
Spotlight On: FHBPA Board Member Ron Spatz
When Ron Spatz found his first job at the racetrack, he was not in search of a career. Spatz was a typical 20-year-old on break from college, looking to make a little money and enjoy the Jersey Shore. Growing up in Union City, he’d always liked animals. “I’d bring home every pet I could find – dogs, cats, turtles, frogs,” he said. But he never expected the highlight of that summer vacation to be working with the horses.
“Something happened that summer,” he recalled. “Being around the horses, they just drew me in. I went back to school for a few months, but I knew that was not where I wanted to be. The racetrack, that was it for me. I’d found my niche.”
He left Monmouth College and an unfinished degree in business administration behind, and never looked back.
Spatz celebrates five decades in racing this year, the last four as a trainer in South Florida. He has spent the last five years dedicating his time and energy to the industry as a Board member of the Florida HBPA.
“I didn’t have a lot of interest in running for the Board, to be honest,” Spatz said. “I had friends who were on the Board, and there was a lot of dissension, a lot of conflict. But [then-Board member] Bill Kaplan came to me and said, ‘you’ve been in racing a long time, don’t you want to give something back?’ I thought about it, and I realized he had a point. I had more free time, so I talked myself into it.”
Spatz takes his role seriously.
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