Veteran driver Richard Remillard has recently shipped into Century Downs from his usual residence in Manitoba.
“We just moved here, because Valerie, my partner is retired,” said Remillard. “We’re going to be [racing] year-round...well, mostly year-round.”
A familiar face across the western provinces, Remillard has a summary of 3-2-2 from his 22 starts thus far. The representative for Saskatchewan in the 2014 Western Regional Driving Championship is in his fifth decade of driving with 914 lifetime wins.
While picking up drives for trainer Carl Archibald, Remillard has been most active with his own stock including recent claims Emmas Big Girl and Julerica.
“Emmas Big Girl, I claimed her two weeks ago. [I] raced her once, and I’ll be trying her in the upper-claimers to see how she’s going to do. Hopefully she’ll do [well] there,” said Remillard. “She’s a nice mare, I like her. I want to give her some more time to see how she’ll be.
“Julerica, we claimed him out of Toronto and he had to wait 60 days to race him,” said Remillard. “He’s a nice horse, I’m pretty sure he’ll compete.”
Since Remillard is here to stay, he is planning on getting a few more horses to work with this summer. “We’re going to get one or two more,” said Remillard. “Time will tell, but we’re still looking for one or two more, because three is not enough for us. Five or six [horses] is enough.”
Remillard's third horse, Baylor Out, is a horse to watch for. In three starts at Century, he's unbeaten with his most recent score coming on June 18.
“Baylor Out has surprised us,” said Remillard. “My nephew owned him, and we bought 50 per cent. He looks like he’s going to be a pretty good horse, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. So far he’s been a surprise for how fast he’s been. I thought he’d go around 56-57, but he went in [1:]54, and it looks like he can go a little more, so we’ll see.
“It’s not how fast you go, it’s who you beat,” said Remillard.
All in all, Remillard is just happy to be at the track. When asked if he’s looking forward to racing against anyone in particular, Remillard said that it doesn’t matter. “I’m excited to race every day, and hope to beat them, I guess,” said Remillard.
(with files from Century)