Allard won
last year’s Rideau Carlton title with 389 wins to MacDonald’s 243, after
MacDonald had won the previous three seasons.
MacDonald
made his debut in East Rutherford, NJ last week with a handful of drives, and
stormed home to his first Meadowlands win with 17-1 upsetter Firethorn, one of
his own shippers.
Allard
certainly knows his way around the Big M, having raced here periodically over
the past two seasons, and mainly driving for his brother, trainer Rene Allard.
The
30-year-old Allard, from Saint-Esprit, Quebec, just finished a strong 2012
campaign with 457 wins and $2.8 million in purses.
“I’ll be
visiting Daniel Dube, who is having back surgery, and my brother asked me to
come down,” said Allard, on way back from a Florida vacation. “The timing
was right. I’ll be driving some at the Meadowlands and Yonkers. I
definitely enjoy driving at the Big M. We’ll see how it goes. I
don’t want to make any long term commitment right now.”
Simon’s
brother, Rene put up career best numbers in 2012, with 453 wins and $3.8
million, and was Canada’s leading percentage stable at .465. He won the
Rideau Carlton title, and at age 26, he is the youngest trainer to pass 1,500
wins with 1,719. The younger Allard has a strong contingent in the
Tri-State area.
“Again, my
brother wants me here, yet things really worked out back in Ottawa,” noted
Simon. “Last year was one of my best years, I was able to be home, and I
cut down on my travel expenses. But the situation with the possible
cancellation of the slots program in Ontario has everybody on edge. I
love the Meadowlands. You guys work hard and make the racing
exciting. Rene has a lot of live horses, so I’m excited and ready to go.”
Meanwhile,
John MacDonald has hit the road again as well, looking to make a possible move
from his home in Russell, Ontario. The 30-year-old from Charlottetown,
Prince Edward Island was born into the sport, and settled in the Ottawa area 12
years ago.
“My uncle
had a stable at Bayama Farms in Quebec, so I moved there for a couple of years
to work for him right out of high school,” MacDonald recalled. “My father
trained horses in PEI his whole life, so I grew up doing it and I loved
it. There wasn’t any money in it there and people still do it for a
hobby. It’s pretty hard to make a living at it.”
MacDonald
has carved out a successful niche for himself in the nation’s capitol.
“I’ve been
racing at Rideau Carlton for about ten years as a trainer and driver,” he
noted. “I don’t have any horses up there. I usually keep between
five and eight of my own. I’m mainly a catch driver right now. I
was leading driver for three years in a row before Simon Allard won last
year. Fortunately, I’m picking up some of his drives now that he’s in New
Jersey.”
Like many
horsemen in Ontario, MacDonald is trying to deal with the element of uncertainty.
“I’m
traveling around right now because of the possible cancellation of the Slots at
Racetracks Program in Ontario,” he said. “There’s an election in the
Spring, and nobody really knows what’s going to happen. I raced at Vernon
Downs last Summer. I’m heading to Pompano Park right after I race at the
Meadowlands on Saturday. I was thinking of moving there or New York for
the Winter. I’m just leaving my options open and touring around to see
what’s out there. I have a four-acre hobby farm up here. I built a
five-stall barn and spent some money on the place. It’s 20 minutes from
the track, and it would be kind of hard to move away from it.
“This
Winter I had a couple of horses in the top classes at Rideau Carlton, and those
classes weren’t filling. The track got really icy here and the horses
didn’t handle wearing corks very well. Plus, my owner wants to claim a
couple more quality horses.”
MacDonald
struck gold on his initial venture to the Big M last Saturday, putting a new
lifetime mark of 1:51.2 on Firethorn, a seven-year-old son of Dragon Again, who
is now under the care of trainer Jason Ricco.
“Firethorn
hadn’t raced in a few weeks,” said MacDonald. “We just took back from
post ten and tried to get him into the flow. The race just unfolded
perfectly for him. He’s got some arthritis in his joints and the track
really agreed with him. He felt like a new horse. I knew Jason
Ricco’s wife, who is from Quebec City, and I was looking for a smaller stable
that could get my horses in every week. Jason is at Mark Ford’s training
center in Middletown, NY. He’s in tougher this week, and we’ll employ a
similar strategy.
“I learned
a lot from my first few drives over the mile track. It’s a completely
different type of racing. You really have to use your head a lot
more. It’s actually easy on one hand because you’re driving with the best
in the world. There’s a lot of flow, which gives everybody a chance to
win, and an outside post is not such a disadvantage.”
Rideau
Carlton announcer, Norm Borg has affectionately referred to MacDonald as “The
Prime Minister” after the first Prime Minister of Canada, Sir John A.
MacDonald, whose face appears on the ten dollar bill.
“They
don’t make a real big deal out of it here. I had an owner who was a
member of the federal government Liberal Party here, and I used to visit him at
the Parliament buildings all the time. I drive by the Prime Minister’s
residence all the time, but I have not met him. I will say I’m glad NHL
hockey is back. I’m a huge fan, and I play in a
men’s league twice a week.”
