When someone grows up in the same sport as their hall of fame father (and uncle), you might think that they spend a lot of time trying to get out of the shadow of their successful, older family members. Sylvain Filion, though, embraces it. When asked to reflect on his career, in terms of highlights and who helped him the most, the new hall of famer made it abundantly clear: He owes much of it to his dad, Yves. He’s very proud of that fact, and he’s not shy to talk about it either. By Dan Fisher.
When talking with Sylvain Filion about some of the most memorable moments of his career, and discussing the path that led to his upcoming induction into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, one theme emerges, and continues to re-emerge throughout the conversation: the positive influence that his hall of fame father, Yves, had, and continues to have on the life of the man who has won more races on Canadian soil than anyone else. Sylvain Filion is a man who is very respectful of others - you can hear it in everything he says - but there’s no one he respects more than his dad. And later this summer, on the evening of August 7th, he’s going to rightfully join Yves in the shrine of Canadian racing.
“My dad taught me by example,” says Sylvain. “He’s not the kind to tell you what to do - he’s never told me how to drive a horse. If a horse had some quirks or had a bit of an issue, he’d let me know, but he’s never once told me how to drive one in a race - ever.
“I was always an observant person though, so I’d watch him work, and I’d watch him drive. I could never have had anyone better to learn from, and I was very lucky to not have to go very far to find that, because I had a great role model right beside me,” he beams with pride.
“I was born in 1969, and in 1974 my parents bought what was a cow farm at the time. The farm sat on two sides of a road, and on the side that was empty we built a 28-stall barn for racehorses. We ended up with mares and foals and racehorses, and at one point, during the Runnymede Lobell days (late ‘80s), my dad was feeding almost 140 horses on that farm (Bayama Farms).
“My grandfather was involved… he only did the horses part-time,” Syl shares, “but all of his sons became drivers (see accompanying chart below). My dad was the seventh son - I think there used to be a saying that the seventh one had a gift or something,” he laughs, “but they could all drive.
Sylvain’s hall of fame uncle, Herve Filion was no doubt the biggest star amongst the band of brothers, and his 15,183 career victories still places him fourth all-time among North American reinsmen. Herve was indeed a role model for a young Sylvain as well.
“My Uncle Herve… anytime I had the chance to see him or talk to him - oh my god. He absolutely made my day everytime.
“He was already a big star in the [United] States when I was a kid though. I like to say that I was made in the U.S. but born in Canada,” he laughs. “My mom [Yvette] got pregnant when they were living down there but she came home to have me in Canada. I used to go down to visit my Uncle Renald every summer though. He worked for Herve, and Renald’s sons, my cousins Bruno and Benoit, were my best friends. I always had a really special relationship with them, so I’d visit them in the summer down in Englishtown [New Jersey] at Herve’s farm. I’d see him [Herve] every morning and that was always really cool.
“One day I remember him calling the three of us kids over,” Sylvain grins. “He told us to all meet him out at the track at noon, later that day, because we were going to have a rock party (laughing). I didn’t know what the heck he meant but when we met him at the track he had us walk a lap and pick up all of the rocks and get them off the track (laughing).”
Like his father, Yves, his uncles also helped instill a work ethic in Sylvain that remains to this day.
“I always watched my dad work hard, and that’s absolutely where my work ethic comes from,” insists Sylvain. “But more than that, I’ve always had the same passion for the business that my dad had. It’s true that if you have that passion, and we both do, then it’s not like work at all. I’ve just always loved it, from the time I was a little kid.”
After years of watching and learning from the man he idolized most, it was on May 29th, 1987, at the age of 18, when Sylvain finally got to do something he had long yearned to: he made his driving debut. Albeit, it was a debut that hadn’t really been planned in advance.
“You needed to drive in a number of qualifying races before you could drive in real races,” shares Syl, “and at the time I hadn’t driven in any yet. We had a bunch of two-year-olds entered in the baby races at Blue Bonnets though, and I got a call from my dad saying that there would be a last minute change of plans. He had been driving down in the U.S. and was planning on coming back to Montreal to drive the babies, when he found out that his father had passed away. He said that he was going to stay down there with Herve and a few of his brothers a little longer, and that I was going to drive all the babies.
“I told him that was fine.”
On May 29, 1987 Sylvain Filion debuted as a driver, and won his first baby race by 11 lengths with a colt by the name of Runnymede Lobell.
Two months later, at Rideau Carleton Racetrack in Ottawa, he’d win his first pari-mutuel race, with Supreme Jade, and a little less than a year after that, his father Yves and the aforementioned Runnymede Lobell would win the $1,043,000 North America Cup at Greenwood Raceway in Toronto.
“I was there [at Greenwood] in the grandstand that night,” recalls Syl. “My whole family was there, as was [part-owner] Mr. Mondou, and we were all as nervous as can be. I remember going over to the paddock to see my dad, probably three or four times throughout the night,” he laughs. “It was a great memory… such a great night for my family.”
At the end of that same year (1988) Sylvain would finish up with 94 driving wins of his own, but the next three years saw him tally only 84, 61 and then 69 trips to the winner’s circle.
“My career started slowly,” Syl admits. “I guess that working for my dad, who was an excellent driver, also meant that I was working for a stable that didn’t always really need another one. My father though - I’ll always remember that - he stepped down from the racebike when he was still going pretty good, just so I would get more drives. Now, as a father myself, I know more about things like that, but at the time, I honestly didn’t understand it.
“It was such a nice gesture though, and it really gave my career a boost. He left a lot of career wins on the table for me, and I’ll always be very grateful for that,” he smiles.
As the late nineties rolled around, and now with over 1,500 driving wins to his credit, it would be a homebred son of Abercrombie, carrying the Bayama moniker, that would help put the third-generation horseman on the map outside of his native Quebec.
“My father mainly drove Goliath Bayama at two,” Syl recalls, “but at three I was given the chance to be his regular driver. He never made a point of saying anything to me like ‘You’re driving that colt this year’, he just put me down on him. And I guess when we won a bunch in a row to start the year it was too late to change his mind (laughing).”
Sylvain and ‘Goliath’ did indeed start that three-year-old campaign (in 1999) with a bunch of wins in a row - six straight in fact, all at Mohawk and Woodbine, including wins in the Burlington (now the Somebeachsomewhere) and their North America Cup elimination.
“The win in the Burlington was his best. He was incredible that night… you could have walked on the lines at the wire,” said Sylvain, making reference to the fact that he had such a big hold on the horse at the wire, one could have tight-rope walked on the lines. “I got that saying from my Uncle Herve,” beams the man to whom family obviously means everything.
“His win in the Cup elimination wasn’t nearly as good though, and when we scoped him afterwards he had an irritated throat. We helped him as much as we could in the next week, but knowing that he still wasn’t quite perfect, we were pleased with the fact that we finished second in the final [to The Panderosa].”
That was just the beginning however, for Sylvain and the family homebred, as the pair hit the peak of the mountaintop just over two years later, during a 22-day period the new hall of famer will never forget.
“When he [Goliath Bayama] was five we had three big wins in a row together, and he went better than [1]:49 in all three,” the proud driver recalls.
The first was in the $500,000 Breeders Crown for older pacers, at The Meadowlands, on July 28, 2001.
“I had driven at The Meadowlands a few times, about 10 years earlier, and I think I had had a win there already. But I had never driven in any big races there like these ones. Goliath was a stone-cold closer… you could actually race him on the front, or from the back - just nowhere in the middle. We were well back coming around the last turn but they went big fractions up-front and in the stretch he just started to sail by them… it was quite a feeling.”
The pair got up in the last step, hitting the wire in 1:48.4, at odds of 10/1, and prompting Meadowlands’ track announcer Ken Warkentin to make his now-famous ‘Monster From Montreal’ call - a call that Sylvain cherishes to this day.
Yves and Sylvain Filion of Saint-Andre-D’Argent, Quebec, had become only the seventh father-and-son team to win a Breeders Crown title as trainer and driver.
What was it that Sylvain said about his dad being the seventh child?
“In the final of the William Haughton Memorial [a week later, and on Hambletonian Day] we were actually locked in solid coming around the last turn and I was beating myself over the head. I couldn’t believe that I had gotten him locked in like that, and then all of the sudden things started to clear and he sailed by them again [in 1:48.2].
“A few weeks later we raced him in Montreal and figured we’d take a shot at the track record,” says Syl. “There was a big crowd there to see him but it wasn’t a great day… it was really windy. But he went a huge mile and won by lots in 1:48.1. That ended up being the track record until the day they closed. He sure went three big races in a row for us. It’s something I’ll never forget, and something that was really big for my career.”
That career is one that now includes: 10,126 wins (and counting); $141.3 million in purses (and counting); a World Driving Championship title in Australia in 1999; four O’Brien Awards as Canada’s top driver (2012, 2013, 2015 & 2016); and countless stakes wins for both his father and many others.
Now of course, you can add to that list, a spot in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, where he’ll join both Yves (Class of 2016) and Herve (Class of 1976).
At age 55, even though he’s still going strong, with 223 wins and $5.9 million in purses in 2023, Sylvain and his father Yves (77) have nothing left to prove. But especially when watching their current family star, Funtime Bayama, race, one can’t help but imagine the celebration that would ensue if they could somehow one-up their second-place North America Cup finish of 1999, by capturing the trophy this year, on June 15th.
Last year, as a two-year-old, the son of Hes Watching - Tymal Sugrbabydoll burst onto the scene at Mohawk Park in mid-July with runner-up finishes in an OSS Grassroots event, and then in an OSS Gold. The thing was though, in those two starts, Sylvain didn’t even drive him!
“I had been driving Do Better for Mr. [Bob] McIntosh, and he was racing great and was eligible to the Battle of Waterloo. That was a race that I had never won and my dad’s horse wasn’t eligible to it, so I asked my dad if it would be alright if I drove the other horse leading up to that. He said ‘Sure’ and he said that he’d drive Funtime himself.
“It was pretty great because in both of those races I won with Do Better and my dad finished second to us with Funtime.”
Funtime Bayama didn’t miss the board in seven freshman starts (7-4-2-1) and earned $246,720, while taking a mark of 1:50.1s and setting a track record at Flamboro of 1:52.4h. He’s now begun this season with a pair of dominant wins in the SBOA elimination and final at Mohawk, taking the $127,000 final in a new lifetime best of 1:49.4.
“I have to tell you, this horse is very special to me in more than just one way,” Sylvain shared.
“During COVID we went to live in Quebec for a month or two, at the farm. One night my dad told me that we had to go to the airport to pick up some Hes Watching semen that had been sent from Tara Hills. But it was the height of COVID and you weren’t allowed to drive on the highway after a certain time - the police would pull you over and ticket you. It was already late in the day but she was in heat, and my dad said we HAD to go. So here we are, the two of us, speeding down this empty highway, in the middle of a pandemic, with the semen, trying to get home without the cops pulling us over (laughing).
“At one point I remember saying to myself, ‘What the heck are we doing out here at this time of night?’ (laughing). But my dad was all business, saying ‘We gotta do this and we gotta do that’. So I was just saying ‘OK, OK, we’ll get it done’ (laughing). It was really just more of that same great work ethic that he’s always had.
“So we finally got home and we had to go straight to the barn and inseminate the mare. I was literally helping hold her, and hold up her tail and stuff, while my dad inseminated her. And the result of that crazy night was Funtime Bayama.
“So when I say that this horse was bred, born and raised by us, I really and truly mean it. I was there from the start - before the start, really. And now, to turn out how he has, it’s almost a miracle,” Sylvain says with a hint of emotion in his voice. “The fact that I just happened to be home then, because of the pandemic, and not living in Milton like usual… It’s just such a neat story.”
Sylvain, whose 11-year-old daughter, Stella-Rose, and his longtime partner, Dominic, are always at Mohawk Park on his biggest nights, says his dad still makes the six-hour drive to Mohawk for Funtime’s big races as well, but his mom usually just cheers from in front of the TV at home these days.
“If we could actually win a race together, like the North America Cup, with this horse, after all of these years… it would be simply unbelievable.
“It’s unreal you know, all that my dad has done for me over the years, and that he’s still doing it today.
“There have been many other trainers and owners that have helped me along the way as well - too many to mention them all. The relationship I’ve had with Richard Moreau for many years has been an important one for me, and although my first stint in Ontario [for approximately four years around the turn of the century] wasn’t necessarily that great on the track, I made some wonderful connections when I was here back then, with people like Gregg McNair and Mr. [Bob] McIntosh… I think that really helped me succeed when I came back here a second time [in 2008]. When I came back I was absolutely more prepared, and the success followed.
“You know, I never ever thought about going into the hall of fame until I was at the ceremony for my dad’s induction in 2016. I remember that I was sitting there that night and I thought, for the first time ever, ‘Maybe someday? Maybe someday?’
“Then I went home, and the thought never crossed my mind again, I swear, until Mr. Hector Clouthier called me this past winter and told me that he wanted to throw my name in the hat… he wanted to nominate me. It’s really a great honour to get elected.
“You know, when I look back, more than anything I’ve always just taken a great deal of pride in my work ethic. It’s something that I learned from watching my father, and I think that it’s something that’s really helped me stay steady throughout my career.”
Congratulations Sylvain!
Someday is here!
This feature originally appeared in the June issue of TROT Magazine. Subscribe to TROT today by clicking the banner below.
