Doug McNair is off to France to defend Canada’s title in the 2013 International Weekend Of The French Trotter.
The 23-year-old Guelph resident will be the fourth harness racing driver invited to represent Canada in this international race.
Last year, Billy Davis Jr. of Cambridge won the competition.
The event kicks off at the Hippodrome Paris-Vincennes on Nov. 29 and concludes on Dec. 1.
McNair is currently second in the Canadian driver standings for earnings, having driven horses to purses in excess of $5.6 million in 2013.
He’s also fourth in the top dash category with 283 season wins.
The young reinsman has been a tour-de-force since his career launched in 2008 at the age of 18.
Just two years after recording that first career win, he captured the $300,000 Battle of Waterloo at his hometown track, Grand River Raceway, and later that month won the $547,000 Confederation Cup at Flamboro Downs.
He capped 2010 with a history-making mile at Western Fair Raceway when he became the youngest driver in the history of the sport to reach 1,000 wins.
Earlier this year, he and father Gregg McNair (one of the country’s leading Standardbred horse trainers) teamed up to capture their second Battle Of Waterloo victory during Grand River Raceway’s biggest event of the season, Industry Day on Aug. 6.
In addition to winning the track’s signature dash, they also scooped first-place in the event’s sister-race, the Battle Of The Belles, on the same day.
Other highlights from McNair’s stellar season include piloting world-record holder Precocious Beauty to seven wins in 11 freshman starts for earnings of $468,000.
