In Elite Company

Sylvain Filion may have one of the most prominent last names in Canadian harness racing, but his successes, both on and off the track, have certainly been earned. By Paul Delean

As he flew past the Woodbine finish line to career win 8,000 on November 16, driver Sylvain Filion had a flashback.

“As soon as I crossed the wire, it brought me back to my first one. Supreme Jade at Rideau Carleton (on July 19, 1987). It’s the first time I ever reacted that way,” said Filion, 46, a two-time O’Brien Award winner as outstanding driver in Canada and a leading candidate once again for 2015.

The milestone victory, which moved him into a select club with fewer than three dozen members in North America, is only the latest achievement by a driver who, for all the work, discipline and perseverance that have been part of his journey to harness racing’s upper echelon, also seemed predestined for it.

He certainly had the pedigree. He was born in Angers, the Quebec village near Ottawa put on the map by the Filions, a remarkable family that in two generations has produced almost 39,000 harness-racing victories and more than $250 million in racetrack winnings. (See accompanying box).

Sylvain’s father, Yves, and seven uncles, all were drivers. Uncle Herve, 75, a now-retired Hall-of-Famer, won more than 15,000 races and remains one of only three North American drivers to have done that.

“Herve was the first person to call me the morning after I won my 8,000th,” Sylvain said. “He told me he was proud of me. That’s a call I was really happy to get.”

His success also means a lot to Yves, at 69 the youngest of the original eight sulky-driving brothers. “Every time he wins a race is a thrill for me,” said Yves, who wears a ring commemorating Sylvain’s 6,000th win, a gift from his son.

For decades, father and son were a team at Bayama Farm, Yves’ breeding and training operation north of Montreal in the town of Lachute. It’s where Sylvain learned the ropes as a horseman.

“He’d been around the barns since he was a kid, but the summer he turned 12, I gave him two horses to care for, including harnessing and jogging. He was a natural. He did it like he’d been doing it for years,” Yves said.

“It was the same with driving. Herve was his idol as a kid and I knew when he started driving that someday he’d be on top too. He’s been working hard since he was young. He could have stayed and worked with me but he’s too good a driver. That’s what he needed to concentrate on. Year after year, he’s shown how good he is. I couldn’t be any prouder.”

The family had lived in the U.S. during Sylvain’s early years – he remembers attending pre-school in Philadelphia and feeling “traumatized” because he didn’t speak English – but returned to Quebec in the mid-70s, when he was about 5.

The eldest of three children of Yves and Yvette Filion, Sylvain set his sights on a driving career while in his teens. “I was around horses every day and preferred going to the races over school, that’s for sure. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else (than driving). I watched my father drive and dreamed of doing the same.”

The necessary work ethic and discipline took a bit longer to manifest themselves.

“I was a bit on the wild side as a teenager. It was a stage. I found the right path,” Sylvain said.

His driving debut, utterly unplanned, occurred on May 29, 1987, at the track then known as Blue Bonnets in Montreal.

Yves was on his way back from the U.S. and received word there that his father, Edmond, had passed away in their hometown of Angers.

“He called me and said ‘you drive the babies’. It was a shock to me,” Sylvain recalled. Among the horses they had entered in the $500 schooling races at Blue Bonnets that day was a two-year-old pacer called Runnymede Lobell.

And so it was, that Sylvain’s first qualifying race for his driver’s licence came with Runnymede Lobell, who would win the North America Cup for his father at three, and accumulate more than $1.6 million in lifetime earnings. They captured that baby race by 11 lengths. Sylvain’s first official racetrack win, with Supreme Jade at Rideau, was two months later.

Bayama Farm was a powerhouse in Quebec racing then, and a significant player elsewhere on the continent, but Sylvain’s emergence as a driver was more steady than spectacular.

He had just nine wins his first year, and didn’t top 100 in a season until 1992.

“I was fortunate to have quality horses early on but I wasn’t an overnight sensation. It took a while to get the ball rolling. You have to remember, my dad was in his prime (as a driver), so I didn’t automatically get to drive our top horses all the time,” he said.

One of the horses that helped his Quebec career take off actually wasn’t trained by his dad. She was a Rumpus Hanover filly called Tricky Tooshie., trained and co-owned by Jean-Louis DeBlois.

“She was a Quebec Sires Stakes horse, and I happened to be at Trois-Rivieres for a stakes card there for two-year-olds (on July 5, 1992). My uncle Henri was down to drive her, but he had an accident the race before and couldn’t drive, so they asked me.

“We won the stake and I drove her for almost all her Quebec races after that. She won the Coupe des Eleveurs finals at two and three, and all nine of her sires stakes races in Quebec as a three-year-old. She was a nice mare who went on to win the Open in Toronto and really helped establish me as someone who could win with horses other than from our own farm,” Sylvain said.

At the top of his list of favourites is “The Monster From Montreal,” Goliath Bayama, a son of Abercrombie... bred, trained and owned by Yves.

A powerfully-built horse who showed promise at two and came into his own at three, Goliath Bayama finished second by a length to The Panderosa in the North America Cup in 1999, and fourth in the Meadowlands Pace. They were Sylvain’s first starts in million-dollar races.

As a five-year-old, Goliath Bayama gave Sylvain the first of his two Breeders Crown victories, unleashing a furious rally from ninth to prevail in 1:48.4 at the Meadowlands.

“I was emotional after that one… shaking,” Yves recalled.

Two weeks later, they did it again, besting Gallo Blue Chip in the $400,000 U.S. Pacing Championship in 1:48.2. “Both times, he just flew home,” Sylvain said.

Retired in 2002 with over $1.5 million in earnings, Goliath Bayama is the fastest pacer ever at the now-defunct Blue Bonnets, winning in 1:48.1 in a $20,000 invitation race, with Sylvain in the sulky, in August of 2001.

“He put me in the spotlight, gave me a lot of thrills,” he said.

Success in Quebec and abroad put Sylvain in a very comfortable place at the start of the millennium. He won the World Driving Championship in Australia in 1999 and was Quebec’s leading driver for eight consecutive years. He and longtime girlfriend Dominic Pare had a home built on a piece of property on Yves’ farm.

By 2008, however, racing in Quebec was in ruins and Sylvain could see no option but to relocate to Ontario.

He’d tried it once before, in 1999, without much success. “Quebec racing was going down at that time and (trainer) Richard Moreau had started sending horses to Ontario, so I thought I’d give it a shot. But it was kind of a struggle, wins were few, so when things improved a bit in Quebec I came back. Looking back, I might not have been committed enough.”

Now he had to leave again. But this time, it seemed less daunting.

“I knew more people and had made some connections from the earlier stay, and that helped. Richard was more established and had good stock. My dad had horses that raced there as well. I was probably more confident in my driving too, which also helped. Things worked out even better than I expected.”

He was an impact player almost from day one, racking up wins all over Ontario. His purse earnings have surpassed $5 million every year since 2009; it had only happened once previously, in 2001, when Goliath Bayama was at his peak.

In 2012, he received his first O’Brien Award as Canada’s top driver, adding a second the following year.

His career numbers show a pattern of remarkable consistency. He’s won more than 200 races every year but one since 1994, topped 400 wins eight times, and rarely misses a call.

“I’ve been in a few spills and avoided many. I’ve been lucky with injuries. Never had a major one. I think I missed one night in Montreal after going down and hurting my shoulder but that’s about it,” said Sylvain, whose training regimen includes regular five-kilometre runs.

Yves said Sylvain’s biggest strength as a driver is his intelligence.

“Driving is not just the hands, it’s the head too,” Yves said. “He catches on right away. He can change (tactics) right away. And he’s careful with a horse. He’s always loved them and doesn’t abuse them.”

Trainer Moreau, who’s also been highly successful since moving to Ontario, said that in addition to being professional and competitive, Sylvain “takes care of his health and image, and has the respect of other drivers.”

Sylvain said he learned a lot from watching others, notably uncles Herve and Henri, but father Yves was his biggest influence and booster.

“A lot of the wins I have, I owe to him. He could have driven those horses himself. He stepped aside and let me. Not many would have done that.”

One of Yves’ enduring lessons was that you don’t fight the horse.

“I tried to master that, but it took me a while,” Sylvain said. “It always amazed me how my dad did it, the way he works with horses, how he breaks colts. He’s like a horse whisperer with them. But he also let me learn on my own. He never told me how to drive a horse. I drove them the way I wanted to drive them. We’d talk about a mistake I made, after the fact, but he let me make my own mistakes.”

While Ontario is where his star has shone brightest, Sylvain still has a strong attachment to Quebec, and said that in a perfect world, “I’d be living in Lachute, making what I’m earning here (in Ontario). But honestly, I have no complaints. I’m in a happy place. I can’t believe the success I’ve had and keep having. I drive for great trainers who have a lot of power, I have a beautiful family. My life right now is so good.”

He still owns the house in Lachute, occupied now by his sister-in-law, but has one as well in Milton, ON, where he and Dominic (they marked their 25th year together in November) have happily embraced parenthood.

Two years ago, they adopted a baby girl they named Stella-Rose.

“We’d been trying to have kids, it didn’t work out, and felt something was missing, so one day we decided to submit our name to become adoptive parents,” Sylvain said.

“We had to take a parenting course and write a profile of ourselves, good for a year, and then wait for a call from the registry. The parent chooses you, through the profile. The year was almost up, we hadn’t heard anything and were starting to doubt. And then the adoption agency contacted us and said ‘we might have a potential baby’… in Timmins. I flew in from the U.S. (after the Hambletonian), got in the car and we drove all night to Timmins. I was unbelievably nervous, and hadn’t slept in almost two days, but the minute I set eyes on her, she smiled. I felt total relief. She was four months old and I thought she was the prettiest thing on earth. She still is.”

It took two months to complete the paperwork, then Stella-Rose joined them for good.

Now two-and-a-half, she enjoys being around horses and can even spot dad in a race, Sylvain said. She’s not quite as discriminating about the horses. “She calls them all VIP, because VIP Bayama was the one she’d pet at the barn.”

As much as he’s achieved so far, personally and professionally, Sylvain said there’s still a lot on his wish list.

“I’ve never won the North America Cup, Meadowlands Pace, Hambletonian or Little Brown Jug. If I can get one of the four, I’ll be happy.”

He has no idea why he’s the only one from the second generation of Filions to thrive as a driver, but said he’s “happy to keep that legacy going, while at the same time creating my own.”

With more than $92 million in career purse earnings, he’s already surpassed uncle Herve’s career total, but doesn’t expect ever to catch him in the win column.

“To do that,” he said, “I’d probably have to drive until I’m 120.”

So how much longer does he foresee driving professionally?

“As long as I’m winning races, getting the job done and having no doubts. If I ever feel I’m just in the way out there, I’ll quit.”