Currie Heating Up

While 18-year-old Justin Currie has been training horses - and racking up wins - for a few years now, just this year he jumped in the driver's seat

and on June 5 notched his first victory.

“It was awesome. It took awhile but it finally happened,” said Currie in reaction to his first driving win from 31 starts aboard Hezadilly at Fraser Downs.

Currie sent the three-year-old son of Camcracker-Dream Safe first over from third at the three-quarters mark in his conditioning assignment and held off Red Star Bootsie and driver Scott Knight to win by half a length in a career-best 1:56.2.

“Around the last turn I was pretty confident because I was ahead by a bit but he normally gets a little weak down the lane. Some other horses were closing pretty good and we just hung on.”

Currie purchased half of the bay gelding from owner Ron Julien in March and subsequently took over the training duties.

“He fell down in his very first start as a two-year-old and then he got a little erratic and was very high strung for a while,” explained Currie, noting that his pupil has become more relaxed at his father's farm in Langley, B.C.

Currie was introduced to the sport through his parents Brett and Angel.

“My dad always trained a few horses but also owned his own company [Allied Sweeping] on the side, and now they’re just focusing more on the breeding industry – breeding and developing younger horses.”

While Currie has been training standardbreds since 2007, this year marks his first full year as a public trainer since he graduated from high school last June. In 2009, the young horseman put together a record of 25-22-16 in 126 starts and earned over $100,000 in purses. This year, he has already won 28 times with 12 seconds and 10 thirds in 105 starts and is just shy of the $100,000 earnings mark. He is currently sixth in the trainers’ standings for wins at Fraser Downs.

“I’m planning on training full-time,” said Currie of his future plans, adding that with a little luck he hopes to head East to Ontario in the near future. “Probably at the end of next meet. Maybe sooner, but I’m going to say at the end of next meet we’re going to try to give it a shot.

“There's not very many trainer-drivers when you have the best drivers in North America there. If I had to pick between the two, I’d pick training.”

With Fraser’s meet coming to a close on Saturday, June 19, Currie says his racehorses will rest during the summer break while he continues to train down three two-year-olds - a Badlands Hanover colt named Boom Shazam, an Austin Carr colt named Blockbuster Night, and Jennas Beach Boy filly dubbed Anjelles Aura.

When Fraser's next meet begins in the fall, he will have a strong stakes contender in the consistent three-year-old pacing filly Mystic Maiden. The daughter of Camystic-Artfromtheheart has banked $47,100 in winning all but one of her 14 starts for Currie, including the BC Sales Stake Final at two.

“My parents bred her - Crimson Racing Stable, that’s my parents and their partners Gerry and Diane Hansen - and they sold her as a yearling to Barry MacFarlane. He had a few other trainers at the time and asked if I’d like to train her because I really liked her when I was breaking her before he bought her. I said yes of course and the rest is history. She’s been great for us so far.”

Currie says this fall Mystic Maiden has the BC Sales and BC Breeders Stakes on her radar followed by the Miss Valentine early in her four-year-old year.

“After that I don’t know. She’ll race in the Mares Open I guess or head East for some of the other stakes if she’s still going as good as she is now.

“She’s very smart but the biggest thing is she’s very versatile, which helps at Fraser.”