Ray Skellington has a picture in his mind's eye of what he wants the Historic Pinehurst Harness Track to look like -- all the barns restored, newly-coated with white paint and the grounds looking neat and clean so that people passing on the road or playing golf at the Pinehurst Resort will see a beautiful facility.

But the past must also meet the present in terms of the requirements of the Standardbred trainers who come to train in Pinehurst from October through June every year. Skellington, who accepted the position of Track Supervisor six months ago, is already beginning the work of upgrading the barns and the surfaces on the training tracks.

The biggest challenge Skellington has faced so far is finding enough hours in the day to accomplish all he wants to accomplish to restore the historic buildings to their former glory. The Pinehurst Harness Track was established in 1915, and the track is on the Historic Register. It's one of the few (and perhaps the only) Standardbred training track owned by a municipality.

"I want the Village of Pinehurst to be proud of what they have here," says Skellington who has been with the track for two years, moving up through the ranks to his new position.

"My ultimate goal is to make Pinehurst the best place to train Standardbreds in the country,"

Skellington and his jack-of-all-trades crew, consisting of Alan Komers, Bill Scales and Wilson Smith, have been busy renovating barn No. 17 and barn No. 20 over the past summer. Skellington's goal is to renovate two barns every summer in the off-season (when the Standardbred trainers are not in residence.)

With an eye on saving the taxpayers money, the track crew has done all the work themselves rather than hiring a contractor. They have recycled the wood in the barns to refurbish the stalls rather than buy new wood as another cost-saving measure.

"My crew brings a lot to the table," says Skellington. "We all have carpentry skills."

Besides carpentry skills, they bring other skills to the job as well. The crew have had to tackle replacing rotted posts, resurfacing stall floors with new clay, fabricating new windows and doors, redoing wiring and jacking up barns to fix foundations. They also plan to repaint three barns in the coming weeks.

Beginning Monday, the half-mile track and mile track will have the track surfaces re-graded and reshaped. Skellington has contracted Bob Asherman from the Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey to restore the tracks to their original condition, including widening the mile track. Skellington expects the work will be done in a maximum of four days.

The Standardbred trainers will begin arriving Oct. 1 and so far stalls are filling quickly with 240 stalls reserved and a total of 300 horses expected for the 2008 season.

The season rate per stall is $770 with a $100 deposit to hold a stall.

"Word-of-mouth has spread among the Standardbred trainers about the temperate Pinehurst climate. Horses transition well to Northern racing climates from here," says Skellington.

During the season, the track crew maintains the training track surface, constantly grooming it until training ends at 1 p.m. daily. Then they redo the surface to prepare it for the next day.

"The trainers are happy with the footing," said Skellington.

Skellington also has plans to attract more horse shows on the off-season. He hopes to install all-weather surface rings to draw more horse shows during the summer. The first and best option for the location of a ring, according to Skellington, would be the centerfield of the half-mile track. It would require a surface that could accommodate cars as the centerfield is used for over-flow parking for the Pinehurst Resort during tournaments. The second option would be the centerfield at the mile track.

"It's a great facility for horse shows but we need to improve the footing. Last year, due to the drought, it was very dry and consequently the ground was very hard," said Skellington. "It's a good location for horse shows, close to hotels and restaurants."

There is a lot to be enjoyed by the residents of Pinehurst at the track; whether it's breakfast at the Track Restaurant or watching Standardbreds train or taking in a horse show or walking around the mile track or attending an event at the restored Fair Barn.

Skellington wants to put the icing on the cake by restoring the barns. He is already looking forward to having a 100-year grand celebration in 2015.

Lucky for Pinehurst that when Skellington finished up four years of serving his country in the Marines in 1995, he met a girl (now his wife, Toni) from Pinehurst and decided to re-locate here from Syracuse, N.Y.

Toni's grandfather, Tom Horner, once owned the barbershop in downtown Pinehurst.

The Skellingtons live in Aberdeen with their three daughters, Kari, 18, Skylar, 14, and Bethany, 12.

They have three Mountain horses that they enjoy trail-riding plus a pony and a donkey.