he warms up 10 horses for one card at Saratoga. “It goes back to keeping busy. It’s a labor of love. I’m not working myself to death. I feel great,” Davis said. “You just got to keep active. You got to have a reason for living.” In between his lengthy harness racing career and running his own business, Davis drove race cars, too. “My mother used to always say to me, you have a need for speed. When I was 10 years old, I was driving go-karts, racing them. I graduated from that into cars and then I drove dragsters. I’ve always had a need for competition and speed. When I got out of harness racing, I was driving race cars from 1991 to 2011,” said Davis. “My philosophy has always been, if you don’t risk your life once in a while, you don’t value your life. To me, that’s what value your life means. Risk it once in a while and then, you really appreciate it. “There’s nothing more exhilarating than when the gate springs and everybody dashes for the front and looks for position. It really just gets you going and that’s what I live for. I love the thrill of racing.” Davis’ thrill of racing dates back decades and he even recalls his first time driving in a race with Freddy’s Sister at the Rutland Fair for Pat McGrath. “That was my first race and I’ll never forget it. It seemed like it went so fast that I can’t even remember what I was doing. But after you drive a little bit, after driving 20, 30, 100 times, the race slows down and then you realize the timing and everything,” said Davis. “When it goes fast, you feel like a passenger and you sit there and hope everything goes well, but as you drive a lot, it really does come to you after a while. You get your timing, how to rate a horse better and everything.” With his experience, Davis enjoys watching the races and seeing which drivers can rate their horses and which ones just take up space. The difference he says is what separates a leading driver like Brett Beckwith or Jacob Cutting from other drivers. “There’s so much more to driving in a race than meets the eye,” said Davis. “The average person sitting out at the races watches and thinks I jump in a sulky and go around the track, but there’s way more to it than that.” Davis explained that keeping healthy throughout his life has helped him to live a full life and keep going stronger even at the age of 80. He stays busy, eats right, and avoids things like smoking and other bad habits. “It’s been a great run. I’ve had a great life. I really have. I’ve enjoyed just about everything I’ve done in my life. I have a nice family, I’ve got three grandkids that I love to death. It’s just been a great life for me,” said Davis. Overall, Davis enjoys the business as much now as he had when he was first introduced in the 70s. He has seen the transformation of the sport and of the Saratoga Springs harness track over the years and is glad that Saratoga has hung in all these years to keep going today. “If I had to summarize it, I would just say, I just do whatever I have to do so I can sit behind horses and occasionally drive in a race. Even when I’m warming up horses and jogging for Mark, it’s fun. All the things I do, it’s the way I spend retirement. I would just say I’m just really enjoying life and enjoying my retirement,” Bob Davis concluded.