A Saturday night hat-trick pushed young gun Ryan Holliday to triple digit wins in 2012. The 25-year-old Mount Forest native’s ascent up the driving ranks in Ontario harness racing continued Saturday night at Hanover Raceway as he steered three winners on the twelve-race card to maintain his position atop the drivers’ standings at the half-mile track and reach an important career benchmark.
His eleventh race win with Southwind Califon was his 100th in 2012, marking the first season in which he’s made it to the winner’s circle at least 100 times. In his fourth full season in a race bike Holliday is on pace to be the top driver at Hanover Raceway and is also among the top five in wins at Clinton Raceway. His success there has landed him a spot in their annual driver’s challenge event upcoming this September, an event which has been won by some of the top drivers in the sport.
Holliday calls Hanover Raceway his home track and has had a lot of success early in his career there, as he finished the 2011 season in a tie for second place among all drives in terms of races won. This year, he looks to shatter his career best numbers from a year ago.
Early on during Saturday night’s card of racing, Holliday joked that his night was “not going as planned” after near misses steering Greystone Fantasy and Tragically Shipp. However, he would go on to win the three races he needed to reach 100. Holliday’s winning kicked off in the sixth race when he and talented pacing colt Mr Yokassippi secured a victory in 2:02.0 for trainer Robert Colvin. Then, he won back to back with preferred pacer Donegal Mac in the tenth and Southwind Califon in Race 11.
After reaching the milestone win, Holliday was pleased he got the job done at Hanover Raceway.
“I was hoping to get there tonight. This is my home track so I wanted to get it here.”
Holliday went on to credit the horses he drives and the trainers that put their faith in him each week. “This year has been good. It’s nice to be driving better horses and driving for good trainers.”
With the wins Saturday, he now has 269 in his young career, while bankrolling over $1.75 million in purse money. As long as Holliday keeps winning, the drives should keep coming, along with continued success.
(Hanover Raceway)