It's All About the Relationships

With over $122 million in career purses, more than 5,600 wins, 34 straight years of $1 million in purses or more, an O’Brien Award, a North America Cup, eight Breeders Crowns, and so on, Paul MacDonell’s career matches up with anyone’s on paper. What we do in life however, isn’t just about statistics, and if you look a little bit deeper into the man originally from Oshawa, Ontario, you’ll find that a lifetime of just being a really great person has also played a role in landing him into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall Of Fame. By Dan Fisher.

There’s a lot of great people in harness racing - most of us realize that. But everyone has their detractors, right? Everyone has enemies or simply people that just don’t like them. Well if Paul MacDonell has any they sure are tough to find.

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A gentleman’s gentleman, the 57-year-old driver (that could still pass for 37) who was born and raised in Oshawa, Ontario, enters the Ca-nadian Horse Racing Hall Of Fame in 2020 as a very popular selection.

The numbers are there without a doubt: more than $122 million in purses; 5,623 wins; 34 consecutive seasons of driving the winners of $1 million or more. Then there’s the titles: an O’Brien Award as Canada’s leading driver; eight Breeders Crowns, multiple victories in the Elegantimage, William Wellwood Memorial and Peaceful Way, a North America Cup and a Metro Pace, just to name a few. The list of hors-es he’s driven is impressive: Somebeachsomewhere, Admirals Express, Village Jiffy, Billyjojimbob, Duke Of York, Elusive Desire, Life-time Dream, Laddie, Jeremes Jet - the list goes on and on - but good horses become great when they have great drivers sit behind them, and the man whose familiar red and white colours have been a mainstay on the OJC/WEG circuit for well over 30 years is a prime example of that.

With Paul MacDonell however, it’s more than just the stats - it’s the man behind those stats as well. When it comes to class, dignity and professionalism, Paul MacDonell can be considered a hall of famer amongst hall of famers - just ask his peers.

When recently asked, one of Paul’s longtime competitors on the track didn’t take long to come up with a quote that accurately shared his feelings on the new hall of fame driver.

“He’s a driver that beats you, and you congratulate him for doing it because he’s such a great guy… go figure! LOL.”

~ Randy Waples.

How did the popular Paul MacDonell get into the Standardbred industry to begin with? Well through his family of course.

“My parents came here from Cape Breton in either ‘59 or ‘60. My sister was born in 1961 and I followed in ‘63. My Dad [Blaise] and his brothers always had horses around when they were younger… they raced them on the ice and they raced at small tracks around Cape Breton, and the game just kind of followed him up here. He worked at GM and we always had two or three horses on the side that we’d race at Ka-wartha. I’d go and help him after school… he’d be doing them after work. We just rented some stalls at a couple of different places on the outskirts of Oshawa.

“I definitely got ‘the talk’ from my dad a few times that I shouldn’t intend on racing horses for a living, and I had to promise my mom that I would definitely get my grade 12 before trying anything else. I always loved the horses though, and I was never a big fan of school. I graduated from high school though, like I promised my mom I would,” MacDonell shares.

“When I first got my drivers license [1981] I didn’t get my first drive at Kawartha until that August, but then in ‘82 I started getting catch drives and I got moving around shortly after that too. They were racing Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday at Kawartha, and I was always there. Belleville would go Friday nights and have cards on holiday Mondays, and old Barrie Raceway was Wednesday nights… I’d go to the races every night there for a while - I didn’t care.

“We had a few cheaper horses that might have been worth $10,000 or so that could do at the Jockey Club in the winter, so I got to drive them there once in a while - and I’d drive the odd one there for other people that I drove for too. Then in the winter of 1983 or ‘84 I went to work at Greenwood for Doug Brown. He took about 20 horses to The Meadowlands and left about six with me for the winter meet. I wasn’t there for a full year and went back out on my own. I remember that I got four stalls at Greenwood and I was so happy to see my name on the stall list. We had a good OSS filly by the name of Cavans Jovial and she helped me a lot at the time, and then I met the Cherry boys, and we got a few, and it just went from there.

‘The Cherry Boys’ that Paul refers to were Jim and John Cherry of Pickering, Ontario, who hailed from the family that built, owned and operated Cherry Downs Golf Course at the time. Mostly fans and horseplayers until then, they had decided to dip their toe into the owner-ship side of things. “I was from Oshawa and they were from Pickering but I didn’t know them… I just got a call in the barn one day that there were two men at the stable gate that wanted to see me about buying a horse, so I went down and met them. They said that they wanted to claim a horse and give it to me to train and drive… they were gamblers and knew the horses quite well so they were kind of intent on pick-ing them out themselves. That was quite rare at the time as most owners would just give you a cheque and just ask you to find them a horse, but I didn’t have a problem with it. We claimed one the next week and did quite well, and eventually they were with me, buying and claiming horses for quite a few years. We had a really great relationship and had some good times together. I trained horses for them right up until I gave up my stable in the early ‘90s… they gave their horses to my assistant trainer Joe MacIsaac and had some good years with him after-wards too.

“A funny story that I recall from those boys was when I took their good mare, La Pan Dow, to the Meadowlands in the mid-eighties. There was a strike up here and I took a few horses down to New Jersey. It wasn’t easy getting stalls there then, you had to get the papers to Joe DeFrank [the race secretary] and explain to him why they belonged… things like that. La Pan Dow could be classified as a bit of a knee-knocker, and that track down there really picked her up… she went out and won her first start and I think she paid kind of decent. I’ll never forget coming back to the winner’s circle and one of the guys had a big stack of tickets out in his hand (laughing). I was certain that we were on camera and I just about died hoping that he’d put those tickets back in his pocket.”

A career of training and driving that has spanned almost 40 years is sure to have many fond memories, but when asked to share some-thing that really stands out in his mind, that not many would know, the soft-spoken MacDonell tells what he recalls as a very important part of what would become a hall of fame career.

“The one thing that always tends to stick with me from over the years, that made a big difference for me and is something that I’ll never forget was the Robins Wonder deal, and what he did for me when he competed in the International Trot at Roosevelt in 1986. That was the first time that I ever stepped into the upper echelon of racing, and I was really still just a kid [23-years-old]. Representing Canada in that race, in front of that kind of crowd, was a really big deal then.

“Robins Wonder was my wife Lynn’s family’s horse… Lynn’s dad, Jack, trained him - he worked at GM like my dad did. We got married in ‘86 but had been dating for about four years prior to that. My family and her family had become friends around Kawartha long before I ever drove horses, and eventually we started dating, so I had a good relationship with the family for many years.

“I had been driving the horse, and you had to win the Tie Silk Series at Greenwood then, to get into the International Trot. I remember that Armbro Agile was the horse to beat in the Tie Silk… he was as tough as nails. We snuck up the rail and beat him by a nose in the final and won our spot in the International.

“I remember going down there and it was such a big deal… they brought the horses out in a spotlight like at Old Home Week. I was so frickin’ intimidated… guys like Herve Filion and Buddy Gilmour were saying hi to me because I was a Canadian, and I just couldn’t believe what was happening. I had only been outside of Canada, racing-wise, a few times and this was such a big thing.

“The race went a mile-and-a-quarter and I remember I was shaking like a leaf when I went out in the dark in the post parade… people were screaming and yelling like crazy. They were going for $250,000 and we finished second. The whole family had gotten involved and everyone was down there, and I remember we were all just partying in the barn after. Everyone else had gone upstairs [to the grandstand] and we just kept partying in the barn… we didn’t care (laughing).

When talking about great moments and horses with Paul MacDonell it’s hard not to bring up what was maybe the greatest Standardbred ever, in Somebeachsomewhere. Just how was it that Paul ended being the man in the bike behind that great champion?

“That was due to my relationship with Brent MacGrath in the ‘80s at Greenwood Racetrack - same thing. When I was stabled there in the mid-eighties I was in one of those first six outdoor barns and Brent moved in from Truro with three or four horses. I left one day after work and the space was empty, and I came in the next morning and his stable was all set up… they came in, in the middle of the night. He was standing down there so I went down to talk to him. With him being from Nova Scotia and me with my Cape Breton roots we got talk-ing and soon became what would be lifelong friends. I guess he could have been put into a different barn and he might have become a guy that I just knew to say hi to, but instead I guess it was just meant to be.”

But if Paul MacDonell wasn’t the kind-hearted and friendly person that he is, and if he hadn’t had gone down and befriended the new stranger in town, the relationship wouldn’t have happened either - fate might play a role in some things, but in most cases our actions make up our own luck.

The men stayed in touch regularly for years and years. “Brent went on to sell cars in Toronto and then back in Truro, but we always stayed in touch. Some nights I’d just be driving home from the races and he’d call to talk. He worked at Truro Raceway for a while too, and he had me come out and compete in some driver’s challenges and things like that. Right before he bought ‘Beach’ he had asked me my opin-ion on some Ontario sires, and when he mentioned Mach Three I told him that I was very fond of them and that I’d buy a Mach Three in a minute. When he got him he called me right away and told me that he couldn’t believe he got him for $40,000 - said that it was impossible (laughing). He called me regularly that entire winter and told me how great he was. I’ve heard those stories before (laughing) but he sure was right.” The rest is history.

A trend starts to develop here as one notices the relationship with his wife’s family that helped get Paul to the International Trot at Roo-sevelt; the relationship with the Cherry boys that helped keep his stalls full during his training days; the relationship with Brent MacGrath that landed him behind a green, two-year-old Mach Three colt in the summer of 2007.

If you were unaware, Paul MacDonell has won eight Breeders Crown titles too, and as Paul briefly discusses his memories of those, surprise-surprise, the trend of solid personal relationships with most of the people he’s ever known continues.

BAYS FELLA (1990): “My first Breeders Crown. Mike DeMenno trained him and he was from Buffalo. Same thing kind of… I met him at Greenwood. He’d ship in, in the mornings to race at Greenwood and he landed in my barn a few times. We struck up a friendship and even-tually he needed a driver on Bays Fella. He was a nice horse and they had me go down to Pompano to drive him in the Breeders Crown. He was a big longshot and we beat Brownie with Topnotcher, who was the big favourite.”

BILLYJOJIMBOB (1991): “Murray Brethour went down in a spill and hurt his shoulder bad. I was good friends with Murray, and Mike [Wade] from our Kawartha days - Murray and I cut our teeth together at Kawartha - and so they asked me to drive him for a bit. I loved driv-ing him… two fingers. I think I drove him eight times or something and we never got beat.”

LIFETIME DREAM (1993): “That was right at Mohawk, there was a big crowd there that night… half of Clinton was there. Butch Elliott trained her and it was the same thing I guess… he worked for Jerry Duford in the backstetch for years and that’s how I knew him... I always had a great relationship with those people - they just always enjoyed themselves.”

VILLAGE JIFFY (1994) & VILLAGE JASPER (1997): “I didn’t drive for Woody much for a while and then I was down on Village Jiffy in an overnight one night - I think [Steve] Condren picked off him. I got him caught in that night but we went down the road and won easily the next week, and things just went from there. Talk about a great relationship with a fantastic family - Jean and Bill and Paula and Mike, they were all just so great to me and did so much for me.”

DUKE OF YORK (2001): “Another guy, John Bax, that I had a great connection with from our Kawartha days and still do to this day. That was the two-year-old Breeders Crown we won with him and then the next year we finished third in the Hambo.”

JEREMES JET (2005): “I got the drive on him because I knew Joe Frasier… he was the caretaker and second trainer for Tom Harmer. I didn’t really know Tom Harmer but I knew Joe and I guess that’s how I got that drive when they came here for the Metro. We won the Met-ro, the Governors Cup and the Breeders Crown and he made over $1 million as a two-year-old.”

SOMEBEACHSOMEWHERE (2008): (The Brent MacGrath relationship is covered above).

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

Paul MacDonell is absolutely a great driver.

Paul MacDonell is probably even a better human being.

In the words of another one of his longtime competitors:

“I have so much respect for Paul MacDonell - I’ve been driving against him for a lot of years and we’ve never had a cross word. After all those years that list is a short one, of drivers that I’ve never gotten into it with at some point. He’s a classy guy that can still drive one pretty damn good.”

~ Chris Christoforou.

Of all the stories however, told to TROT by Paul and his peers, the one that seems to best relay the truth about how the man truly treats people, comes from recently speaking to another member of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall Of Fame - Dave Wall. Dave was one of those veteran drivers on the OJC and OSS circuits back when a young Paul MacDonell was cutting his teeth and learning his trade, and although ‘Wally’ hasn’t been a mainstay on that circuit with Paul for well over a decade, the younger driver in the red-and-white still treats the older driver in the red-and-white with as much respect as ever.

When asked about Paul’s coming induction into the Canadian shrine, and their relationship, the 73-year-old Wall responded, “I’m thrilled to learn that he’s going into the Hall Of Fame. Paul and I go way back to when he was just a young fella… we’ve always been good friends. I still see him - he drives down here all the way from Guelph every Christmas and takes me out to lunch,” the veteran horseman says with great pride and joy in his voice.

Cheers to you Paul MacDonell - congratulations on your induction into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall Of Fame, and for simply being you.