Ouellette comfortable back home in Canada
By MIKE ULMER, TORONTO SUN
Just for fun, Luc Ouellette will hop aboard the quarter-horse he and his wife Anita keep at their 10-acre Campbellville horse farm. "He's a great horse. You can jump on him without a saddle, even stand up on him if you want," Ouellette said.
Invariably, Ouellette tires of the game. Horses are to be harnessed.
"It has always been the standardbreds for me. Riding them is okay, but to me the fun is attaching a harness to them and seeing what they can do."
At 38, Ouellette looks unassuming enough. He's maybe 5-foot-8 and his gentle manner belies his gifts. He's a farm kid, polite, deferential but he's also a guy who can sit behind you at a red light and know what kind of day you're having.
That is the gift of the harness driver and it is part practice and part alchemy, this knack for getting more out of the horse than the next guy by rating its speed, judging its pace, understanding its potential and that of the field around you.
It's why Ouellette has directed $92.7 million in purses toward his horses' owners. As a catch driver, he makes 5% of every purse.
"Right now, he's one of the very best in the business," said Kevin McMaster, the trainer for Panpacificflight, Ouellette's ride in tonight's $1.6 million North America Cup at Woodbine.
"The thing about Luc is that he has a great set of hands. I think the ability to stay cool, to get the most out of the horse, those are his best assets."
Young enough to withstand the rigours of the sport -- drivers start getting out of the game into their fifties -- experienced enough to regularly dominate, Ouellette and American David Miller stand out as the top names in the sport long dominated by John Campbell.
"I love to race, I love to win," Ouellette said. "It doesn't matter to me if it's an expensive horse or a claimer, I love getting behind him and finding out what the horse can do."
Ouellette gained his feel of the game from the ground up.
"When I was nine, we moved next to my granddad, Gideon Lachance, in Mirabel. My dad wasn't a horseman, he operated heavy equipment, but five of his brothers were."
He has been a standardbred man ever since. Ouellette got his licence in 1986 at the age of 19 and began training horses.
ESTABLISHED HIMSELF
He followed the money to Monticello Raceway in New York State then Roosevelt Raceway on Long Island and on to Yonkers raceway in the Bronx.
Ouellette decided to concentrate on driving in 1990 and he quickly established himself at the Meadlowlands in New Jersey.
He won the driving title at the Meadlowlands three of the past four seasons and had steered Red River Hanover to victory in the 2002 edition of the North America Cup.
Ouellette surprised many in the industry last fall when he packed up his operation in the Meadowlands and returned to Canada.
He was, and is, at the top of his game.
He leads Woodbine and Mohawk drivers in wins and earnings.
The North America Cup, an event for three-year-old pacers, is the richest horse race, standardbred or thoroughbred, run this year in Canada.
Georgia Pacific, driven by Brian Sears, has been established as the pre-race favourite at 9-5.
Metropolitan, driven by Campbell, was pegged at 3-1 and Ouellette's Panpacificflight is listed at 4-1.
Fittingly, for a harness driver, it has come full circle for Luc Ouellette. "Coming back was something my wife Anita and I wanted to do. We were doing a lot of racing here. I wanted to race in my own country. We've got a beautiful place in Campbellville so I'm not far from work and our son Mark can grow up in the country."
