He may have resisted it at first, but Steve Mahar figures that drastically scaling back on his duties as a full-time “catch-driver” two years ago, to focus mostly on training, may have been the been the best decision he ever made.
On the same day that his colt, Varadero Hanover, was announced as a nominee to the $1 million Pepsi North America Cup, the sophomore pacer won the fastest division of the second leg of the $18,000 Youthful Series at Woodbine Racetrack in 1:52, his first start of the season.
With that dominating win this past Thursday night, Varadero Hanover may have established himself as a legitimate contender for Canada’s most prestigious harness race on Saturday, June 15 at Woodbine.
Varadero Hanover is a three-year-old son of Somebeachsomewhere-Vaudeville Margie, co-owned by Reginald & Louise Petitpas of Shediac Bridge, NB and Geoffrey Louzon and Dr. Ruth Irving of Russell, Ont. Irving is the daughter of Dr. George Irving of Irishtown, N.B. Of course, Petitpas is famously associated with the colt's sire and it was this connection that led him to acquire Varadero Hanover as a yearling in the fall of 2011.
Mahar, who has had a stellar driving career that has seen him make over 27,000 starts racing mostly in the Maritimes and Maine, broke and trained Varadero Hanover, guiding him through a lightly-raced freshmen season last year in Ontario.
Mahar had been prepping the colt in Pinehurst, North Carolina this spring for his three-year-old campaign, where he resides with his wife, Twila, during the winter months.
With 5,076 lifetime wins and over $7 million in career earnings, the Blacks Harbour, N.B. native, who used to call Exhibition Park Raceway in Saint John, N.B. his home track, is the one of six Maritime-born drivers with more than 5,000 wins. That exclusive club also includes Wally Hennessey, Paul MacKenzie, Jody Jamieson, Bill O’Donnell and Mark MacDonald.
Long considered one of the Maritime’s premier reinsman, Mahar has won 200 or more races in a season five times and had recorded 100 or more wins for 24 straight years from 1983 to 2006.
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Steve and Twila Mahar were first introduced to the beautiful resort area of Pinehurst by Bruce MacDonald, an Ontario horseman who also got his start in harness racing in Saint John.
A few years ago, MacDonald, who has been working for Marvin Chantler and his Mardon Stables for a number of years, asked Mahar to come to North Carolina one winter to help him with some horses.
The next year, when MacDonald decided not to return to Pinehurst, Dr. Garth Henry, who was a friend of Chantler and is married to Dr. Ruth Irving, contacted Mahar about training some young horses for him at Pinehurst during the winter months.
At the time, Mahar had a number of horses racing in Maine but agreed to come down to Pinehurst with the idea that he would return to the Pine Tree State to race in the spring.
However, when Henry asked him to consider working for him on a full-time basis in Ontario the talented teamster, who had spent much of his life as one of the Maritimes and Maine’s busiest drivers, knew that his career may be heading in a new direction.
“My family was saying that I had been driving ten races a day, seven days a week for all these years. Maybe it was time to back off that type of schedule,” Mahar said. “So I told him that I would let him know.
“I took some horses back to Maine and I was there a month when I decided that I would go to work for him.”
Henry is a practicing veterinarian who owns a large horse breeding farm and training track in Russell, Ontario, just outside of Ottawa. He owned a broodmare with Reginald Petitpas and also bred a few mares for him as well.
Henry also co-owns a training center with Richard Moreau that is located a few minutes from Mohawk Racetrack. It is there where Mahar took up residence to begin his new career working full-time for Henry. He would break some homebred colts for him in the fall, head to Harrisburg and then on to Pinehurst for the winter. In the spring they would take the horses back to the training centre to race that summer on the Ontario circuit.
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Varadero Hanover was originally purchased for $17,000 by Blake MacIntosh at the 2011 Lexington Selected Yearling Sale as Hip #180 but after the sale Petitpas offered him $20,000, which he accepted. The price was well below the $63,184 average for a Somebeachsomewhere yearling at that sale.
“They had announced at the sale that he had some OCD’s taken out from his hocks, so he may have been considered a bit of a gamble by some,” Mahar figured.
Petitpas gave the colt to Mahar to train prior to selling shares to Lauzon and Irving.
“That was an easy decision,” Petitpas told Woodbine Entertainment Group last summer of giving the horse to Mahar. “Steve is a very capable trainer and I’ve known him a long time.”
Mahar said Varadero Hanover was a natural right from the start.
“He was a great horse to break. He paced right away and he probably could have gone in 3:00 on day one,” he said admiringly. “He is big and has a great attitude on the track but you had to watch his manners around the barn.
“He can be a handful and it can take two or three people to paddock him but you can put up with that if they can go fast enough...and he can.”
Mahar knew training down that Varadero Hanover could be a special horse. “He was perfect to train,” he explained. “Whatever you wanted to go, he could go, and he wanted to go more and loved doing it.”
He trained down to 2:07 in the jog cart at Pinehurst and then was shipped to Ontario later that spring. Mahar said he trained him a few more times at the training centre before he decided to try him over the seven-eighths mile track Mohawk.
“By then I knew he was going to be a pretty good horse,” he said. “I went to train him over the big track in the bike for the first time, just to see what he could do. I had him over the half in 1:05 and he went a mile in 2:01. I just tapped him to go on and he did the last half (56 seconds) by himself.”
By the first week of June last year Varadero Hanover had won a qualifier in 2:00.2. He then won his first career race as a two-year-old at Mohawk in 1:55.1 for driver Sylvain Filion and followed that effort up with a second-place performance.
He started six more times in various stake races, taking on some of North America’s top freshmen. He raced in the Dream Maker series and then finished fifth to Apprentice Hanover in the Metro Pace elimination, where he was race-timed in a seasonal best of 1:51.3. He finished fifth again in the $100,000 consolation.
“He was still very inexperienced when he raced in those starts,” Mahar said. “He is so big. The driver (Filion) would have to grab into him and sometimes he would try to run over horses in front of him.
“Every start he did race better though and he would always pace a little faster than the start before.”
At the end of his racing season, Varadero Hanover was turned out at Henry’s farm in Ottawa for a couple of months before shipping down to Pinehurst late last year to resume training.
“He trained down this spring every bit as good as he did last year,” Mahar said “I trained him in 2:03 in the jog cart and after I backed him up for a few trips, I put the bike on him and he went a mile in 1:55 off a half in a minute.
“I never even spoke to him. He did it on his own.”
It was then that Mahar knew his colt was ready and he was shipped to the training centre where he is now under the care of another native of Saint John, Lynn Cameron, in the Richard Moreau stables.
He finished second for Filion in a qualifier on March 28 before winning his season’s debut this past Thursday night.
Looking ahead, Mahar is hopeful that Varadero Hanover can compete with some of North America’s top sophomores.
“I’m looking forward to finding out what he can do but I know how this tough this business can be,” Mahar cautioned. “He is eligible for the North America Cup, Breeders Crown and some other big races including the Little Brown Jug.
“I have never raced him on a half-mile track yet, though he has trained on one quite a few times, but no real fast miles. He is so big and I didn’t want to put any pressure on him last year. He is a year older and I’m sure he will race over them all right. I do plan to try him at Flamboro between stakes races just to get him used to going fast on a smaller track.”
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Steve Mahar calls his transition two years ago from being a full-time “catch driver” for over 40 years to a full-time trainer, a ‘semi-retirement.’ Though he always maintained a stable of horses during those times, he was primarily a much sought-after driver right up until the time he moved to Ontario.
“I admit that when I first made the decision I really wasn’t sure I wanted to do it,” he said. “I knew the time was coming where I would have to change my lifestyle somewhat. So when this opportunity (with Henry) came along I took that month to think about it because I wasn’t sure I was ready to give up driving on a full-time basis.
“The more I thought about the having the opportunity to do this type of job and still be in a business that you like, the easier the decision became to me. They still want me to drive some and I do drive at the smaller tracks in Ontario but when you are at Woodbine and Mohawk you need to use the best (drivers) that are available.”
So does he miss the challenge of driving on a regular basis? “No, not really,” he said. “I did the first month or so but as time went on I did get over it.”
Looking ahead to his 65th birthday later this year, Mahar says he wants to stay in the horse business as long as he is able to.
“I want to do it until I can’t do it.”
(Brent Briggs/The Fredericton Scene)