Many Canadians dream that one day we will wear the Maple Leaf proudly on our chest as a representative of our country. Few have that exciting opportunity, especially those of us in the harness racing business.
James MacDonald is one of those lucky Canucks that donned the red and white for Canada in international competition, and it’s a memory that continues to linger on. Trot Insider caught up with MacDonald to chat about the fifth anniversary of his win in the 2017 World Driving Championship on August 18, 2017.
“It was amazing. It will be an experience I will never forget.”
The various legs of the 2017 World Driving Championship were hosted by Century Downs, Woodbine Mohawk Park, Georgian Downs, Hippodrome 3R and Charlottetown Driving Park. The different track configurations made for some interesting races with the larger fields. MacDonald was lucky to have some experience at all five of the host tracks heading into the World Driving Championship.
“I had raced at all the venues so there were no secrets. It was definitely a big advantage there.”
MacDonald was able to get a win at each of the first four tracks which helped him earn enough to make it difficult for the other contenders to catch up to him in the last leg. The fifth and final leg of the event would be an extra special event for MacDonald.
The 2017 World Driving Championships was held on his home soil and the final leg was in his home province of Prince Edward Island. MacDonald remembered how his hometown crowd got behind him.
“I got to be in the Gold Cup & Saucer Parade and every time they announced that I’m representing Canada, the crowd went wild. It was like nothing I have ever seen, especially for a horse race.”
The crowd during the final leg in PEI was extra loud and passionate to root for their homegrown talent, and MacDonald was even able to drive up and high-five fans that draped over the fence.
“Every time I jogged by the grandstand; they would go crazy. It was really cool to see the massive crowd wearing all red and white.”
MacDonald noted that there was some added difficulty to the smaller-sized tracks with the expanded WDC fields.
“It was wild! Usually, half-mile tracks only have eight-horse fields, but we had 12-horse fields. It was extra tricky on the half-mile too because we were racing extra distance so they would let us go on the turn. It was almost impossible to keep up to the gate on the outside spots.”
Although MacDonald had home-field advantage, he was only one of the few drivers that were used to the North American style of harness racing, and that made for some interesting races.
“I remember people telling me that I would have the advantage with the style of racing here but there were only maybe three of us that raced that way, so it really wasn’t like racing here. It was a mixture of the different styles. It took some time to adjust and figure it out.”
He figured it out just fine, emerging victorious from the competition against a group that included Finland’s Mika Forss, U.S. driver Marcus Miller, defending world champion Dexter Dunn and Sweden’s Bjorn Goop.
MacDonald became the fourth Canadian driver to win the World Driving Championship, the first to do so in an event contested only on Canadian soil. Hervé Filion won the inaugural edition in 1970; his nephew Sylvain Filion won in 1999; and Jody Jamieson won the 2001 and 2011 editions of the WDC.
MacDonald's 2017 WDC victory definitely helped elevate his profile, and in 2021 he had his best year in earnings as a driver en route to another championship — the Keith Waples Driver of the Year Award. He topped the standings in Canada with more than $7.1 million in earnings and 304 victories on Canadian soil and he’s poised for a repeat in 2022 as the leading driver in those categories (261 wins and $5.1 million) once again.
(A Trot Insider exclusive by Trey Colbeck)