“It’s very gratifying. I always thought he had the ability to be at the top. He would always trot out his miles and show grit at the end of the race. When you have that work with, you know their ability to come through.”
Paul MacDonell is no stranger to sitting behind talented Standardbreds, and in fact he’s made himself a Hall of Fame career out of driving some harness racing’s best. But those hands aren’t just good at driving horses, they’re also good at developing horses. Case in point: emerging star trotter Combs Hanover.
Four-year-old Combs Hanover is having an exceptional 2021 and has become one of Canada’s top trotters. He has won five times in eight starts this year and has made more than $79,000 in those outings. He’ll face his toughest test as an older competitor in this Sunday’s 2021 Hon. Earl Rowe Memorial Invitational Trot at Georgian Downs.
MacDonell’s approach with Combs Hanover has been, as could be expected from someone with the affable horseman’s demeanour, patient and perhaps methodical. In his rookie season, Combs Hanover only made three starts with a single win coming at the end of the season in the first leg of the Ontario Harvest Series.
“He was a real immature baby. It took time to get him where we wanted him. He started to come along at three, but then he had some soundness issues that hampered him. We just had to take our time with him and now he’s paying us back.”
Indeed, Combs Hanover is now starting to reward his connections for the time invested and patient approach to development that owners Chris & Michael Storms entrusted to MacDonell in late 2018.
“They bought him and picked him out,” noted MacDonell. “They love going over videos and they spotted this colt. They went down to Harrisburg, and he told me that if he got him that the colt would be coming to me.” A half-sibling to the speedy Chezatter, who raced against and defeated Ariana G as a freshman, Combs Hanover was purchased for $35,000 at the yearling sale. “I think [Chris] was expecting around that money. I think he would have gone a little more. Archangel’s weren’t really established by then but he liked him and bought him.”
MacDonell has been with Combs Hanover since the beginning, and he is very thankful for the opportunity to develop a horse with full trust of the owners. “I can’t say enough about them. It means everything to me as a trainer. We always try to do the best thing for the horse and this time it worked out. It’s not every day you get a baby that’s starting from scratch and can get him to the level he’s at.”
At the start of Combs Hanover’s racing career, MacDonell could see some potential that would only be realized with time. “I really liked him. He’s a very sharp-looking colt but he was timid and shy at first. He was immature on the track at first, but we’ve always done what was right for him and he’s paying us back now.”
Combs Hanover took a big step developmentally as a sophomore heading into his three-year-old season and kept trending upward. “I think he flipped the switch in the spring of 2020,” said MacDonell. “He came along nice early that summer. Unfortunately, he hit another bump and wasn’t completely sound for the remainder of that year. This past spring, he really started showing us he could turn into an upper-class horse.”
While 2021 has been a hard year for many due to the pause of racing caused by the global pandemic, Combs Hanover is likely in a better spot now because of that break. “I had him ready right before the 2021 shutdown. We did consider sending him to the United States, but we decided against it. I think that extra month off really helped him flourish. I know the pandemic hurt so many people, but it really helped him out.”
Combs Hanover has drawn post five on Sunday and is the 9-5 slight second choice behind 6-5 favourite Forbidden Trade (PP2, Bob McClure). And while some of these rivals might have sights set on the 2021 Maple Leaf Trot after Sunday, MacDonell is once again employing a patient approach to such stakes events for his stable star. “I don’t think that’s a place for him yet. Maybe next year or the year after.”
To view Sunday's complete entries, click the following link: Sunday Entries - Georgian Downs.
(A Trot Insider Feature by Trey Colbeck)