Yannick Gingras talks about what into
carving out the perfect trip with Karl.

by Brett Sturman

For most of his season — and most of his career for that matter — it seemed that Karl winning this year’s Hambletonian was a foregone conclusion. Between his raw ability shown as an award-winning freshman and series of smashing wins throughout the New Jersey Sire Stakes to begin his 3-year-old campaign, I was thinking six weeks ago who would even bother showing up in the Hambletonian to take Karl on.

At the same time, driver Yannick Gingras had piloted Karl throughout his career expertly. Karl, while brilliant, has come with some quirks seen at times, and Gingras has been able to successfully work through those. With that said, it looked for the longest time that you could throw any driver onto Karl, and it wouldn’t matter. That changed in recent weeks and as the competition got closer, both Karl and Gingras proved their worth this past Saturday (Aug. 3).

Detractors of Gingras will say that he’s a one-dimensional driver, doing his best work when racing on the front end. Similarly, heading into the Hambletonian, Karl had been forwardly placed in all his starts this season. The only time he had been worse than fourth at the opening quarter mile of a race was when he floated away to be sixth in the Stanley Dancer – a race he finished third. Which I suppose made it all that more surprising when that duo got away sixth when starting from the rail in the torrential rains at the onset of the million-dollar race.

“It kind of happened in the moment and when the gate opened, I made my decisions, but I was really open minded with strategy,” said winning driver, Gingras. “I actually did see the race going the way it started, for the most part. The one that maybe surprised me a little was when Andy Miller’s horse [Secret Agent Man] left out of the gate but the rest of them I kind of figured would be leaving. I would have put Timmy [Tetrick’s] horse [Security Protected] leaving too but he made a break before the gate opened. But I figured there would be lots of speed and maybe Plan A was to race him how I did, but I could have done it differently too if I wanted.”

As it turned out, that strategy was a stroke of brilliance and it led to Karl getting the trip of the race, an ideal second-over journey on the back of Highland Kismet. In a race that contained elements of racing luck with other horses twisting and turning through the stretch and Karl himself only surging late after the perfect trip, my opinion is that the result for Karl could have turned out differently if in the hands of another driver.

Gingras, perhaps slightly humble or maybe just expressing more confidence in his horse, didn’t quite see his own role in the victory quite the same.

“It’s more of a different group of horses he’s racing now then he was racing then,” said Gingras. “In the New Jersey Sire Stakes there was no Highland Kismet, no Sig Sauer, no T C I, so it’s just a different group of horses. Now maybe after the Dancer there was a little bit of a wake-up call that he’s not a machine, but we always knew that the competition was going to get tougher. If anything, maybe that was kind of an eye opener that I may have to play a little more of a factor than just letting him do his own thing, like being able to find a good trip for him. But you know, honestly, I think if the fractions in the Hambletonian were slower and I had to move him to the front, or if I had to move first-up, it wouldn’t have mattered to him, and I could have done that too.

“He wasn’t tired at the wire and it’s not like they were catching him, he was getting away from them; it just took a longer time to get him into gear. But if I had to dig into him a little bit to get him rolling earlier, he was always still the best horse. Obviously, we got a good trip, but I think he could have got the job done just the same without it.”

The Hambletonian had proven elusive to Gingras in the past, and I pondered with him if there was the thought that if he doesn’t win the Hambletonian this time around with Karl, if there was a sense that a win would never happen. And if that thought played a role in how he approached Saturday’s race.

“I don’t know about playing a role, but there was no doubt, that was the most pressure I’ve ever had going into a race, and by far,” said Gingras. “Father Patrick was a very similar horse in a way, how dominant he was, but I was younger and dumber at that time. I kind of just thought that these horses will be coming every year and it’s not that I didn’t take it seriously or anything like that at all – but it’s as you get older you realize these horses that are true champions don’t come around all that often.

“As I’ve gone through the last number of years – even though last year I was the favorite with [Celebrity] Bambino, he certainly wasn’t a Karl, or a Father Patrick or even Southwind Frank. These horses are so few and far in between and Karl has been a horse everyone’s been talking about since last year as his race to lose. With everybody saying he’s already won the race and it’s his race to lose, that if he does lose and it’s because I’ve screwed up, then it’s my fault and I’ve lost the race. So, there is no doubt about the added pressure but like I said the other day, I’d rather have this kind of pressure with a 3-5 shot and a monkey on my back with everyone chasing me, rather than have pressure with a 99-1 shot and me chasing them.

“The Hambletonian is just a very hard race to win, and I don’t think other than Father Patrick that I’ve driven a bad one. Everyone is pointing to this race — we’ve been pointing to this race — since last year and everyone is all trying to have their horses in peak condition for this race.”

As the skies opened and the rain poured down right before the horses came to the gate, Gingras confirmed that it didn’t change his race strategy nor change his emotions that watery background uniquely provided.

“Of course, I would have rather had raced it over a good track and had better visibility, but I wouldn’t change it for the world,” Gingras said.