by Matthew Lomon

A phone flooded with messages and a celebratory drink awaited Scott Coulter following his milestone triumph in race 5 at Flamboro Downs on Saturday (March 22).

While he still had some unfinished business to attend to in the interim, the swell of support for the newest member of the 6,000-win club had already started to take shape.

“Immediately after, off the track, a handful of the guys I drive against regularly were there to congratulate me,” Coulter said. “I was lucky my brother [Steve] and dad [Robert] had a horse in the last race of that card, so they were there too.

“My wife, my daughter, and my in-laws were cheering me on from home. They all sent me texts right after – I didn’t get them until after the races, but they sent me a whole bunch of messages. It’s been a few days since, and I’ve been getting nice messages pretty steadily.”

Scott entered the Dundas, ON oval’s nine-race program sitting on 5,998 career wins.

He wasted no time collecting number 5,999, holding on with 5-year-old trotter Allstar Goldi for a 1¾-length score in race 1.

After coming up short in races 2 and 4, the third time was ultimately the charm for Scott.

Paired with 163-start veteran Run Like Hill for the second time in as many weeks, the Brantford, ON reinsman adopted a different strategy to steer the 8-year-old trotter to the winner’s circle.

“Last time out, he was up in a little tougher company, and he’d been faltering on the front, so I drove him a little more cautiously this time,” Scott said. “He prefers a front-end journey – the first start I was maybe not in the position I should have been in. On the night I won with him, everybody left, I got away fifth and ended up with a perfect second over cover, and the fractions set up and he came from off the pace to win.

“He’s a big one-speed horse. I was sitting off hot fractions, moved him over, and he kept his one speed going until he passed them all. That race just worked out.”

Scott’s memorable evening continued with two more victories in the seventh and eighth, bringing his total for the night to four, and his career to 6,002 (as of March 26).

That grand slam was very nearly a five-piece, but Scott came up a neck shy with his brother’s horse Goodashim in the finale.

Even so, he has no complaints with how the night played out.

“It was a good day,” he said. “Couldn’t have worked out any better.”

Tracking down major milestones is nothing new for the humble horseman, who last June hit the $40 million career earnings plateau.

Scott secured win number 5,000 on April 17, 2019, behind Spicey Victor in an $8,500 claiming trot at the Raceway at Western Fair District.

As the numbers have already displayed, Scott has held firm as one of Ontario’s top drivers since his professional debut in 1995.

Over the years, Scott has ranked amongst the 10 winningest drivers in Canada on several occasions, headlined by a career-best 467 wins in 2011 that saw him rocket to second on the national leaderboard.

In other words, he’s made plenty of owners and trainers very happy. In the wake of his latest accomplishment, Scott also made it clear that the feeling is mutual.

“I could never pick one; 6,000 races, that’s a lot of support from a lot of different directions,” he said. “There’s been highs and lows with all of them. There’s been great runs with certain people and then there’s been stale times. But you have to give it to everybody that’s given me a leg up through the years, because without them, I don’t get to hit the racetrack. I couldn’t pick one person. I’d have to paint everybody with the same brush.”

As for what keeps the decorated racer motivated some 30 years and 43,000-plus starts later, the answer is simple: there’s no need for extra incentive when you do what you love.

“I’ve always been very steady and been able to stay in the upper ranks at the B circuit, so just keeping steady as she goes,” Scott said. “It’s my life. It’s what I do. I treat it very much like a job. I go to work, and I do the very best I can while I’m there, and then I shut the lights off, come back, and try it again the next day.”

Looking ahead, Scott intends to keep his wheels in motion… Next stop, 7,000 wins?

“I’m going to keep working towards it,” he said. “I’m 55 in November, and I’ve got my aches and pains like anybody who’s 55 that’s raced horses for that long, but I’ll keep plugging away, and I’ll let my body tell me.”