One came north, and one came east, but a pair of new faces to Ontario's harness racing circuit will likely appear more frequently at tracks across the province over the winter months.
Perennially one of the top trainers and drivers in Alberta, Dave Kelly has a number of horses entered to race at Woodbine Mohawk Park. The Future Star Award winner at the 2019 O'Brien Awards, Kelly campaigned Josies Joules in the recently-concluded Ontario Sires Harvest Series over the last month at Mohawk and has five more trainees entered — three set to qualify on Saturday morning and two dropped in the box to race on Sunday night.
A native of Nova Scotia who has honed his craft in western Canada over the past 11 years, Kelly sports 1,148 wins and $7.69 million in purses on the driving side with 556 wins and $3.44 million as a trainer.
Brady Galliers recently shifted his base of operations from Ohio to Ontario, telling Trot Insider he's looking to increase his workload after a couple of slower winters in the Buckeye state. He made his Canadian debut on Wednesday, Nov. 26 at Flamboro Downs and has drives at Flamboro and Mohawk over the upcoming weekend.
"I was kind of bored over the last couple of winters as far as racing one or two of my own, five days a week...the money's great, but I'm bored and I want more work.
"I was deciding on where I wanted to go and I liked that there's three tracks kind of going seven days a week," continued Galliers, referencing Flamboro Downs, The Raceway at the Western Fair District and Woodbine Mohawk Park. "So I kind of thought that might be a good option as there's always racing going on no matter what."
Brady's Galliers Racing stable previously enjoyed success in Canada with trotting gelding Distance Learning. Under the guidance of trainer Dean Nixon in 2024, the then-five-year-old son of Chapter Seven - Vintage Oaks posted a seven-win season with 21 top-three finishes while taking a mark of 1:52.3 and banking $174,737 racing primarily in Ontario.
Galliers Racing has five horses coming north in 2025, with Distance Learning heading back to the barn of Dean Nixon and others heading to the stables of Garry Merner, Joe Pereira, Francis Guillemette and Lindsey Kerr.
In his 11 years of full-time racing in Ohio, the 29-year-old Galliers sports 607 driving wins with more than $6.93 million in purse earnings. On the training side, he's picked up 410 victories with $4.6 million in purses.
"In a perfect world, I'd like to maybe just get a few more horses and have a few different trainers and try to get a relationship with somebody where I can be driving at nights," added Galliers. "If that means I need to go work for somebody [in the mornings] and they say they'll get me down on some horses, so be it. I'm at the age where I want to grind and racing seven days a week is no problem for me as long as it's working out."
(Standardbred Canada; photos courtesy Crystal Hennessy and Brady Galliers)