While Lexis D J’s 50th career win came on a muddy, foggy, chilly, miserable night at Flamboro Downs on Thursday (May 25), the 10-year-old Amigo Hall gelding has shared nothing but good spirits with the many people whose lives he has touched.

“He’s so special to so many people,” said Sarah Town, who credits Lexis D J as being instrumental in her growth and education as a horseperson and also as a Racing Under Saddle rider. “To his regular driver Bob McClure, to Shane [Arsenault]’s three children, Brandon, Britt, and Brooke, to Swedish monté rider Stephanie Werder, and to me.”

A mud-covered Bob McClure gestures in celebration of Lexis D J's 50th career win (Peter Beckett)

While Werder was aboard a victorious Lexis D J in Ontario’s Racing Under Saddle final at The Raceway at Western Fair District last season, Town also proved victorious aboard the gutsy veteran at Hanover Raceway.

“D J was Shane’s father Lou’s favourite horse,” continued Town. “The horse has a home for life and has always given them his best.”

Despite only boasting a mark of 1:55.2, taken during his seven-year-old season at Mohawk, Lexis D J consistently demonstrates the same heart and tenacity he showed in that front-end dead-heat win on Thursday, having amassed over half a million dollars in career earnings to date. “Last night he did it with the odds stacked against him in the mud and thick fog,” Town continued. “He never stopped trying.”