Swordfish Sharper Than Ever

It’s not often you see a trotter recover from a fractured bone and return to the track more sound than he was before, but the skills and patience of talented blacksmith Philippe Leclerc has helped Swordfish make it back on point

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The St-Tite, Quebec native developed an interest in shoeing unexpectedly while attending university at ETS for engineering and turned it into his own business venture. His father, Pierre, who races horses at Rideau Carleton Raceway and in Quebec City today, showed him the ropes.

“My dad used to give horse riding lessons and thought it was too expensive to shoe horses. He was shoeing his own so I wanted to learn just for the hell of it," Leclerc told Trot Insider. "I never thought I’d be a blacksmith because I was going to university and I was shoeing a little bit – when you start shoeing when you’re young you don’t get many customers. I guess I just developed a passion for it pretty quick and I always wanted to be my own boss, but I never thought it would be like that [as a blacksmith]. It’s not a big company, but I make a living myself and I’m able to pay for my expenses.”

Leclerc took up the trade and moved his business to Ontario about six years ago when his home province’s racing industry began to struggle. The 32-year-old resident of Rockwood, Ont. also keeps a small two-horse stable on the side. As a trainer, he has recorded 22 wins from 119 starts in eight years while earning over $300,000.

“I got lucky right away with Stallone and that gave me the bug pretty quick,” said Leclerc of the Scootercuse gelding, who hit the board in more than half of his 74 career starts to earn over $300,000 lifetime while in his and his father’s care. “After that I bought a lot of horses that were no good, but I always kept trying on horses I could afford. I didn’t pay much, like a couple thousand, and Swordfish was one of those deals. I’ll never be able to afford a well-bred horse from the sale that goes for $50,000 or so, but I’ve always been buying ‘project horses’ and try to make them go – like $2,000 or $3,000 horses and one or two at a time because it’s very expensive. That’s the way it’s been going. I’ve been lucky again so I’m fortunate I guess.”

Leclerc purchased Swordfish privately prior to the start of his racing career as a three-year-old. Oddly enough, the trotter’s pacing abilities are what made him standout for the horseman.

“I bought him from Rob Fellows and over there he would pace all the time. They would call him ‘Somefishsomewhere’ – that’s how much he would pace,” laughed Leclerc. “I know a lot of fast trotters pace [while jogging] so I thought if I can fix that maybe he would be good.”

Leclerc played around with the gelding’s shoeing and trained him down on the pace.

“I was actually going to get rid of him before he ever raced,” explained Leclerc. “He was getting out on the track and doing all kinds of silly stuff that good horses don’t do, but my wife [Claudia Jacques] had a feeling he could be a good horse one day I guess. We had a couple of fights and we finally kept him. And thank God I kept him.

“When he started trotting good for me, which was about a year and a half to two years ago, he had about a pound of weight on his front feet – he had a full swedge with a stabilizer pad, leather pad, silicon and three ounce toe weights. He would still lock on the lines, but he made some money like that.”

Swordfish recorded two wins, two seconds and one third in eight starts to earn $32,900 as a sophomore in 2009. The son of Kadabra-Lady Wrestler proved he was capable of high speed when he went a half in :55.1 en route to winning his elimination for the Autumn Stakes in November that year at Woodbine Racetrack. With Luc Ouellette in the sulky, the race favourite cut all the fractions to score in 1:56.1.

“He showed me some speed, but then he broke down,” said Leclerc. “I’ve seen so many horses in my practise ruined because people bring them back too quick to race with a broken foot. He had a broken coffin bone. It was a type two fracture. I said I’ll do whatever the vet says to help him.”

Swordfish sustained his injury early in his four-year-old campaign on a cold night at Woodbine Racetrack.

“The track was really hard at Woodbine that night and I should have scratched,” laments Leclerc. “He was wearing flip flops because that’s supposed to protect the foot because the track was so hard.

“But the vet was telling me when they break a foot it starts very slowly. With all the stuff he had on the foot before obviously the feet were very sore and it just eventually cracked.”

Leclerc says Swordfish’s poor conformation probably didn’t help the matter. The gelding’s leg was so crooked he would always land outside on his right front foot and as a result he always had a bruise there that would make him land lower.

“When we shoe the horse we try to make them land as flat as possible, but on this horse it was not working out because he had a bruise there,” explained the experienced blacksmith.

Leclerc was working on the foot, which had developed a puss pocket, the day before he broke his coffin bone. He dug deeper than normal, which ultimately seemed to help relieve the pressure and allowed the foot to heal better after the break.

“The coffin bone is made like a c-shaped bone so it always breaks at what we call the wings on the side, and what happens when they break and then heal is they usually heal into the joint where the cartilage is. That can be very painful if it heals like that, but since I dug into the foot I’m thinking it had no support when it broke and the bone kind of set up where it should be.”

Leclerc gave Swordfish eight months of stall rest at Fellows’ stable to heal before he began the rehabilitation process. He then left him with his friend, horseman Stephane Beaudoin, to train down at his facilities in Quebec before using the swimming pool at Classy Lane Training Centre back in Ontario with the help of Bill Davis and his staff as part of his training regimen.

“He lost all his muscle tone and we brought him back slowly and he’s good now, knock on wood. There’s not a line anymore,” said Leclerc.

Swordfish qualified back in May 2011 and after a few off the board performances he has begun to live up to his potential that Leclerc saw early on. The bay five-year-old won three consecutive races at Mohawk Racetrack in June – his last two in 1:53 with a pair of :27.4 final quarters.

“The shoeing that he’s got on him now is very awkward. It’s a half round, half swedge shoe with half round on the outside and he’s still got a bar shoe up front because he broke the foot. You always want to keep a bar shoe on those horses,” noted Leclerc. “Hopefully he’ll keep racing well and if he can trot in [1]:53 every week I’ll be happy. I don’t know if he’ll go faster, but he’s been doing it pretty handy. Maybe he will go faster, we’ll find out in the next month I guess.”

Swordfish will face a field of conditioned trotters tonight (Tuesday, July 26) at Mohawk Racetrack with Sylvain Filion in the sulky. He will leave from Post 2 in the third race (post time 7:50 p.m.).

To view Tuesday’s harness racing entries, click on the following link: Tuesday Entries - Mohawk Racetrack.