This week, the spotlight turns to full-siblings Willys Home Run and Logan Park.

by Matthew Lomon

Part 1 ishere.

Ontario-sired horses had their hoofprints all over the 2024 O’Brien Awards, claiming seven of the 13 award categories, including the Somebeachsomewhere Horse of the Year (Chantilly).

Making up the Ontario-sired septet are the aforementioned Chantilly (2-Year-Old Filly Pacer, Somebeachsomewhere Horse of the Year), Monalishi (2-Year-Old Filly Trotter), Stonebridge Wizard (2-Year-Old Colt Pacer), Willys Home Run (3-Year-Old Filly Trotter), Logan Park (Older Horse Trotter), Nijinsky (3-Year-Old Colt Pacer), and Its A Love Thing (3-Year-Old Filly Pacer).

Last week, All Over Ontario profiled Monalishi and Stonebridge Wizard in the inaugural edition of this three-part series honoring the top Ontario-sired performers of 2024.

This week, our celebration takes a family-focused turn with the award-winning sister-and-brother duo of Willys Home Run and Logan Park, both of whom are trained by the father-and-son team of Rob and Kyle Fellows.

While it was Rob who was listed as the conditioner of note for each of the Archangel—Rite Outa The Park trotters’ maiden races, the humble horseman with nearly 1,600 career victories is all about the team.

“First off, it takes a village,” Rob said. “We’d love to say it was something we did, but these horses were born to be good. I believe that.

“I’ve done this for over 45 years, and these are usually things that happen to other people. It’s been a magical ride with both of them these last few years. They’re professionals in every aspect. I’d love to take the credit and say, ‘I’ or ‘me,’ but it’s a whole team effort – from the time we get them, send them to be broken at the Shetler farm, and then bring them back to train down. These two are special horses. We were just lucky enough to have them.”

With Willys Home Run, in particular, there was never a specific moment that told Rob she would one day be special. Instead, as he recalls, she was the exception.

“You don’t know how special they’ll be, but right from the start she never did anything wrong,” he said. “She had good manners. She had a good mouth. She didn’t make breaks. She was willing to learn.

“When you’re training them down, you always wonder in the back of your mind whether they’re going to hit this proverbial wall that a lot of them hit because they don’t become a Willys Home Run. We believed in her.”

The reigning champion 2-Year-Old Filly Trotter rewarded the Fellows’ unwavering belief yet again this past season with her second O’Brien Award, this time as Canada’s 3-Year-Old Filly Trotter of the Year, after registering eight top two finishes from 13 starts (4-4-0; $431,311 banked).

Five of the top eight finishes on Willys Home Run’s 2024 scorecard, including three of her four victories, came during the Ontario Sires Stakes program.

After getting off on the right foot with a strong round of qualifiers and a pair of seconds to the Susie Kerwood-trained mare R Liza in subsequent Gold contests, an uncharacteristic showing in the Gold Mid-Season Final prompted Rob and Co. to give their prized racer some time off.

The prudent plan paid off in spades, as Willys Home Run found the winner’s circle in her next three OSS tilts.

She completed her Super Final title defense with a 3¾-length score at Woodbine Mohawk Park on Oct. 12.

“I always believed she was as good, if not better than anyone else out there,” Rob said. “When you have your own, you believe they’re better than other peoples’, but the racetrack actually shows what happens.

“In the Super Final, she was as good as she was the year before.”

After 23 lifetime starts and a 10-7-1 line, Willys Home Run is closing in on the $1 million earnings milestone for her career ($955, 246).

While her monetary contributions are certainly worthy of praise, the mild-mannered mare is simply a trainer’s dream.

“She’s not the one in the barn that’s banging on the stall,” Rob said. “She’s not hard to catch. She jogs. She does everything perfectly, and she even finished off to be a good race horse. I’ve had other horses like her that did nothing wrong, but couldn’t go fast, and I’ve had some crazy fast horses that didn’t have manners.

“She is the whole package. There’s nothing about her that you would change. She’s made our life very easy.”

Not to be outdone, Willys Home Run’s 7-year-old brother Logan Park captured the Older Horse Trotter title for the second consecutive year.

The veteran racer put together his finest year in his 6-year-old campaign, earning over $940,000 across 12 wins from 19 starts (12-3-2).

His most notable visits to the winner’s circle came in a late charging Dayton Derby victory on Sept. 28 and a front-leading FanDuel Open Trot Championship tally at The Meadowlands in his final start of the season (Nov. 30).

Logan Park also rewrote The Red Mile record books as the fastest Canadian-sired trotter with a winning time of 1:49.2 in the Allerage Farms Open Trot (Oct. 6).

“The good horses have that ‘it’ factor — whatever it is, we’d love to know how to identify it as yearlings — he had it,” Rob said. “He’s a good trainer, a good feeler, and he’s been healthy. As a trainer, when you get a couple horses, the hardest thing is to keep them on the track and have them healthy and competitive for when their stakes schedule goes.

“Sometimes, luck has to be on your side. It’s a tough game. We love it, we wouldn’t do anything else, but the good ones, they have a way to stay healthy and fit. They overcome us as trainers. He’s taught me how lucky we are when we get horses like him.”

The savvy competitor with 83 starts and over $2 million to his name has been a mainstay in Fellows’ stable since the day Rob and his Outofthepark Stable members Mike McAllister and Blair Corbeil, and long-time owner Arpad Szabo, purchased him at the 2019 London Selected Yearling Sale for $57,000.

The quartet later became a quintet when Logan Park’s breeder, Reg Higgs, asked to stay in following the transaction.

For all the marvelous moments they’ve shared together, reaching such extraordinary heights wasn’t without mild turbulence.

Like any dominant horse on the Ontario circuit, the natural path for Logan Park led to the United States.

However, as Rob recalled, Logan Park is a true creature of habit.

“When we went down as a 4-year-old to The Meadowlands for the Graduate [Series], I shipped down early to look after him and he didn’t eat,” said Rob, who noted similar instances at The Red Mile and Plainridge. “His biggest problem has been fretting when he gets away from home. At home, he eats well, he feels good, he trains well, but whenever we’ve traveled with him, it’s been hit or miss.”

In response, the Rockwood, ON-based horseman has worked tirelessly to remedy Logan Park’s regimen-related issues.

Whether it’s finding local farms to bunk at ahead of race dates or arriving early to give Logan Park more time to settle in, Rob will do whatever it takes to make sure his old friend feels his best come game time.

“These horses, they’re our lives,” Rob said. “We try to do what’s best for them 24/7. They can’t be upset; they can’t fret because the performance will show it.

“The more I can duplicate home life, the better he races.”