Life Is Worth Living

If you were to ask anyone born and raised on the East Coast of Canada which harness race they would love to win the most, the vast majority would say the Gold Cup & Saucer. For Neil Mac Innis, his dream of winning Prince Edward Island’s signature race could become a reality.

On Monday (August 17), Mac Innis will send out Yankee Osborne in Trial 2 of the Guardian Gold Cup & Saucer. The five-year-old Yankee Cruiser gelding is coming off of a track-record performance at Truro Raceway where he stopped the clock in 1:52 in just his fifth start for Mac Innis, who recently acquired the pacer nicknamed ‘Super Dave Osborne’ through a private purchase.

“I purchased him from Ron Burke and Mark Weaver,” explained Mac Innis, who really wasn’t surprised with the gelding's track record performance. “He paced in :51 over Northfield Park in January. He’s really good on a half-mile track and I knew he was capable of going that kind of speed.”

The lifelong horseman, who is also an English teacher at a Brampton, Ont. high school, is also feeling good about ‘Super Dave's’ chances in his trial, where the tandem will leave from the rail position (click here for entries).

“It’s a tough race, we drew well and that’s half the battle but I think he is as competitive in there as anyone else,” said Mac Innis. “It’s a family affair as my father purchased part of Super Dave and my brother Ross has taken over the training duties while we are East.”

However, this particular race is special to Mac Innis in more ways than one.

Loss is defined as “The fact or process of losing something or someone.” But, the definition of this word certainly doesn’t properly convey the emotions and feelings one experiences when trying to cope with loss. Oftentimes we underestimate just how long it takes the heart and mind to heal from suffering loss; it is a process that is nearly impossible to complete on one’s own and is a process that requires total strength and determination and the willingness to once again allow yourself to understand that this life we are given really is worth living.

“I lost my wife to cancer this past spring,” Mac Innis told SC's Rachel Oenema writing for Trot Insider. “After she died I went to a very dark place that I didn’t even know existed in my head. My whole life I have never suffered from anxiety or depression but after losing Sarah my entire world was shattered.”

While Mac Innis was facing the loss of his wife and mother to their four-year-old daughter Rory, he was also trying to navigate through a global pandemic.

“When Sarah died, we couldn’t even have a funeral and my family from Cape Breton couldn’t even come and see us because of the quarantine and travel restrictions -- it was the most devastating thing,” explained Mac Innis. “The dark place that I was in led me to a state of mind where I didn’t want to live anymore.”

Mental health and depression are crippling impairments that are often undermined for the uncontrollable effects they have on your mind, something to which Mac Innis can attest.

“One Sunday morning my sister-in-law took my daughter for the day and that was the day I thought I was going to end my life. Saying it now I know it sounds so cynical and absurd but I don’t think people fully understand the dark place your mind can bring you to. If it wasn’t for my very close friends Dr. Huw Llewellyn, Roger Mayotte, Bill Cass and Thane Arsenault, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Mac Innis also experienced panic attacks, a common symptom of anxiety and depression where your entire body feels like it is going into total shock, as explained best by someone who suffered from them.

“It felt like I was having a heart attack; I was having these moments of panic where my entire body would just shut down and I couldn’t breathe and felt like I couldn't move. People think mental illnesses and suicide attempts are acts of selfishness but I’m telling you as someone who never experienced panic attacks, anxiety and depression it’s not something your brain can control. Depression is a mysterious feeling, you lose all hope -- you don’t want tomorrow to come. I’m an English teacher and there aren’t even enough words in the dictionary to describe the pain that you feel.

“It sounds absolutely ridiculous now that I would ever have thoughts of ending my life but when my wife died I was so down and devastated, Sarah was diagnosed around Christmas and we lost her two months later,” continued Mac Innis. “How do you cope with that? What do you do? I lost my best friend, my wife, the mother of my child. We had such a wonderful life together and so suddenly it all ended and I didn’t know what else I could do but to end it all.”

Mac Innis has no hesitation in crediting longtime Ontario veterinarian Dr. Llewellyn for saving his life while also acknowledging the comfort and support he received from his close friends and many others in the industry who also have suffered from mental illness.

“Doc is a very close friend of mine, as a matter of fact I spent New Years Eve at his house with my wife -- if it wasn’t for him I would not be here today. Doc Llewellyn somehow sensed that Sunday morning that something was going on with me and he called me and said ‘I know the pain you are going through right now and I know you have bad thoughts going through your head right now, but stop it. I’m coming to get you.’ And he did and I explained everything to him and I am forever grateful to him for saving my life that day.

“After what happened I made the decision that I was going to get out of the industry and go home to Cape Breton for the summer to heal, it was what I needed to do for myself and my daughter. I went out to the barn and started packing up all my gear and everything and while I was doing so I found a Post-it note in a feed tub in one of the stalls. It was a note from my wife telling me I had to stay in the game, to keep following our dreams and following our passion for horses. I proposed to my wife with a note in a horse's feed tub so it must have been fate to find this note after her passing. And this was what led me to buying Yankee Osborne.”

Perhaps this is another instance where horses come into our lives just when we need them the most: a man who has just lost his wife and nearly his life and was nearly ready to pack everything up and wave goodbye to the harness racing industry is now entered in the race he has always wanted to be in perhaps as well with a horse of the caliber he has always dreamed of having.

So Mac Innis and daughter Rory, their dog and cat as well as ‘Super Dave Osborne’ and a two-year-old in training loaded up and headed East to the quiet and comforting escape of Atlantic Canada to heal their hearts and their minds.

Neil Mac Innis and Yankee Osborne out for a jog near Creignish in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Mac Innis continued to explain how he hopes that talking about what he experienced can help someone else who is fighting the same battle that he did.

“Up until about 10 days ago or so if I even tried to talk about what happened to me and the thoughts that I had I would break down crying and my wife used to always say to me ‘Neil, you never cry.’ After she died I would wake up every morning bawling my eyes out. I can talk a bit more openly about what I experienced now because I feel so much empathy for anyone going through what I went through but also mostly because I would never wish what I felt on anyone, and I want people to know that it is possible to get better. If anyone ever needed me -- no matter the time, be it four o’clock in the morning -- I would be there. Because I know how it feels to feel like you have no one.”

Mac Innis now lives for his daughter Rory and their passion and love for horses.

“My daughter is doing amazing. She’s my reason to live and always has been. We spend every morning together in the barn. Having Super Dave down here and spending so much time on the beach and being able to be with my family has been very therapeutic and so good for my soul. I think if there is anything now that I want to do it is simply to just live, enjoy life, enjoy my family, enjoy the horses, enjoy the life I was lucky enough to save.”

While Mac Innis is looking forward to the Monday night trial he continues to just take things in stride. But there is one more driving force behind Yankee Osborne that will be in the back of Mac Innis’ mind on Monday night.

“I don’t think there is one person from the Maritimes who doesn’t want to win the Gold Cup but for me, under these circumstances I feel a bit more gratitude towards it all, it’s a bit extra special for me. The final of the Gold Cup & Saucer goes at midnight, if Super Dave can make the final, when he lines up behind the gate and the clock strikes midnight, it will then be my wife's birthday.

“So many people in the industry rallied around me and helped save me and I want anyone else to know who may be suffering to reach out because this is a battle that can be won.”