Stephens Reflects On Racing Career

After a lifetime in the business, longtime horseman Garnet Stephens can look back fondly in his life in harness racing after selling his last horse just over a year ago.

Stephens, just over 80-years-old, spent more than three decades racing his horses on the Quebec-Ontario circuit, competing at Blue Bonnets Raceway and Richelieu Park as well as at Rideau Carleton Raceway. When the racing seasons ended at those tracks, Stephens would hitch his horses into a trailer and truck his stable stateside.

Stephens, pictured left, with some friends at his home in 2018

“When the Thoroughbreds would come to Blue Bonnets for eight weeks every summer, I got to go to the States,” Stephens said of his days on the road to The Vankleek Hill Review. “We’d race in Buffalo, Saratoga, Vernon Downs–all kinds of different places.

“It could be a little difficult to get stalls–if everybody went to the same place we wouldn’t have a place to stay," Stephens also said. "You had to make a lot of phone calls to make sure you got your 10 stalls.”

Stephens holds many memories from his time in the harness racing business, which help him keep a positive attitude as he--like many--deal with the blows to life that have come with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Honest to goodness, I’m not bored,” Stephens said. “I watch an awful lot of TV, I go for a lot of walks.

“What I do miss is going out–going to the (Windsor), or going out to a restaurant, but what the heck.”

Of his overall time in the business, Stephens said “I loved every moment of it.”