Mark MacDonald will be entering Woodbine Racetrack's Thursday, January 14 card of racing sporting a .359 UDR and having won 22 of his 81 starts to kick off 2010. During a Race Night on The Score interview last night, he said what a lot of drivers surely didn't want to hear
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"I'm really motivated now and I feel really good," the 31-year-old resident of Cambridge, Ont. told the Woodbine Entertainment Group's Chad Rozema.
In addition to his 22 victories so far this season, the two-time O'Brien Award winning pilot (2005, 2006) has notched eight second-place finishes and eight thirds. Mounts that he has been up behind this year have trotted and paced to $324,280 in earnings already.
MacDonald currently leads the WEG drivers' colony in the wins department by eight. Sylvain Filion, who has also come out of the gate with a force in 2010, currently sits second in WEG wins with 13. Rick Zeron (10), Mario Baillargeon (8) Paul MacDonell (7) and Randy Waples (7) currently round out the top five.
"My shoulder was bad the past couple of years, and I feel really good (right now)," MacDonald explained. "I've been working with a trainer and I feel really good -- I feel like I'm 20 years old again. The shoulder has bothered me for a long time now and it's, knock on wood, perfect right now."
MacDonald knows a little something about setting goals and reaching them. In 2006 he re-wrote the Canadian harness racing record books, as he reset the record for dash wins in a season on Canadian soil with 745 (since surpassed in 2009 by Jody Jamieson).
MacDonald told Rozema that he has personal goals for 2010. Couple his goals with a sound physical condition heading into the 2010 campaign, and MacDonald could be making a serious bid to be tops at WEG once again this year.
"I try to aim towards winning a big race," he said. "I've been fortunate the past couple of years to get a nice horse and win a big race in the summer, so that's all I try to do now: hope to get lucky and get a three or two-year-old to come along. You never know."
To view Woodbine's harness racing entries for Thursday, where MacDonald will be driving nine horses, click here.
Hey Mark; It's great to see
Hey Mark;
It's great to see you getting what you wished for some wins you said you wanted for Christmas and you are doing it.
Keep up the great work. Faye Bell nee Poulton
Good to hear the shoulder is
Good to hear the shoulder is good. Hoping you have a great year!
Dwayne McCourt