Few horse races get so well established that they’re associated with a specific week on the calendar.
Think of Louisville on the first Saturday in May -- it’s always Kentucky Derby day.
Well, in Quebec City, it’s always the last Sunday in August for Le 5 Milles -- a five-mile, 10-lap tradition that this year will present its centennial edition at Sulky Quebec on August 30, for a purse of more than $20,000.
Held on the closing day of Quebec City’s annual agricultural exhibition, the standardbred marathon (which is open to trotters or pacers) routinely draws crowds of 10,000 or more, and fans who won’t set foot at a racetrack any other day of the year make a point of attending Le 5 Milles. In recent years, it’s been Quebec’s biggest horse racing draw, surpassing even the Coupe des Eleveurs finals at Hippodrome de Montreal. “It’s almost a cultural phenomenon now,” says Yves Bergeron, Sulky Quebec’s manager of racing operations. “There’s a party atmosphere. It’s the race of the year here, and a major summer event in Quebec.”
Leading the pre-race parade for the past decade (in a one-horse carriage) has been one of Quebec City racing’s biggest boosters and pioneers, Leandre Cloutier.
Cloutier, 95, has been a fixture at Sulky Quebec for 67 years, and figures he’s seen Le 5 Milles every year since 1923. He was the parade marshall in the 1940s, the starting judge before and after the introduction of the mobile gate, and even owner of a half-dozen starters in the race. His closest finish was runner-up with Jongleur Grade in 1993.
Cloutier can still remember the days when distance racing was an after-church, Sunday tradition in Quebec. Its roots in the province date back to the 1800s, though it has largely disappeared from modern-day standardbred racing. No doubt, it’s not missed by everyone. Some horsemen say it’s too hard on the animals and should not be encouraged. Starting fields as large as 20 are sometimes reduced to four or five by the final lap as drivers or judges withdraw the weary.
Spectators, however, seem to like it. They’ve always liked it, says Cloutier, despite the fact that tight finishes are an anomaly.
“As the race progresses, there’s a real buildup,” adds Bergeron. “The last few laps, you can really feel the excitement mount.”
Prominent Quebec City standardbred owner Brian Paquet, 64, has never had an entrant in the race, but it’s still on his to-do list. He’s been an enthusiastic spectator for more than four decades. “I have mostly young horses, and you wouldn’t put one of those in there, but it still takes a pretty good horse to win,” he says. “I like the event. It’s an attraction that I think should be kept up. People truly look forward to it, and it’s the only race many of these spectators go to.”
Perhaps because many of the same horses race year after year, people develop a special bond with them, adds Paquet. He still hears past winners mentioned by name on a regular basis.
Driver Mario Charron, who has won races with purses of $100,000 and more, willingly admits that his biggest thrills in the sport were his three victories in Le 5 Milles. “It’s not the money, it’s the prestige,” he explains. “Most nights, you’re not racing in front of that many people. When you have 10,000 people screaming as you come down the stretch, it’s a feeling like no other.”
Charron, 42, has raced seven times in Le 5 Milles, and won three of the last six with Kats Angel (2004), Direct Withdrawal (2006), and MG Éclair (2008). Still, he’s got a way to go to match all-time leaders Ulderic Gauvin (10 wins between 1910 and 1944), Louis-Philippe Boily (7), Paul Grenier (7), and Lucien Paiement (6).
Charron says knowing when to move, and having a horse with sufficient preparation to make it 10 laps, are the keys to success. “You have to be patient,” he smiles. “The first time, when I finished third, I pulled out to take the lead on the seventh lap and that was probably too soon. If I’d waited another turn, I’d probably have won. It’s a learning process. If you can improve position, it’s best to try doing it before the turns. If you’re outside on the turns, you’re making it very tough on the horse. It sounds funny when the race is five miles, but every inch counts. Don’t go an inch more than you have to.
“As for the horse, the big thing is how the trainer builds up his endurance,” adds Charron. “It’s really tough on a horse. The average horse won’t make it to the end without proper conditioning. After the race, you have to walk them -- you can’t let them just stand there. It’s hard on them, but if it was really bad for them, I don’t think it would have lasted 100 years. They’d have stopped by now.”
The Sound of Success
In the 1940s and 1950s, there were as many as four 5-mile events each year in Quebec City, usually contested by the same horses. One named Judge Adamson won eight over a five-year period, from 1953 to 1957. The Heir, who Cloutier recalls pulled a milk wagon when he wasn’t racing, captured seven from 1943 to 1947. (He was owned and driven by Louis-Philippe Boily, whose son Gabriel is also a multiple winner of the race).
But in the recent history of Le 5 Milles, there’s never been an entrant quite like Sound Machine.
The horse (with the perfect name for a standardbred marathoner) paced home first five times in a six-year span, from 1993 through 1998. By the final lap, the gelding was sometimes as much as a quarter-mile clear of his nearest rival. The year he lost, he was second (to Steady Motoring in 1994).
Gilles Mathieu, a Sherbrooke car and truck salesman who trained horses as a hobby, owned Sound Machine through most of his long-distance success. He claimed him for $4,500 at Hippodrome de Quebec in the spring of 1994 when the horse was six. He was nothing special at a standard mile, with a career-best time of 1:57.3 at Freehold as a three-year-old, but he’d won Le 5 Milles and another five-mile event in Quebec City the previous year and that piqued Mathieu’s interest. “I’d been watching him,” recalls Mathieu. “I could see he was tough, though he was pretty beat up when we got him.”
His goal from the start was to point the horse for Le 5 Milles. After a runner-up finish in his first try, Mathieu adopted a training regimen that he says came from a Swedish horseman he met during a winter visit to Pompano: gradual increases to as many as 17 miles a day in the months leading up to the race, and the hotter outside, the better. “He was a nice, stocky horse,” says Mathieu. “The heat didn’t bother him.”
The training had to start at least three months beforehand. “If you start thinking about it three weeks before,” he jokes, “you’re too late.”
After Mathieu got him, Sound Machine made relatively few starts each year. The objective was always Le 5 Milles, which they won the last four times they tried. “My instruction to the driver was always the same: sit on the whip, you’re not going to need it,” Mathieu explains. “We were always careful with him. He was never roughed up.”
The horse’s career record at the grueling distance was remarkable. He won six of the eight five-mile races he entered, with two seconds, for earnings of more than $40,000. He won for four different drivers: Sylvain Filion, Roch Perreault, Stephane Brosseau and Andre Rivard. Some years, he actually finished up with a half below 1:00 -- faster than some horses travel the final half of a straight mile. “It was scary to watch him put up a last lap like that after already going four-and-a-half miles,” grins Mathieu.
Sound Machine’s 1993 time of 11:21.1 broke a stakes record held by U.N.O that had stood for 39 years. He then improved the mark by another 8 3/5 seconds that same year, and shaved off a further 1 2/5 seconds in 1995.(The record has since been lowered to 10:54.1 by 2001 winner Lifes Thrills, one of only two horses to crack the 11-minute barrier).
“He was a phenomenon. He had so much heart,” recalls Mathieu, who retired him after a foot injury flared up in 1999. The Troublemaker gelding ended up with $105,161 in earnings and 19 career wins.
Now 21, and a riding horse for Mathieu’s daughter Lucie, he’s still in excellent health.
He was also the last horse Mathieu owned or trained. “We retired together,” laughs Mathieu, now 73. “I still see him every week. He lacks for nothing. He’s still the baby of the family.”