Redmond Doucet reached a career milestone during the Sunday, June 21 card of harness racing at Inverness Raceway, as the local reinsman drove his 1,000th winner.
Doucet won three of Sunday afternoon's seven races to reach the milestone mark, which he hit in the $1,300 fourth race with his own pacer Dirty Bobby. Doucet sent Dirty Bobby first-up from third after a tepid second panel and wore down pacesetter Fear The Shadow and Zach Mullins entering the stretch for the half-length victory in 2:02. Dirty Bobby notched his second win in a row in taking the optional $5,000 claiming pace and produced an $8.70 win payout.
Doucet shares ownership of the six-year-old Pang Shui-Fleurke gelding with Andy Stewart of Inverness, N.S. Lennan MacIsaac handles the training duties.
A pair of wins in the first two races helped Doucet reach the milestone on Sunday. Those wins were courtesy of Drink Up Mouchacho from the John MacDonald stable and Philthy Phil, another MacIsaac trainee owned by Doucet.
Doucet, who earned his first career win in 2001 at Inverness, enjoyed a career-best season in 2020 driving the winners of 90 races while kicking off a stretch of three consecutive six-figure seasons. The 44-year-old horseman has been among the leading drivers at Inverness for many years, last claiming the track title in 2024 when he also won the Atlantic Regional Driving Championship that year.
Driver Redmond Doucet waves to the crowd as he heads to the winner's circle with Dirty Bobby and trainer Lennan MacIsaac after earning his 1,000th career win on Sunday, June 21 at Inverness Raceway.
Doucet almost picked up another victory with trainer John MacLellan's homebred Whats Up Doc leading into the stretch of the feature finale, the $2,000 Winners Over Pace, but favoured Sea Laird caught him in a photo finish to repeat in the top class for trainer/driver Zach Mullins and local co-owner Douglas Lowthers. A 10-year-old Custard The Dragon-Devil Likes It Hot gelding, Sea Laird rallied widest of all off the final final turn to prevail by a quarter-length in a two-minute mile, returning $3.70 to win. Whats Up Doc, who has hit the board in all of his seasonal starts, settled for second again while Shir Gain and Rodney Gillis finished third.
To view Sunday's harness racing results, click the following link: Sunday Results - Inverness Raceway.
(Standardbred Canada)