GUELPH – The presentation of the 2018 O’Brien awards on Feb. 2 was a big night for Guelph and Wellington award winners Louis-Philippe Roy, Richard Moreau and pacer filly and colt Shower Play and Jimmy Freight.
The awards, established in 1989, are given out to the best in harness racing and are named in honour of Joe O’Brien, “an outstanding horseman and member of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame,” states Standardbred Canada.
O’Brien passed away in 1984.
Louis-Philippe Roy took home his first title as Canada’s Driver of the Year at the 2018 O’Brien awards black tie
gala held in Mississauga. “It’s something … in Canada … I think it was the highest I could reach so that means a lot, it’s kind of a dream,” Roy said of the win.
He has 416 career wins with total earnings in excess of $7.4 million. He also topped the Canadian driver charts for both wins and earnings and was the leading driver in both wins and purse earnings at Woodbine Racetrack and Woodbine Mohawk Park.
In 2016, Roy received the O’Brien Future Star award. Following that win, Roy moved from Quebec and his career grew from there.
“When I moved here to Toronto going on the big circuit, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work out or not but right now I think my career is way more solid than it was two years ago,” Roy said.
He added living close to Toronto is a better option for a driver because the races tend to offer more money.
He started driving horses with friends in Quebec when he was 15.
“They had a lot of not only race horses but they had horses in the field and among them there was one retired race horse. We start training him back, my friends and I, and then after I got kind of hooked to the sport and from then I wanted to be a driver,” Roy said.
His current focus moving forward is to take part in the grand circuit.
“I would like for sure to keep it going and try to do as good as I did last year this year. Maybe I would like to be a little bit more involved in the grand circuit that goes all around the USA and Canada a little bit too over the summer,” Roy said.
He was the regular driver for O’Brien Award winners Shower Play and Jimmy Freight.
“Jimmy Freight winning three year-old pacing colt of the year was a really big accomplishment,” said owner and Guelph resident Adriano Sorella. “… we couldn’t be more thrilled that he was given the honours this year.”
Freight, the son of Sportswriter, won 11 races and more than $834,000, while collecting victories in all five Ontario Sires Stakes races he competed in, including his season-ending Super Final. He also won eliminations of the Messenger and Progress Pace, and finished his season with a runner-up finish in the Progress Final.
Roy said while one of the most challenging aspects of being a driver is the pressure to impress trainers and owners, Sorella said he couldn’t have been happier working with Roy.
“I’ve always liked Louis and think that he’s the next big thing for harness racing. He is very humble for a man that has taken Ontario by storm,” said Sorella.
He credits Freight’s focus on race day for the win.
“You would never know jogging him or training him, as he just goofs around on the track, however come race day he’s all business. His ability on all size tracks and his quickness off the gate can definitely separate him from others, especially on the smaller tracks,” he said.
Freight is currently back in training, getting ready for another busy year ahead.
“We have him staked up pretty well this year with all the four-year-old restricted stakes races.
“We also have him staked to the open pacing division, which is always a massive task for any four-year-old,” Sorella added.
Shower Play’s Rockwood owner Suzie Kerwood had not responded to the Wellington Advertiser’s request for an interview at the time of publication.
Freight was trained in Canada by Richard Moreau.
This year Moreau won his sixth consecutive title as Canada’s Trainer of the Year.
The six-time award winner has a 50-acre horse-training facility in Puslinch.
Originally from Quebec, Moreau got into the sport because his uncle was a jockey in Montreal.
He was enrolled at CEGEP (a publicly funded pre-university college) in Montreal, but left to follow his horse training passions.
A year ago Moreau told the Advertiser his goal for 2018 was to surpass $50 million in career purse money for the horses he has trained. Just short of his goal, a Standardbred Canada press release stated Moreau trained horses to more than $4.6 million in earnings, a new personal best, and sent 315 winners postward.
