Gone, but by no means ever forgotten.
Jeff and Amber Williams still often pause to remember Bob McIntosh, the late Hall of Fame trainer whose legacy continues to shape their lives. For the couple, McIntosh was not only a brilliant horseman, but also a trusted mentor, and a calm, guiding presence - both on and off the track. By Chris Lomon.
Whether it’s in the early morning hours walking the shedrow, while prepping their 13-horse stable for work, winding down at the end of a long day, or during quiet moments in between, thoughts of the legendary Ontario horseman, Bob McIntosh, often come to mind for Jeff and Amber Williams.
“What Bob has done for me and my family is hard to put into words,” said Jeff Williams, whose own Standardbred career spans nearly 40 years. “I am grateful for everything he taught me, about both horses and life.”
In the mid-1980s, Jeff, originally from Southwold, Ontario - nestled on the north shore of Lake Erie - was looking for work, and was hoping to launch a long career in horse racing. He came from a horse background; both his father, Dale, and uncle, Mark, were trainers and drivers, and he was eager to follow in their footsteps.
The search for employment led Jeff to Windsor, Ontario, and to a Standardbred operation run by a no-nonsense type with a growing reputation for excellence: Bob McIntosh.
“When I first started at Bob’s, he was a tough guy to get to know, and he had a strict way of doing things - it was either that way or the highway,” recalled Jeff, of his first impression of the man who started in the business helping his father Jack run the family stable, and then worked for his older brother Doug’s stable before branching out on his own.
And it almost was ‘the highway’, very early on, for the new groom who had been tasked with taking care of a quartet of horses for the Bob McIntosh Stable.
“One of the first interactions I had with Bob came a day after my son had a hockey game,” recalled Jeff. “I remember, we had trained a bunch on a Saturday and it was very muddy. I was coaching my son’s hockey team and I had to get out of there fast. I didn’t bother cleaning my harnesses, so I bagged them up and figured I would do them on the Sunday.”
But Sunday morning, McIntosh was waiting, and he was livid.
“Somehow or the other, Bob got wind of it. He came down the shedrow and threw the harnesses on the floor and said, ‘They’re clean before you leave or don’t bother coming back’. And that was the first actual contact I had with him. I don’t even know if I had ever even said hello to him [before that], so that was the first time we interacted.
“It was serious. He meant business. I was just a snot-nosed kid who thought he knew everything about horses. Boy, was
I surprised.”
Rather than sulk, Jeff took the moment to reflect. As he ruminated, he came to an understanding of what those words meant and the message behind them.
“I knew the person who I was working for, and I think sometime after that day I gained his trust, that I was someone he could count on. Whatever Bob wanted done, I was there to do it, and to do it right.”
That work ethic would define Jeff’s career from then on.
“From that moment I knew where I was, and that there was only one way of doing things.”
As did Amber Wayne, who had come to work for McIntosh before she even reached her teenage years. Amber started working for McIntosh when she was just 12-years-old. Her mother, Daryl Wayne, was one of McIntosh’s earliest employees.
“I started with Bob part-time when I was around 12,” Amber recollected. “There were a few of us that would work on weekends and holidays. At 16, I decided I didn’t want to go to school anymore. My mom’s rule was that we go to school or go to work, so I started working for Bob full-time when I was 16. I had four horses.”
One of those horses was a Camluck pacing colt named Watering Cam.
“He won me my first race, my first stakes race, my first overnight - I cried like a baby when he was sold. I learned some hard lessons in those early days,” recalled Amber. “Working for a big stable like that, they come and go. It’s tough when you grow attached to them and they move on. They are easy to fall in love with.”
Love was also in the cards for Amber and Jeff. The two also went from co-workers to couple during their time with McIntosh.
“I guess it was meant to be,” said Jeff. “Working there ended up changing so many things - all for the better - in my life.”
Much of that change stemmed from the example McIntosh set every day.
“A lot of people don’t know how competitive Bob was,” offered Jeff. “It wasn’t easy to run a stable that big from Windsor. You are so far removed from everything and everybody, but he didn’t care, and he never used that as an excuse. Every day, he did things to win.”
When Jeff became second trainer in the barn, he found himself mimicking McIntosh’s methods - often subconsciously.
“One thing I learned from Bob - and I think everyone learns this eventually - is that no two horses are the same,” said Jeff. “He also often said that it was easy to win, but it was tough to lose and go back to work the next morning. Win or lose, you had to find a way to bring the same mindset every day into the barn. That was the biggest thing that he drilled into me.”
Those words took on even greater meaning when Jeff started training his own horses, while also continuing his assistant role with McIntosh.
Williams’ first training win came at Windsor Raceway, courtesy of St Lads Ju Jube, a trotting daughter of Valleymeister out of the Worthy Bowl mare Sans Pareille.
On November 4, 2006, the bay mare, with Jeff’s uncle, Mark Williams, in the race bike, got away fourth of seven before seizing command before the half. Three lengths in front of her closest pursuer at the head of the stretch, St Lads Ju Jube went on to record a 3 ¼ length score in 1:59 flat. One week later, she was back in the Windsor winner’s circle again.
Four days after that second training win, Williams earned the third victory of his rookie campaign - a most unexpected result - also at Windsor, when his horse, Stereo Cassette, squared off against six rivals in the ninth race of the evening.
In his first start in Jeff’s barn, the betting public ignored the chances of the trotting son of Royal Strength, as he was sent off at 83/1, easily the longest shot on the board.
Last at the half-mile call and sixth after three-quarters in 1:30.3, Stereo Cassette had ascended to fourth when they turned for home.
“My dad really liked that horse,” remembered Jeff. “It was a terrible, rainy night. I remember thinking, ‘I just hope this horse doesn’t embarrass himself’ for my dad’s sake.”
The brown gelding and another rival reached the wire almost simultaneously. Cue the photo finish and Williams crossing his fingers. The result - a nose nod in his favour - was music to his ears.
“During the mile, he just kept on getting closer and closer - at the end of the mile he came out on top,” said Jeff, of the victory that produced a $169.70 payout for a $2 win ticket. “You just never know what can happen in this business. There is a perfect example.”
“It’s one of my greatest moments to remember because that was my dad, my Uncle Mark, me - a lot of people in my family were involved with that horse. It was the biggest shock I had ever been part of. Never would I have thought that Stereo Cassette was going to jump up and win that night. It was such a big moment for my family.”
There were also trying times.
Between 2010 and 2012, Jeff and Amber’s small stable had just one win in 44 starts. From 2013 through 2018, and again in 2022 and 2023, they stepped back from training their own stock to focus solely on McIntosh’s operation.
“We got to a point where it was just too much to do both - training at Bob’s and training our own horses. Both required a full-time effort, so I stepped back from training my own at certain points. In those years we focused on Bob’s horses. From a financial standpoint, it’s what we needed to do. At that time, we had young kids, so we needed to make a choice.”
It would be the right choice for many reasons.
On December 9, 2021, McIntosh lost his beloved wife Patty. She was 63.
“When Patty passed, things really changed for me and Bob,” said Jeff. “It was almost an overnight thing. He was not only my boss, but a real father figure and friend. He had been that for a while, but it came more apparent to me after Patty died. We became very close and were that way right until the end.”
Three-and-a-half years after his wife’s death, on July 28, 2024, McIntosh passed away at the age of 71.
A towering figure in Canadian Standardbred racing, McIntosh’s resume includes 4,608 training wins and $106,070,883 in purse earnings - making him Canada’s top money-winning trainer and one of only four in North America to surpass $100 million in the sport.
He trained back-to-back Horse of the Year winners - Artsplace (1992) and Staying Together (1993) - and Canada’s co-top horse in 1996, Whenuwishuponastar. He won 16 Breeders Crown titles, multiple stakes including the Jugette, Canadian Pacing Derby, North America Cup and Provincial Cup, and earned Hall of Fame honors in both Canada (2010) and the U.S. (2003).
McIntosh also found major success in breeding, and won four O’Briens as the Armstrong Breeder of the Year and eight Johnston Cups as top trainer in the Ontario Sires Stakes program. He also won four O’Brien Awards as Canada’s Trainer of the Year, after winning the same award a number of times prior to 1989, when the O’Briens first began.
“Over the years things progressed, and we became very close,” said Jeff. “The more he knew I was committed to the horses, the more trust he had in me. You had to earn his trust. I can’t pick a particular moment when things changed between us, but they did.
“It’s hard to talk about even now. He was like a second father to me for a long time. When I lost my dad, Bob was big for me. His whole approach of being dealt a bad hand, but moving forward, was helpful for me when I lost my dad… when I lost Bob it hurt equally as bad as losing my own dad.”
Jeff felt like a rudderless ship in the days following McIntosh’s death, his racing future feeling more uncertain than it ever had.
“The Sunday that Bob passed, we were under the impression that we were going to be done and out of jobs. I was looking to make phone calls. [Trainer] Dave Menary had talked to me about working with him for many years. I was going to reach out to him about a job.”
Then, whether it was divine intervention, kismet, good fortune, or something different altogether, Jeff and Amber made what would become a game-changing phone call to owner Marv Chantler.
“I called Marv, who owned a lot of horses with Bob, and said that I didn’t think they could sell the horses as fast as they thought,” recalled Jeff. “I asked Marv what was going on and he said he would call me back. He did call me back, and he said that they were going to continue to race them as scheduled until the horses got sold.
“He said he also had an idea. He said he had bought back some of Bob’s yearlings and two-year-olds, and he asked if I wanted to move up to Loretto to train them for him and live on his farm.”
Jeff found himself momentarily speechless. He remembered asking himself, ‘Could this really be, or is it too good to be true?’
“It took some time for things to fall into place, and there were times that I doubted it would happen,” said Jeff, who now co-owns some of the McIntosh-bred horses along with Chantler and other partners. “Marv could have sent the horses to any big trainer, and nobody would have ever thought twice about it. But to give me and my family this opportunity, it’s pretty big. We are all living together - Amber, her mom, myself and the kids - we feel very fortunate and blessed.”
In the midst of getting a number of their 2025 two-year-olds to the races, Jeff and Amber also recently brought a familiar face back into the fold at their new home, namely, a pacer by the name of Beyond Better, who Amber looked after during the bay gelding’s days with McIntosh.
A son of Bettors Delight out of the Ponder mare Somethinincredible, Beyond Better had spent the past few years in the barns of Carmen Auciello and Tess and Isaac Waxman.
“I call him ‘Muffin,’” smiles Amber. “I looked after him when he was a baby and he looked like a real stud-muffin. Even after they gelded him the name ‘Muffin’ stuck... I still call him that today and he responds to it,” she insists, as Jeff also smiles, slightly shakes his head and maybe even rolls his eyes just a touch.
After three straight recent races for his previous connections without earning a cheque, the private purchase was made, and in his first race back with the Williams’, Beyond Better finished third at Georgian Downs on June 15th, just a neck back of the winner, at odds of 23/1. In two subsequent starts at Mohawk Park on July 7th and 14th, the horse known as a stone-cold closer reeled off back-to-back second place finishes, barely beaten in each, both times at long odds, coming from way out of it on each occasion, and pacing his miles in 1:51 and 1:50 respectively.
It’s safe to say that Beyond Better is happy to have found a home in Loretto as well.
“That horse was a big part of the McIntosh Stable for years,” shared Jeff. “Bob didn’t keep many of them around after their three-year-old year, but he kept that guy, and he was a big part of the stable during the Covid years,” said Jeff, of the horse that earned $159,820 as a four-year-old for them in 2021.
“It’s not often in life or this business where you are put in a situation where you can do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do,” he added. “I was totally prepared to buy Beyond Better and never race him again. I knew he wasn’t racing well, and I know that Amber loved him, and he loved her, so I was fortunate enough to be in a financial situation to bring this horse to us. It means a lot.”
“He’s my pet,” said Amber. “We love him. There’s something special about him. It’s also about that connection to Bob.”
Beyond Better isn’t the only connection they still have to McIntosh either.
In the Black, bred by their late boss, along with Mardon Stables and Dave Boyle, has already struck gold for the Williams’ - literally.
After telling TROT, for our annual Twos In Training Issue in May, that the homebred son of Green Manalishi S out of Only Take Cash was the best of his eight babies, and after winning his Tompkins-Geers split on June 27th, the speedy colt came back on July 12th to win a $140,000 Ontario Sires Stakes Gold event for two-year-old trotting colts at Mohawk Park in a lifetime best 1:55.1.
It was the first career OSS Gold victory for the 48-year-old trainer who conditions the colt for Mardon Stables, Tyrone Valley Farm, and Hudson Standardbred Stable Inc.
“He’s a nice colt,” said Jeff. “He has his quirks, but he’s fast. He has some issues, but if we can handle them, he’s got a bright future ahead of him.”
The same can also be said of the humble horseman tasked with mapping out success for his on-the-rise operation.
In 2024, Williams fared well with a modest stable. In 51 starts he recorded five wins, 17 top-three finishes and $112,082 in purse earnings - the latter a personal-best number. He has already set a new career-best for purse earnings in 2025.
Jeff remains indebted to the person who provided the foundation for it all - but not only for himself.
“I still get to do what I love, and do it with my family,” smiled Jeff. “Everyone in this family has a tie, in some way, to Bob. My mother-in-law, Daryl, was with Bob for eons. It feels like once he opened the doors she was there. To have that experience and knowledge to tap into on a daily basis - you can’t put into words what that means. To be able to talk about the business on a daily basis means a lot. She was like a Swiss Army knife for Bob. She helped with the vets and she did a lot of everything.
“My son Austin worked there off-and-on as a groom and now he works with me too. To be able to teach him helps me greatly because I get to explain things that he doesn’t know, and that reminds me where I started. Our daughter, Haley, lives with us, and she recently came out with me to Grand River to do some paddocking. My son Nash is in the army, and he is coming to help me too. Everyone in the family is tied to the horses, and they have all spent time working at Bob’s at some point.
“And that’s where I met Amber, so my family, everything… there was so much more than just the horses with Bob.”
Amber echoes the sentiment.
“I had so much fun working with Bob. I got to be around so many nice horses and I got to travel to places that I likely would never have been able to go to. It was a great time.
“Bob put his trust in Jeff and I. We had our eight horses down at our end, and Bob never really watched over us. He let us do our own thing. That meant a lot, knowing that he had faith in us to do things the right way. He didn’t question us - that was nice.”
McIntosh would no doubt be proud of how things have turned out for his past protégés.
Years of navigating uncertainty are beyond the rear-view mirror, having been replaced by a sense of stability and surety. Jeff and Amber have found their version of Standardbred Xanadu, overseeing an operation run on family values, a love of horses and lessons learned from a horse racing legend.
“I think about Bob every day, absolutely,” said Jeff. “Whether it’s a memory of a win together, words of wisdom, or what he meant to me as a person. There were tough lessons learned from Bob too, and I’m more grateful for those than any others because it helped shape me into who I am today.”
And those 13 horses under the Williams’ tutelage? They are just the types that McIntosh would appreciate.
“I think the group of babies we have this year - Bob would have loved them,” said Amber. “I can’t speak for the ones who were sold, but for the ones we have, he would have absolutely loved them. It’s incredible where we are at this point in time. It’s amazing we have the chance to do this.”
Jeff agrees.
“These are the kind of horses, not just by performance, but by attitude and daily habits, that get you excited all day, every day. Like Bob would say, ‘If they don’t have that fire in their belly, they won’t succeed,’ and they all seem to have it to a certain extent. I think he would have really enjoyed that.
“It’s sad, but motivating at the same time. Bob would have just adored them, and now it’s up to me to bring out the best in them,” stated Jeff.
Which is exactly what McIntosh did for a once know-it-all kid from Southwold, the one who eventually found his way in the Standardbred world.
“I have a lot of respect for Bob, more than I could ever put into words,” said Jeff. “Whether it’s me or anyone in my family, whenever you think about him, you smile.”
This feature originally appeared in the August issue of TROT Magazine. Subscribe to TROT today by clicking the banner below.
