Gregg McNair: Hands On and Reaping the Rewards

Even though he has surrounded his family-run operation with a great and loyal staff, trainer Gregg McNair is still one to get in there and get his hands dirty. And after a lifetime in the business, his hard work and excellent horsemanship has rewarded him with his best year ever.

Story by Keith McCalmont / Photographed by Matt Waples

A fixture in the racing game since 1979, and having trained horses with over $37 million in career earnings, 52-year-old horseman Gregg McNair is currently enjoying the best season of his life.

The numbers are staggering for a relatively small family-run organization. Through 590 starts, McNair’s trainees have stepped to 109 victories while collecting purse earnings in excess of $3 million.

It’s a remarkable accomplishment given the state of the industry where opportunity to race has decreased along with the purse money.

Quiet by nature, McNair is humbled by the recent success powered in part by a pair of two-year-olds driven by his 24-year-old son, Doug.

Precocious Beauty, an Art Major bay, took seven of 11 starts in her juvenile campaign while banking some $462,912 in purse earnings including an odds-on score in the $451,000 Shes A Great Lady final at Mohawk. The World Champion filly also scored victories in the Champlain and Eternal Camnation in Canada, and swept a pair of Grand Circuit events at The Red Mile… equaling I Luv The Nitelife’s World Record of 1:50.1 in the process.

Three Of Clubs, a son of Mach Three, made headlines by wiring the field in the $144,500 Battle of Waterloo at Grand River, while adding two OSS Gold Finals and grabbing a small cheque in the Breeders Crown Final… a campaign that put $206,617 into the coffers.

Perhaps moving to Florida for winter training brought about this resurgence?

“It was our second winter training in Florida and we changed a few things around but I don’t really think it matters where the horses are,” he says. “It was just a good bunch of colts we had this year. We didn’t do much different than the year before.”

One thing is for certain, with nearly 35 years of experience as a conditioner, McNair knows how to prepare a young horse.

“We had them good and ready this spring,” admits McNair. “We had a good winter. They stayed good and healthy and didn’t miss any work. We trained them pretty regular but you could tell we just had a nice bunch of horses.”

And although he was expecting to have a good year, success didn’t come quite the way he expected.

Blessed with a pair of promising Jim Avritt homebreds, it was Barefoot Beauty, a daughter of Art Major that was meant to be just that little bit better than top earner Precocious Beauty.

“When you’re training them, the only ones you can compare them with are your own,” says McNair. “We were trying to keep quiet about it, but you could tell they were nice horses.”

Barefoot Beauty is a sister to Swinging Beauty, a winner of 12 races and $831,995 in career earnings… making the large majority of that racing out of the McNair Stable also.

“Early on, Barefoot Beauty was a little more like a racehorse than Precocious Beauty,” says McNair. “Precocious Beauty didn’t do a thing wrong all winter but she wasn’t racey. The other little mare, she was a little racehorse.”

Barefoot Beauty took three of nine starts including a NYSS event, but banked just $65,000, nearly $400,000 less than her stable mate.

“Precocious Beauty was just a big lazy mare all winter long, but you could always make her go,” says McNair. “She had lots of speed , I don’t know if I thought she’d turn out quite as good as she did but she did everything right all year.”

As did her trainer.

McNair is a busy man. His phone rings constantly and this part of the interview, conducted in the passenger seat of a pickup truck, rocketing down the back roads of Ontario horse country might best be described as efficient.

When you run a busy operation like McNair’s, time is at a premium.

Life throws all sorts of twists and opportunities and had McNair been so inclined, the avid Montreal Canadiens fan might well have earned a living as a goaltender.

Although he didn’t know it at the time, his formative years in Walkerton, spent playing hockey and hanging out with horsemen, was something of an apprenticeship for his current business.

“My dad had horses with Norm Campbell and Bud Fritz when I was 12 or 13 years-old,” recalls McNair, eyes ahead, hands on the wheel. “I was around horses a lot. The first place I worked at was Fritz’s and I learned a lot from him. They had a powerhouse stable back then.”

As we rumble across Guelph to drop off a trailer at a neighbouring farm, McNair recalls a childhood torn between hockey and horses.

A 17-year-old McNair reached a crossroads when an invitation to try out for the Kitchener Rangers arrived in the mail.

Incredibly, McNair ended up choosing neither option. He never went to training camp though he still holds onto the invitation.

“I just didn’t think I was good enough,” explains McNair. “Instead, I quit school and went out west to work on the oil rigs. I thought I’d work out west but it didn’t work and I wasn’t long coming home.”

McNair returned home to Ontario in need of a job.

“I went to the horses right when I came back. I didn’t think it was going to be a career,” he laughs.

And yet here he is at the top of the game some 35 years later.

Of course, the top of the game isn’t just about posing for pictures in the winner’s circle. Destination reached, McNair, with the assistance of his son Scott, gets busy unhitching a trailer. It’s heavy, hands-on work and the type of work that McNair is famous for.

He sits behind all of his young horses during early training and he knows their quirks and qualities.

If a farm repair is needed, McNair has the hammer. And when a trailer needs delivery, here’s McNair, a $3-million earning conditioner, hauling ass across the countryside to make it happen.

I suppose it’s the type of attitude that comes from working under a hall of famer.

“I worked with Fritz for a year or so and I worked with my father raising cattle and before I knew it, I started training a couple horses on the side,” says McNair.

He earned his first win with G G Black Fella at Hanover Raceway. A move to Windsor came soon after where McNair thrived.

“A lot of guys back home would send me horses at Windsor in the fall, three-year-olds turning four, and I’d race them a little bit and try to get some of them sold,” recalls McNair. “I could put them in wherever we wanted and they were fresh horses and some moved up the ladder a bit racing four or five times before they’d sell.”

McNair learned the ropes on the job, absorbing whatever information he could from the best in the business.

“I had some pretty good guys driving my horses, guys like Bill Gale,” he says. “Drivers help out a lot to get a horse going, trying to sort out how they should be rigged up.”

Surrounded by legendary horsemen like Fritz and Gale, McNair earned a ‘degree’ in horsemanship that no conventional school could have offered at the time.

And, the high school dropout readily admits, that class is still in session.

“It takes time and you learn from your mistakes how to train the young horses,” grins McNair. “ I’m still learning!”

Back at the family farm, I am surrounded by McNairs in Gregg’s office. Doug is holding court as Gregg and Scott, very much his father’s son, look on quietly. Only his daughter Amy is absent.

Our meeting is overseen by office manager Louisa Surette who has worked with the family for the past 12 years.

“All three kids have worked here and I’ve seen them all grow up,” says Surette.

She knew, from early on, that Doug was destined to be a driver.

“Oh yes, it was the only thing that Doug was ever going to do,” she laughs. “Even when Doug was a little kid, he’d run around telling everyone he was going to be the greatest driver. You’re not going to change Doug, he was always sure he was awesome even when he was six or seven years old!”

Laughter and loyalty are key components to the Team McNair dynamic.

McNair consistently buys his young horses from familiar family lines, and that same line of familiarity has leant itself to his business where nearly all the employees have a decade of experience.

Chris Matthews, his assistant trainer, has been with McNair for 12 years, while caretakers Nancy and Christine have been with the team for at least ten years.

That familiarity allows the team to crack wise with abandon.

Doug, in the midst of answering a question, is interrupted when Matthews enters the room.

“I’m trying to do an interview here,” barks Doug, trying to keep a straight face.

But, no one can take it seriously and laughter erupts.

I ask him to tell me something people might not know about his father.

“Well, he’s a real asshole sometimes,” Doug replies with a wry smile.

Once again laughter fills the room, Gregg’s laugh drowning out all the others.

Doug and Gregg banter back and forth, arguing over who is the better athlete.

“You’re too short,” says Gregg. “You’re too old,” returns Doug, adding a beat later, “His favourite hockey player is Sid Abel. He used to watch him play all the time.”

Old versus short seems to be common chirping fodder for the duo.

And yet, when the chips are down and there’s prize money on the line, father and son could not be more connected.

“Doug is one of the top guys in the room. It sure doesn’t hurt to have him drive,” says Gregg. “He gets respect out there and he knows our horses.”

And Doug appreciates his father’s experience.

“It’s a lot easier to drive for my dad. He has a way of warming up the horses that they seem to be more relaxed when it’s time to drive them,” says Doug.

And despite the banter that fills the room, Gregg is an understanding figure in the heat of the moment.

“A lot of trainers, you come off the track and they’re losing it the way you drove the horse,” says Doug. “Dad realizes that’s the way the races go, you can’t change anything.”

And it seems like nothing will change at the McNair family barn. I bring up a special moment from a year ago when Doug drove Gregg’s 2,000th career winner.

I can’t be sure if Gregg is winding his son up, but he says he’s not sure Doug was driving.

Either way, young Doug takes the bait. “I remember reading about your 1,000th win back about 56 years ago!”

Doug and Scott laugh and laugh, filling a room decorated with mementos of famous victories.

The walls are covered in photos from his annual charity baseball tournaments and pictures of his kids, Scott, Amy and Doug growing up.

And that’s when I realize what makes him so successful as a horseman and a father.

“When you finally start racing the young ones it’s a real pleasure seeing them qualify,” says Gregg of his racing stock. “You get a few surprises. Its fun watching them develop.”

Children and horses both.