This Sunday, May 5 is opening day for the 2024 harness racing season at Hippodrome 3R in Trois-Rivieres, Que., and no one is more excited for the start of the season than four-time defending driving champion Pascal Berube.

Berube led all drivers last season at 3R with 81 wins, 24 wins ahead of rivals Stephane Brosseau and Robert Shepherd. The prior year, Berube rewrote the record books at 3R with 102 wins as the first driver ever to win more than 100 races in a single season at the track.

Already in 2024, Berube is the second-leading driver at Rideau Carleton Raceway with 14 wins. Between the two tracks, he keeps himself pretty busy as a sought-after catch-driver.

“Being on the road to a new season is always exciting,” said Berube. “I hope to have a great season once again. I’m not putting pressure on myself because of having already been the leading driver four times. It surprises me when I look back on it and I’m very proud and happy about it.

“I am currently having a great start to the season at Rideau Carleton,” he noted. “The trainers give me good horses and make the work easier. I like this place too; it’s always nice to drive on a bigger track [five-eighths of a mile]. Trois-Rivieres is a nice half-mile but a five-eighths is fun too.”

So far, the winter season has not taken its toll on the race surface at 3R. The track has been able to hold three qualifying sessions and the entry box on Wednesday should be jammed with horses ready to race on opening day Sunday.

“For the moment, the track is not yet at its full level,” explained Berube. “But there has been action on it since last November, so I think it is only a matter of a week or so before it will be very beautiful to race over.”

This year, Hippodrome 3R has a full menu of racing events and stakes races, and will host its richest season since 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order of dates, major events include Sunday, June 2 when 3R will host the Quebec / Eastern Ontario Regional Driving Championship, presented by Standardbred Canada, to help decide who will represent Canada in the World Driving Championship in New Zealand next year. And, for the first time in the event’s 17-year history, the National Driving Championship will be held at 3R on Friday, July 5.

On Sunday, Aug. 18, 3R will host the return of the $200,000 Prix d’Ete for four-year-old pacers. The race has been absent at the track since 2019, but returns this year with a host of top-class horses already nominated, including Its My Show, Stockade Seelster, Voukefalas, El Rey, Moment Is Here and Ervin Hanover.

The richest day of horse racing in all of Quebec will be the track's Super Sunday on Sept. 8 when all eight of the Quebec Sire Stakes finals for two and three-year-olds will be held. It is the richest day of racing in the province with more than $500,000 in purses. The Quebec series takes place throughout the summer months with three legs in each division before the finals.

The stakes season will conclude with a big bang on Sunday, Oct. 6 featuring the return of the $120,000 Brian Paquet Memorial Invitational pacing events for older horses and mares, plus the Lucien Bombardier Pace for two-year-old fillies.

“The National Driving Championship will be very exciting again,” said Berube, who will compete in the Quebec / Eastern Ontario Regional and be vying for a spot in the 2024 National event again. “I’m still super proud of having finished third in Edmonton [in the 2022 National Driving Championship]. To think I was two places away from representing Canada... I admit that it would be the dream of a lifetime to have the chance to wear the colours of the country.

“As for the Prix d’Ete, I can’t wait to see it because it’s always impressive to see the horses that we idealize on TV during their three-year-old season and who the following year come here to us in Trois-Rivieres."

Harness racing at Hippodrome 3R gets underway with a 12 noon post time on Sunday. Friday twilight racing begins on June 7 at 4 p.m. 

“I’m looking forward to Sunday. I wish myself to have fun and once again enjoy the chance to do what I love,” concluded Berube.

(With files from Quebec Jockey Club)