Mike Lachance: No Regrets

Outside of a few appearances for special events, two-time Hall of Famer Mike Lachance hasn't driven in a race since 2014 and he's completely happy with the decision to step away from the sport when and how he did.

Lachance, who just turned 70 on Dec. 16, is just as involved in the harness racing industry even though he's in his sixth year of retirement. He's at the barn every day, and owns pieces of more than a dozen horses with his sons Martin and Patrick as well as a couple on his own. And while he's at the barn seven days a week, he's clear and content with who's the boss.

"That’s Patrick’s barn, I’m there to help him," said Lachance in a recent conversation with Trot Insider. "Whenever he needs me, I’m there. I get up at the same time in the morning all my life...I’m an early riser. I don’t like to be in bed until like nine or 10 o’clock, I can’t do that. So I get up in the morning around six o’clock, and basically I’m at the barn at 7:00 or 7:30 up to like 12:30, one o’clock...whatever they have to do. Then I come home and I do my things around the house, whatever we have to do."

In past years, Lachance would have travelled north and checked out how Martin was doing in person, but with the myriad of restrictions in place due to the coronavirus pandemic he's been keeping in touch with Martin and the harness racing industry virtually from his New Jersey base of operations.

"I’m on the phone with [Martin] like a couple times a week; two, three times a week. So I’m still involved a lot. At night, I don’t watch all the races, but [I watch] wherever we’re racing something -- some of mine in Toronto or some in New Jersey or New York or something like that, or the weekend when there’s good races or stake races or things like that, I keep track of it. That’s about it there. I’m involved with the horses every day; horses are my life."

For an individual like Lachance that lives horses, and loves to be hands-on, the shutdown of racing earlier this year due to COVID-19 was extremely difficult. Given his age and concerns for his family's health, Lachance made the difficult decision to essentially self-isolate.

"When COVID hit, I stayed out of the barn for four months. I didn’t go to the barn at all," admitted Lachance. "I didn’t want to take a chance to get involved too much with too many people and bring something to [my wife] or to myself. So I stayed out for about four months, and then now I’m very careful but I’m still afraid. But I go to the barn every day and we don’t mix with too many people just around the barn, and hopefully we can get through that.

"Hopefully the vaccine is working there, so we just have to be careful. Me, I think until the spring at least we have to be very, very careful. Even if you get it right now, they could take care of it better than this time last year."

Lachance reacquainted himself with nature to help pass the time during that arduous stretch at home, taking walks in the woods on his two-acre property and putting a little extra effort into his lawn care routine

"Trying to stay busy and doing something every day; I’d go outside every day. I got through it there, but it was very tough on everybody. When you own a bunch of horses and they’re confined to the stall and there’s no racing, it’s expensive and works on your head. It’s not something that’s easy to get through."

Like many, Lachance persevered and survived the shutdown that definitely took its toll on a stable like Pat's that is comprised mostly of overnight (and not stakes) horses. Mike stated that the two or three months have been very good for Pat's stable, and the numbers certainly would attest to that assertion. Understandably, the earnings for the stable are down from 2019 but his training average is currently 0.297. Finishing the year with that average would Pat's third best in his 20-plus years of full-time training and his best since 2007.

"We got lucky like that. Patrick is a pretty good horseman -- he drives the horses himself. We had no choice; we had to be patient. And when we got back, he took his time at the beginning just to get them back in shape and he’s had a good run lately. But in horse racing, a good run? You take it when it comes by, because you never know when it turns around. No fault on anybody there, sometimes there are things you cannot explain. There are so many curves in this business [that] you never know what’s coming after that.

"You work hard, do the right thing, you’re honest in what you’re doing...it comes around."

Between 1980 and 2005 -- the height of his career -- Lachance drove in more than 53,000 races and had his picture taken 8,253 times. He's proud of his ability to remain at or near the top of the driving ranks during that stretch and credits a solid ethic to that success.

"I’ve always been proud that I had longevity. I was consistent; I used to come back every year and show up and work hard. I understand that a lot of people work hard, but you’ve got to be consistent and you’ve got to do your work and you’ve got to work very hard. But if you don’t have the passion, you better get out of the business. You need to be in it 110 percent."

Lachance sees that dedication in his sons, even though they've chosen to concentrate on the training and development side instead of the catch-driving role he focused on after his move from Blue Bonnets to New York in the early 1980s.

"At the beginning of my career, that’s what I was doing: training a big stable. But when I got to my thirties and I came to New York, I switched from being a trainer-owner to a catch driver. And I had 20 years of the greatest time you could have [as a driver]. I was very spoiled. I was driving all the best horses every year for at least 15, 20 years. You can’t ask for better, but I understand that’s not everybody who gets to have good timing like that. But I had good time; I was in at the perfect time.

"Martin was never in the mind of a driver because he got into the business later, and Patrick is, to me, a super, super, super driver and he’s a great horseman. But when you run a barn of 20, 25 horses, you’ve got to concentrate on your barn or [as] a catch driver. And he likes the barn work and he likes to drive his own horses."

The shift to driving horses for others certainly worked out for Mike Lachance, whose resume of major stakes wins few can rival. In addition to the Little Brown Jugs, Hambletonians and Breeders Crowns, Lachance is one of the few that also boast driving the fastest horse on the planet as he did with the late, great Matts Scooter.

"Matts Scooter was a super horse. A lot of people are going to remember Matts Scooter forever because he wasn’t just a great horse, he was special. He could do things that nobody could do before him and a lot couldn’t do after him. For years. Me, I’m a little biased when I talk about Matts Scooter because he’s one of my favourite horses that I sat behind in my life. But I was very fortunate...I drove so many, so many great horses, champions, and ones like that. Matts Scooter was still, in my heart, one of my favourites.

"When you talk about the three-year-olds: Bettors Delight, Magical Mike, Western Dreamer...If I start to name all of them we’ll be here a long time. Of the aged horses, there were so many great ones too. Trotters, I was lucky enough to win four Hambletonians. I won five Little Brown Jugs. You have to sit behind great horses for that....But Matts Scooter was definitely one of my favourites."

There's clearly some truth in Lachance discussing his commitment to his craft when looking back over those five Little Brown Jug wins given that Matts Scooter wasn't eligible to the Jug and yet Lachance still found himself in the winner's circle in 1988 thanks to B J Scoot.

"I was beating B J Scoot with Matts Scooter, and the day before the draw Tom Artandi called me out of the blue...I never really knew Tom. So my timing was good, but basically it was like that all my life. I had very good timing on a lot of things."

Obviously Artandi didn't forget that success either as he listed Lachance to drive Goalie Jeff one year later for a Little Brown Jug repeat.

"Year after year, I was always on one of the best horses in the country...It lasted a long time for me. Like I said from the early '80s to the middle of the 2000s I was on some top horses."

Not only did Lachance continue to deliver during that stretch, he considers himself extremely fortunate to just have that option as he couldn't recall ever having to miss any serious time due to injury.

"I was very fortunate to have no major accidents that took me out for a year. A lot of those great drivers, you end up in an accident and break a leg or the hips or a shoulder. I was very lucky; I was involved in some accidents, but I came out of them okay.

"The first 10 years I was driving I drove the cheapest horses in the country. Like most of those catch drivers I had to start with tough horses and bad horses. There’s no other way to say that I was fortunate that nothing major happened. Just very lucky. But when you’re too careful when you go behind the gate...you’ve got to win races. And I wasn’t like that because I was a winner. I think I was a very safe driver to drive against, but I did what I had to do to win."

And win he did. Mike Lachance's win total sits at 10,421 -- 15th best in harness racing history -- with earnings exceeding $192 million, good for sixth best all-time. While the list of champions and superstars driven by one of the best the sport has seen is long and enviable, Lachance was quick to reveal the one horse he didn't drive that he'd most liked to have sat behind.

"Definitely Somebeachsomewhere. There’s a horse I would give anything to be able to drive...I could’ve done something special with a horse like that."

Looking back over the list of champions he sat behind, and the trainers that gave him those opportunities, it's clear that others felt Lachance had those abilities to do something special with their horses as well.

"I got along real good with trainers, I got along good with owners. I’ve been saying that for many years: if you’re driving a great horse, you’ve got to be on the same page as the owner, the trainer and the driver. If you want to do a great job, you have to get those three things together. Your driver can’t be mad at the owner, not getting along with the driver, and then the driver doesn’t get along with the trainer...you’re in for a mess somewhere along the road."

Lachance admires the talents of many top reinsmen active today, but he'd put his money on his son if he ever needed a driver in a high-pressure stakes event.

"I tell you what. Right now, if I had a horse in a million-dollar race, my first choice would be my son Patrick. He’s got nerve, he’s smart, and he has experience. I know he’s not going to panic. He’s perfect with that. Right now, if I couldn’t get Patrick, there’s a couple I would go with but Dave Miller would certainly be one of them. But there are some great, great drivers right now. Tim Tetrick, Dexter Dunn -- he’s as sharp as I’ve seen in a long, long, long time. He never makes a bad move. Yannick Gingras, Brian Sears...There are so many we don’t even talk about and then they never have a chance to prove themselves in races like that. But it’s always been like that and it’s always going to be like that. Some people are luckier than others. You just need one horse to prove yourself."

Getting that break isn't easy. Lachance is quick to recognize that hard work and skill also need to combine with good fortune.

"I keep coming back with that thing, luck. I drove with three generations of great drivers: Dancer, Haughton, Sholty and all those guys in the '60s, I drove against them when I was starting. Then there was my time, Campbell, O’Donnell, Manzi, Herve, Abbatiello. Then I drove with that younger generation, the one we have today...Three generations of great drivers all together. And I was there."

Lachance wasn't just there, he was in the midst of it and on top of it. The success was gratifying, but he fondly recalls the respect of those three eras of competition.

"What makes me proud, I think that the generation I’m talking about -- the Dancers and that era -- I had the respect of those people, even if I was very young at the time. I was in my 20s, my middle 20s, 30s, and I got respect from those people. And my generation that I drove for, I like to say that I had respect from them too. Or if they didn’t have respect for me then they’re a bunch of hypocrites because they always treated me like I’m the King of England. And the younger generation, they always showed that they had respect for me. So I must’ve done something right somewhere along the way."

It would be easy to think that leaving such an environment of admiration and success would be difficult. But Lachance left the catch-driving game on his terms, at the right time, without regrets.

"I don’t miss it at all. Not one bit. Because all my life I always said that I’m going to go until I think that I’m losing it. In 2014, I was still decent. Not that I want to brag about it, but the last year I drove I won six races one night at Lexington in the Sires Stakes there, and I won some stakes races there for big money. But I knew I was losing it. You know when. I was 63-years-old, 64 or something like that. I knew that my reflexes were not as good. For one race I was great, but if I had to drive too many races I wasn’t I sharp. And I promised myself that, if I can financially, when the time comes I want to stop.

"I won my last race at Lexington, got off the track, packed my things in the driver’s room, put everything in my car on the last day of racing. And I got into my car...my wife was there, and I said ‘that’s my last race.’ I never really drove a horse after other than at Clinton [Raceway for Legends Day]. And I didn’t want to be driving around and have people saying ‘What’s the old guy doing? He doesn’t have it anymore.’ I saw so many great drivers that, when they aged, they just didn’t have the finances to stop, and they have to do it one more year and one more year and then they wind up crippled and things like that. I felt so bad for them that I said ‘this cannot happen to me.’ And I was lucky enough that I could do it."

Luck comes into the equation once again, but it takes more than luck to walk away from a sport you love knowing you can still do it but you don't have to in order to survive. Lachance stepped aside, and can safely say six years later that he made the right call.

"It’s the same thing with everybody: when you get to a certain age there’s a limit to what you can do, especially when you’re an athlete. Maybe you can say you don’t have to be a great athlete to be driving horses, but I believe so. I believe you have to be in great shape, your body has to be in great shape and your head has to be in the right place. When you get to your middle 60s, nobody’s going to tell me that he’s just as good as he was when he was 30 or 40. And I didn’t want to be out there and be in the way of everybody. It was a decision I made for myself and it was the right decision.

"And it’s not that I want to get away from racing. I’ve gotten more involved than I did in the past 30 years. I own pieces of horses with my two sons and I still look forward to the sale and buying horses. I still have that in me, just like when I was 15 years old. I get up in the morning and I can’t wait to get to the barn to drive the one that raced last night or the night before and see if he came out of the race sound or just something that I can do to help him. I think it's great that I still have those feelings."

One horse in particular holds a special place in Lachance's heart.

"I have a horse in the barn that I co-own, his name is Imstaynalive. He’s not a great horse, just a horse. But when I bought the horse as a yearling, I bought him for $20,000; next to nothing, and I sent him to Martin. He broke him for a couple of weeks but then he called me one day and said ‘Dad, the colt is very, very sick and I have to take him to the university to operate on him right away.’ He ran to the university but when he got there, there’s another horse on the table...they couldn’t do it. He said ‘if we don’t do it now, he’s going to die right away.’ So they took him to the next place close by, about 20 minutes. They had the table ready for him and they saved him. The hospital sent me a letter saying the horse should be kept as a pet because he had very, very small intestines and, I’m going to use the words they used, ‘should never be trained for competition.’"

"After he got out of the hospital I sent him back to Martin and said ‘just make sure he’s healthy and we’ll give him to somebody for a pet or something to play with.’ And after a couple of weeks, he tells me ‘Dad, I cannot understand...he’s playing in the stall. That horse doesn’t want to die.’ So I said to just put the harness on him and jog him a little bit. Every week he was calling me and telling me the colt was getting better and better, and he’s happy and now he’s gaining weight and this and that. He said ‘Dad, can I change his name?’ I said yeah. So he called him Imstaynalive. And that’s the horse. So I always have something for that horse. Every year he wins in 1:50 and he’s five years old now, racing at Yonkers below the top class, makes money. That’s the work that I like because he’s a survivor; he wants to live. So he’s my favourite that I have right now—not because he’s a great horse, but because he’s a nice horse. It was around the same time Martin had his heart surgery, so he said ‘we’re both alive. We want to stay alive.’ And that’s why he called him Imstaynalive."