Bessie was born into the racing industry and obtained her trainers license at the age of eighteen. She began training horses full-time when her father Tom Lovelace passed away suddenly in 1983. She ran a successful racing stable for twenty-two years winning nearly four hundred races in the Mid-Atlantic region. Bessie served as President of the DTHA from 1998 until 2005 when she then accepted the position of DTHA, Executive Director.