The sixth-leading Canadian driver in history, by purse earnings, at $136.9 million, Luc Ouellette had won four of the past five driving titles at The Mecca of Racing - The Meadowlands - when, in late 2003, at the age of 38, he simply left the United States and relocated to the WEG Circuit. Then, after a decade of success in Ontario - including an O’Brien Award as Canada’s leading driver - he basically woke up one morning and decided it was time to wind down his driving career altogether, while still at a fairly young age. Many wondered why? Many still do. The answer is easy: In both situations, Luc chose happiness. By Dan Fisher. 

“I was just 15-years-old when I quit high school and moved to New York to work as a groom for my uncle, Mike Lachance,” Luc Ouellette revealed, while sitting on his back porch beside his loving wife of 24 years, Anita. “I quit high school to work for Mike. I had always wanted to be a driver, and I moved there with him when he first went down to the States.

“The Lachance family is a big family - lots of brothers and sisters in the business,” shared Luc. “The dynamic of the family was… let’s just say a little crazy at times. You know, with all the same people in the business. But my Mom’s house - my parents were not in the business - and my Grandma’s house were like neutral places where all the Lachances would meet (laughing). So all of the holidays were always held at my Mom’s or my Grandma’s.

“So I was always around all of those really good horsemen. Mike, Pierre, Gilles, Andre… those were all great horsemen, and I learned everything from them - my Mom’s brothers.

“Mike was planning to go to the U.S. and as soon as all his papers and everything were in order he was leaving - in January. I had gone back to school that previous fall, but I was like, ‘He’s fu#$ing going to the States - how can I go with him?’ (laughing). So somehow I got thrown out of high school… I got asked to return the next year,” laughed Ouellette at the memory.

“My Mom was fine with it - she loved it that I became a driver. She was always really tight with her brothers, and they had all left home early to work with the horses. I was leaving with her brother Mike - following in their footsteps - and she couldn’t have been happier.

“At a young age my Mom and her sister were in the barn and her sister got hurt. From that point on the girls weren’t allowed near the horses no more. The girls couldn’t go near the horses, but all of the boys did. She was crazy about what her brothers were doing - she was a huge fan of the sport - so when I told her that I wanted to quit school and do horses, she was like, ‘Sshhh. Don’t say anything… I’m going to take care of your dad. I’ll make a deal with him. Don’t worry.’

“Because it was not ok with him. It was not alright with him - quitting school. But I did it.

“I did go back and get my GED [General Education Development] when I was about 23 [years-old] and I was a catch-driver at Yonkers. You never know when you’re going to need that, right? (laughing). It just felt wrong, not having it, when everyone else did, and I still have that piece of paper!” he said with a smile.

“I was a groom for Mike for two or three years, but he got pretty busy with everything, so the two or three grooms that worked for him got to do everything. We would train, groom, ship and do everything. It was great experience.

“A few months before I turned 18 [years-old], I told Mike that [after my birthday] I was going to go up to Monticello and go out on my own. He thought that was a good idea, and he gave me a racebike and a trunk to help me get started.

“Back then, in New York, you could only drive at the B-tracks when you first got your license - that’s why I set up at Monticello. I was there for a couple of years and then I came back to New York City.

“I picked up some catch-drives there, and I won their rising star award and stuff, but you couldn’t make any money there. At the end of two years there I was starving to death, really. I had won some races and stuff but my horses weren’t really good enough to go to Yonkers. I had about 15 horses at that point and I just gave most of them away to people I liked. I took three or four [of my best ones] to New York [City] and eventually got started down there little-by-little.

“Going on about two years there, things were going pretty good, but then I got in a wreck at Yonkers and broke both my legs. I had about six horses at the time, but I also had two broken legs. Again, I just gave a few of the cheaper ones away, and I sold the better ones - so I could live.

“When I came back from the accident, my first night back I had just one drive, for a guy by the name of John Paton. I had the 8-hole [at Yonkers], and I just crossed him over [to the front] right off the gate. He paid $128 to Win, and boom, the drives just started coming after that. I had had my wreck right there around the last turn at Yonkers. Everyone saw me get hurt really bad, and I think, after that first drive back, they all knew that I really wanted to drive,” reasoned Ouellette.

As Luc said, the drives did start coming, from good trainers like Linda Toscano and others, and in 1989, at the age of 24, Ouellette eclipsed the 100 win mark, with 151, and broke the $1 million barrier in purse earnings, both for the first time in his young career.

By 1995, those feats from six years earlier seemed minor, as he ended the year with an incredible 726 victories, a UDRS of 0.415 and $5,011,003 in purses. The highlight of that season was a Breeders Crown victory - his first of 10 - which came behind Panifesto in the Open Trot, held that year at the Delaware County Fairgrounds in Ohio.

A star was born.

More major victories started to mount. In 1998, landmark scores included the Metro Pace and Woodrow Wilson with Grinfromeartoear, The Meadowlands Pace with Day In A Life, The Hambo Oaks with Fern, and Breeders Crown titles with Musical Victory (2YFT) and Red Bow Tie (Open Pace).

After repeating in the Breeders Crown Open Pace with Red Bow Tie in 1999, Luc’s purse earnings would eclipse the $10 million mark for the first time. That year also saw him capture his first driving title at The Meadowlands, when his 243 victories around the East Rutherford, New Jersey oval were exactly 46 more than the 197 garnered that year by both the great John Campbell, and Luc’s Uncle Mike - Hall Of Famer Mike Lachance.

The year 2000 brought Luc another Big M driving title over Campbell, but that wasn’t nearly the highlight of Y2K for Ouellette.

“I’m originally from Germany, and Luc and I met in New York City - on Mother’s Day actually - in the year 2000,” Anita Ouellette shared with a smile.

“I came to New York from Germany as a nanny - an au pair - for Adam Victor [of Adam Victor and Sons Stable]. They thought we’d be a nice couple so they set us up. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I don’t need to be set up’ (laughing) but they loved Luc. I think they actually thought that if maybe they introduced him to a nice girl he might drive more of their horses for them too,” she said with a big smile and a laugh.

“I went to acting school in New York and at the time was doing some acting and whatnot… I grew up in the countryside in Germany though, and when I met Luc… I had already really been thinking that having a family was going to be my priority. As much as I loved acting, and the fast life of New York City - I had lived there for 10 years before we met - I had realized that kind of career would come at such a high cost. I didn’t exactly grow up in theatre, and I knew that it would take up so much of my life and my time to accomplish big things… I just realized that it wasn’t the kind of sacrifice that I was willing to make.

“I had been around horses very little in Germany - just riding here-and-there. I loved them but had never really been given the opportunity to be around them,” reasoned Anita.

After losing out to Campbell, by just two wins, Ouellette narrowly missed out on his third straight Meadowlands title in 2001, but after Luc and Anita were married in 2002, Luc would win his third and fourth Big M driving titles in 2002 and 2003.

They welcomed their first child - Luc Martin Ouellette - on September 3, 2003, but less than a month after their son’s birth they lived through a real-life moment that changed their way of thinking about the future - almost immediately.

“‘Lukey’ was born on September 3rd, so you missed the [Little Brown] Jug that year, right?” Luc asked Anita.

“Yes. I stayed back with him but then we met you in Lexington,” Anita confirmed.

“I had a really great [Grand Circuit] meet in Lexington,” Luc recalled, “but then near the end of it, as we were eating supper in our hotel room one night, Lukey started to choke,” Ouellette shared, with a look on his face as if he was reliving the moment.

“I was nursing him,” Anita said, “and when I set him back onto his little swing he projectile vomited everywhere and then he just stopped breathing.”

“He turned blue… We freaked out,” Luc added. “We thought we were going to lose him. I was holding him and trying to get him to breathe… he was turning blue right in front of my eyes.”

“I called 9-1-1. We were like, ‘Where are we? What’s the address?’ I wasn’t even sure what our address was at the time,” said Anita, with a chill still in her voice, almost 23 years later.

“The ambulance got there and they were able to help him,” Luc said - relief in his voice.

“On the way back home [to New York] we talked and agreed that going on the road with children and stuff… it sounds exciting but it’s not,” said Luc. “We were driving home from Lexington on the Sunday and I called a real estate place that was open in Campbellville. I called and the lady answered the phone. She told me about this place (where the couple still live today) and I came up and saw it on the Wednesday.

“Before Luc travelled up here we got details of a bunch of properties faxed to us, and we were laughing at this one,” said Anita. “45 acres; two ponds. Haha. Like we’re going to live there! We were living in a high-rise just outside of New York City at the time.”

“I didn’t know how to do ANYTHING with a house at that time… ZEE-RO!” exclaimed Luc.

“So Luc comes up here, sees this place, calls me and says, ‘I found a place.’ I said, ‘Look, you just got there. You just got off the plane! What do you mean you found a place?’” said Anita with a hearty laugh.

“When Luc sees something he knows though. He can make up his mind very quickly and he knew this place was perfect for us to raise a family. Me, probably like a lot of women, I figured we needed to see about 15 other places first (laughing).”

“We did look at a few other places before we bought this one,” confided Luc, “but I thought that this was the one pretty much from the start.

“We wanted to raise our children in Canada. Mohawk was 10 minutes away and Woodbine was about 40. My mother had just been diagnosed with cancer too,” Luc shared, “and time was going to be an issue. With us being in Canada, and her having no border to cross, she was here all the time after that, and we were there [visiting her in Quebec] a lot too.

“My Mom lived 10 years after that. The doctor had given her 10 years. I wished he had given her more because she used the full 10 years,” he smiled.

After driving mainly at The Meadowlands and Dover Downs in November, 2003, Ouellette had five drives at Woodbine Racetrack in Etobicoke on Thursday, December 4th, winning the 9th race of the evening with Shoal Lake for trainer Gregg McNair.

It had to be a very difficult decision though? Leaving The Meadowlands, where he had been the top guy four of the past five years, and just breaking in somewhere new?

“When you’re making family decisions, I don’t know that it was really that hard a decision to make,” said Luc in all seriousness. “Once The Meadowlands closes in August, the drivers are all living out of a suitcase. Raising a family that way? No way. You can’t be with them. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t deal with that.

“The Meadowlands was really nice, but I knew that this could be nice too. I really didn’t realize that we were moving to somewhere that was so cold though,” he said truthfully, as he and Anita laughed aloud. “We really had to get used to it!”

“That’s for sure!” Anita agreed. “I can honestly say that I’ve gotten used to it, but I had a really hard time of it those first few years,” she reasoned.

Ouellette hit the ground running once back home in Canada. “I didn’t really know a lot of the other drivers back then, but I have to say that the [race] office was very helpful to me at the beginning. Scott McKelvie and his crew back then helped me a lot when it came to picking the right horses and picking the right clients and stuff.”

2004 and 2005 saw Luc win back-to-back WEG Circuit driving titles, making him the only driver in history to ever win driving titles at both The Meadowlands and on the OJC/WEG Circuit. The 2004 season also saw him take home the O’Brien Award as Canada’s Driver of the Year.

2005 was also the year that the Ouellettes became a family of four, when their daughter Isabelle arrived. Life in Canada was good - despite the cold winters - and the Ouellette family farm was a very happy place.

Luc’s professional life stayed strong as well: Over his first eight full seasons in Canada, his total purses never dropped below $3.5 million. Eventually, however, something changed.

“I don’t remember the exact dates, but a while after my mom died, I just woke up one morning - I hadn’t felt good in a long, long time - and I just told Anita that I never feel good and that I hadn’t felt good in years. She suggested that I go see our doctor, but I didn’t want to see our doctor anymore. I was taking sleeping pills and then different sleeping pills… I had had a few concussions and I couldn’t sleep anymore. They also had me on Xanax and stuff like that…”

“That doctor would just prescribe and prescribe and prescribe,” added Anita.

“You know, I was good friends with Larry Walker then, and he told me that he couldn’t sleep either. He told me, ‘Just lay there. What’s the big deal? Get rested up and at 4:30 just get up.’ So I actually just started doing that. I was barely sleeping and then I was getting up at 4:30 in the morning.

“I was just really depressed too though. My Mom was gone, I wasn’t feeling well. That day I said, ‘I’m not taking any more of that medication, and I have to get a new doctor.’ Anita called some friends of ours and found us a new doctor… she’s still our doctor today. She’s a wonderful lady, and she couldn’t believe that I had been prescribed all of these things.

“I got off all of those meds though… As I said, I hadn’t felt well in more than two years. I sat down with the new doctor and she told me that the root to all of my problems were the concussions. We addressed that, and I just stopped driving [horses]. My heart just wasn’t in it anymore. I had a bad taste in my mouth. There was no use driving at the time anyway - the way I was - and I never really felt like going back to it,” he said in all honesty.

“In fact, this year was the first time I ever even thought about it a tiny bit. I schooled one of my own, and it was fun. The horse schooled good and I enjoyed it. But for our little project - it took a little while to get off the ground - once the horses started racing good and we had Colin [Kelly] driving for us… I didn’t miss driving when he was around! I’ll tell you, I really didn’t. Scott Young always did a good job too. Before that we had Alfie Carroll driving for us. How good were the horses doing with Alfie?” asked Ouellette rhetorically.

The “project” that Luc was referring to, is the Anita and Luc Ouellette Racing Stable. Currently training out of the Argyle Training Centre, just north of Mohawk Park, the stable of mostly homebreds has averaged approximately 90 starts and $130,000 in purses per year over the past dozen years (2014-2025).

Those purse totals rise even further when the horses’ earnings from the United States are added in, as many of them have also spent some time, on-and-off, racing for Luc’s cousin Pat Lachance at Yonkers Raceway.

Luc was the trainer of record in the stable’s early days, amassing just shy of $500,000 in purses from a limited number of starters over a handful of years, but since the summer of 2018, Anita Ouellette has been the trainer of record for the family stable, and has since posted 127 training wins from just 822 starters, good for a career UTRS of 0.277 and total purse earnings approaching $1.2 million.

“When we were training horses and my shoulders got really bad, she [Anita] was the one training them. She dropped down Cracklin Rosie [p,3,1:51.2s; $376,503], I Wish You Well [p,3,1:51.3f; $290,954] So Frisky [p,1:51.2s; $328,881] and Manhattan Night [p,1:51.1s; $296,277] to the races. Eventually I said to her, ‘You know, you’ve been doing this for a while now, training them and reading the watch perfectly, you should just get your license.’”

Not only did Anita get her trainer’s license in 2018, but she also started qualifying the family horses in 2019 and obtained her driver’s license as well. Then, taking a page from her husband’s winning ways, she scored her first career driving victory - in just her fifth start - under the bright lights of Mohawk Park in an International Woman’s Day Race on March 9, 2023.

Unlike Luc though, who was known to be able to make one last on the lead as good as anyone, Anita captured her milestone victory from well off-the-pace.

“I said to her, ‘We’re at Mohawk and these girls, their eyes are going to be big, and they are going to go to the half fast. Just try to keep up, but do me a favour… when you do move your horse in the stretch, let it all out, because from that point, in 15-20 seconds it’s over.’”

“There was so much luck involved,” laughed Anita. “There was a horse next to me that made a break behind the gate, and rather than going forward and around it, I took a hold and went behind - due to my inexperience. But they got into it in front… we had planned it that way, just not from that far back!” she laughed.

When asked about highlights from his driving career, Ouellette said, “There are just so many moments and horses that stand out. There were periods of time when the nice horses just kept coming… but there were so many of those moments I can’t pick just a few. It’s funny though, sometimes what stands out most is who you did it for… it’s nice to do it for the big farms and clients, but sometimes when you do it for the little guy… just winning an overnight and helping a guy make a mortgage payment on his farm - that meant a lot to me. And when I still see those people around it’s nice to see them, knowing that maybe you helped them a little,” stated Luc, in a very sincere way.

“Red Bow Tie was a great horse for me and he is buried here at our farm. After we moved here Monte [Gelrod] gave us a call one day and asked if we’d take him. We didn’t have him long enough though - the EPM got him - but we had him here for a number of years and we all rode him… we had a saddle and a sleigh for him. He was a real joy for our family in his retirement.”

The names of the good horses, the stakes victories, accolades and accomplishments of Luc Ouellette could fill an entire edition of TROT, but even if you think about just this: Multiple Meadowlands and WEG driving titles; 10 Breeders Crowns; 8,589 wins; $136,988,897 in purses - it’s almost unfathomable to imagine that Luc Ouellette is NOT in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall Of Fame!

“I’ll be honest with you,” smiled Luc, “I’m not too worried about it… It would be a great honour of course, but I’ve never been big into awards and stuff anyway.”

“At the end of the day, if you’re happy,” smiled Anita, “it makes no difference in your life, even though it would be an honour, if you’re in the hall of fame.

Speaking of happiness, one thing is very evident when one spends any time with Luc and Anita Ouellette - they’re very happy with where they are in life these days. Whether it’s watching them work together in their small stable at Argyle, playing with their three dogs - Rosie, Teddy and Nubbin - fawning over their broodmares and their foals at their beautiful farm, or just enjoying the cats, chickens, roosters, barn swallows and pigeons that they also kindly share their space with, there’s no doubt that Luc was right when he called Anita in October of 2003 and told her he’d found “the perfect place for them.”

“We wanted to raise our kids in a tiny home where we’re on top of each other. It’s ‘us’ here. Her family is in Germany, mine was in Quebec… we have a small family but a beautiful family. Our kids are doing really well - we’re friends with all of their friends. There’s always food on the stove here… every one of them knows that if they’re hungry they can come here because there’s always food on the stove,” beamed Luc.

“I love to cook. When I stopped driving, at four or five o’clock every day I was so used to going to the races… one thing that helped me out, at 3:30 or four o’clock I’d just start to just sharpen the knives, get out the onions and cook,” Ouellette shared with a big smile.

Their son, Luc, who will be 23-years-old in September, is studying Engineering and Physics at Carleton University, and just started a Co-Op in Vancouver with a big microchip company. Their daughter, Isabelle, will be 21 in September, and is studying International Education at Sir Wilfred Laurier, on her way to becoming a Speech Pathologist.

Even though Luc and Anita are in the process of becoming empty-nesters, there’s no time in their lives for boredom. With racehorses, broodmares, yearlings, foals - and all of the other aforementioned animals - there’s never a dull moment around the Ouellette Ranch.

And they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“When we were living in New York all those years ago, this is what we were dreaming about,” shared Luc. I really don’t miss driving. I’m with the horses all the time anyway. Do I miss driving a bad horse or a good horse? (laughing). Miss driving? You mean, would I start driving again now? Nah! I don’t want to start driving again.

“You just look ahead - you don’t look back.”

Manhattan Night, Cracklin Rosie, I Wish You Well and So Frisky were all bred or co-bred by Luc and/or Anita Ouellette. Now, with combined earnings just shy of $1.3 million, the four of them, and their babies, all reside at the same place they were born - the Ouellette Ranch.

Luc says that he won’t be 80-years-old and be breeding the baby fillies they currently have when their racing careers are eventually over, but Anita beams at the mention of it, and doesn’t rule it out.

“It depends what you love to do,” Anita reasoned. “How do you want to fill your days when you get older? We love horses, and there’s nothing I’d rather do than be with the babies, foaling them out, making sure they’re nursing and going back to check on them.”

And even though he still may not sleep perfectly these days, and probably never will, Luc’s own words leave the door open when it comes to the possibility of foaling out the babies of their babies a few decades down the road:

“I definitely sleep better these days, but I’m an extremely light sleeper, and with all the aches and pains from my driving days, I can’t sleep for long periods. It comes in handy at foaling time though - I can do the early shifts!”

Happiness is…

This feature originally appeared in the September issue of TROT Magazine. Subscribe to TROT today by clicking the banner below.