Canadian racing roots run strong in all corners of our country, but particularly in the Maritimes, where many large families are involved in our sport from every angle. Meet one family — of 16 children, nonetheless — who has kept the harness racing tradition alive and strong through multiple generations.
By Melissa Keith
When we think of pedigree in the context of harness racing, very often talk turns to the stallions and broodmares behind top performers. Yet it’s well known that our sport boasts human dynasties as well, lengthy traditions of grandfather or father, mother or uncle showing younger relatives the basics of horsemanship.
Take the Barrieau family, for instance. Their New Brunswick roots run deep — beyond even 1948, the year Léonard Barrieau acquired two farms in Brûlis-du-Lac area of what is now Dieppe. A First World War veteran, he and wife Léonie raised 16 children together after his return to his native New Brunswick. Léonard was a businessman who founded and later sold the Acadia Telephone Company, but he gained greater renown for his contributions to sports history. And he not only raised racehorses. Five of his sons would go on to make Barrieau a name synonymous with top trainer-drivers.
Marcel is the youngest of the five Barrieau boys. Currently racing at Rideau-Carleton Raceway, the 65-year-old has always been immersed in the sport. “I remember wintertime on the farm when I was really little, we used sleighs,” he says from his home in Laval, Quebec. “I was even very young when I started driving.”
Today, Marcel maintains a 13-horse stable, and notes that brother Alfred is still involved in racing through horse ownership with his son, Gilles. Marcel Barrieau himself has two daughters, Jocelyn (an elite Canadian rugby player) and Lindsey (one year away from attaining a doctorate in psychology), but neither sought a career in harness racing. Like Marcel’s 11 sisters, they chose to pursue other interests, something Marcel attributes to a lack of many prominent female trainers and drivers in racing until relatively recently.
While Marcel notes that “it’s not like it used to be” in the racing industry today, he agrees that the trend towards smaller stables, where everybody is on their own, as he says, makes sticking together important for family members. “I’d like to teach a lot more kids, if I could,” says the horseman, whose time on the track now spans 40-plus years. “I’d love to bring them along and tell them how good it is.” Despite not having an heir to the Barrieau racing legacy among his own children, Marcel proudly mentions the names of two younger family members who are admirably carrying on the Barrieau tradition: “My brother Alfred’s boy, Gilles, and Michel [Mike], that’d be Rufin’s boy.” According to him, they are the third (or maybe even fourth) generation of Barrieaus excelling in the game.
“It’s pretty much a lifetime job that I’ve had through my father. Realistically I’ve been on my own since I was 21 years old,” reflects Marcel of his involvement in racing. “We were originally from Acadiaville, New Brunswick. I was a year and a half old when we moved to Moncton. We had quite a good-sized farm there where we raised colts for a while, when my father was younger, and then we went into the racing aspect of it.”
The Léonard Barrieau farm, which was built in 1870 or even earlier, was in use by Rosaire and Alfred, two of Marcel’s older brothers, right up until it was expropriated by the Town of Dieppe. “My brothers had some horses there that they jogged and trained — I think the last horse left in 2005 or something like that. Once they took the land we had the track on [to develop as part of an industrial park], there was no sense in having horses there, because we couldn’t train them.” But this was hardly the end of the Barrieau chapter in harness racing history.
Gilles Barrieau is a familiar name to most Canadian racing followers, having represented the country at the World Driving Championships in 2007 and also having racked up Canada’s top winning percentage of 2011 as a driver (0.464). The skilled Maritime trainer-driver says that he knew he had to become a professional horseman, even from a young age. “It’s all I’ve ever done. I left school to do this,” says Gilles, who initially helped his father Alfred with his seven or eight horses racing at Brunswick Downs in Moncton. The game-changing moment for Gilles came the summer he was supposed to be going into his second year of high school.
“I lived in Moncton, and I came down here [to Exhibition Park, in St. John] to work with Marcel, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do,” he says. “Marcel got me going. He was my idol at the time and that’s who I learned everything from.”
Gilles’ father Alfred participated in harness racing primarily as a hobby, as he was also employed by CN Rail and as a home builder. But Marcel was, in Gilles’ words, a top notch trainer-driver whom he admired as a boy because he had made a name for himself in races across the Maritimes and even the United States.
Another Barrieau became a driving legend before Gilles’ time, but, tragically, died at the height of his career at age 35. Gilles was just six when Rufin Barrieau, his uncle, passed away. The New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame driver (for whom Exhibition Park’s Barrieau-McIsaac Memorial Pace was in part named) still left an impression. “Apparently he was the best, or so they tell me.”
Other family members played so many roles in the sport, from his uncle Father Yvon Barrieau (“yes, he drove and was a priest!” confirms Gilles) to his ultra-supportive aunts (more on them in a moment) that it’s not surprising Gilles is carrying on the family tradition. He admits that he has a brother and sister who aren’t in the sport, and his other brother Rheal stepped away from it after the Moncton area racetracks closed (Brunswick Downs, followed by Champlain Raceway). Yet there’s still something about racing that keeps the Barrieau clan interested, even when adversity strikes.
Last November at Truro Raceway, Gilles experienced a fateful event that was to prove a testing ground for his support network. From that, he broke one of his wrists and some fingers in a racing accident. “I wasn’t really ready to come back, but we were short on help so I started jogging horses,” he explains. “I was back three days and there was a freak accident — I got kicked by a yearling colt and broke my femur.” For some athletes, such an injury might prove a career-ender. Not for Gilles Barrieau. With friend and horse owner Sandra Foley at the helm, family members and the racing community alike pulled together to help.
A highly successful fundraiser brought together about 150 supporters. Gilles’ blood relatives and extended racing family, even the ones who couldn’t attend, pitched in. For his part, Marcel says he didn’t go. “They wanted $1,000 for the flight,” he recounts, “so I said I’d rather give it to him than give it to the airline!”
Marcel adds that the donation of several high-profile Woodbine drivers’ racing colours for the benefit auction shows how supportive the larger racing family is. Gilles admits that the regular donation of home-cooked meals and goodies by his parents and aunts might have added a few pounds to his weight. Still, he’s not complaining.
“Oh yes — my God, without them, you’d just be left in limbo, really,” Gilles replies when asked if family support played a major role in his imminent return to driving (in late April at Exhibition Park). “They kept my courage up. They were excellent. When I was down for three months with my broken leg, they were driving down from Moncton every other day to come and visit.”
His parents, Alfred and Edna, as well as aunts Maria, Margaret, Rosa, and Cecile were among Gilles’ regular visitors during his convalescence, helping ease the stresses on Gilles and his wife Kelly. Two aunts — Cecile and Rosa — were especially keen to get Gilles back in the sulky. “Oh yeah — they know what’s going on because they follow me and Marcel on the Internet like you wouldn’t believe!” he laughs.
Gilles and Kelly co-own two horses together (Mc Awesome and Veto Hanover, who are both racing in Ontario out of the Gregg McNair Stable) in partnership with another owner. But their 17-year-old daughter Devon doesn’t seem interested in pursuing a racing career. While a life in harness racing may not be for everyone, he speculates that it’s kept many a young person out of trouble over the years. “When I was growing up, jeepers — there were kids coming off the street, to look for racetrack jobs and hanging around, and now you just don’t see that. It’s not that long ago, really.”
A family filled with legends for role models seems likely to inspire the younger generation to become achievers in whatever they do. With a little luck and a few grandchildren, there will eventually be more young Barrieaus sustaining that history of family excellence on Maritime racetracks and beyond.