by Melissa Keith

When McWicked Time crossed the wire at Rideau Carleton Raceway on Wednesday (April 27), the two-length victory also marked the crossing of Robbie Robinson from full-time owner/trainer/driver to owner and part-time trainer.

“It was a big relief for me, because I decided before the meet started that my next win was going to be my last one,” Robinson told HRU on Monday (May 5). “I pretty much knew, going to the three-quarter pole. I was pretty confident because he felt really good. I hadn’t pulled the plugs, and I looked at the body language of [Guy Gagnon’s] horse [Flash Cube] and thought I had the advantage.”

As the Green Day song “Good Riddance” played over the Rideau sound system after the race, Robinson removed his blue and gold driving colors, right in the winner’s circle.

“You know, they take the shoes off horses when they retire, so I said, I’ll take the colors off,” he said adding with a laugh, “I made sure I had pants on underneath, so there were no surprises there.”

He retired from driving with 1,126 victories from 10,797 recorded drives and $4,666,401 in purse winnings.

Robinson’s harness racing career began by following in his father Carl’s footsteps. 

“My dad was involved,” Robbie said. “He got involved in 1969 I think, and he bought a horse called Cardinal Girl. I don’t think she ever raced. Then his next couple of horses were really successful. He bought a horse called Owen Creed for $200 at the Toronto sale, the CNE [Canadian National Exhibition]. He won 10 out of 12 races, and then they sold him for $4,500, which was big money in 1970. His next horse was a trotting mare named Willbrook May, and she won 17 races the year he bought her.”

Robbie’s father Carl was part of the last Canadian generation to work alongside horses on a regular basis in everyday society, not just at racetracks or other specialized equestrian settings.

“My dad was always a horseman,” Robbie said. “He was a manager at Loblaws [grocery stores]. He worked there for 37 years, but his first job away from home, he drove a team of horses when he was 13 years old for Ontario Hydro. You know those metal towers you see? He was driving teams of horses to bring in things to build the metal towers.”

Robbie added that while he was never pressured to get involved with horses, he always loved being around animals, so it came naturally.

“We had this one mare called Babes Girl,” he said. “My dad used to have a two-ton truck… Coming home from the races one night, she kicked through the back of it, right past his head. But this mare, she’d be on the crossties and I was just a little fella, running around beneath her and she would never move. I love the horses. I was just always around them. We always had a bunch of horses, and when I was little, I could roll a bandage quicker than anybody.”

Robbie remembered his sisters taking him into grandstands before he was old enough to enter the paddock at local racetracks. He said it helped him develop a sharp eye for picking winners. It also whetted his appetite for driving.

“Believe it or not, when I started driving, I only weighed 120 pounds,” said the 58-year-old horseman. “Actually, the first races I got to drive in were at the Odessa Fair, but it wasn’t sanctioned, so it’s not on the records, but I won both heats. The track wasn’t quite a half-mile track, because the last heat was 1:48 or so. Maybe it was a sign of things to come for the speed!”

Robbie said he remembered writing his drivers’ exam at the kitchen table when he was 18. He was prepared to drive four family-owned horses in qualifiers the following week at Kingston Park Raceway. “The race secretary said, ‘No, you’re not! You’re not using your horses in the qualifiers. We’ll make sure you have four drives,’” Robbie said. “I won lots of qualifiers right off the bat, but the catch driving part didn’t come until later.”

He won his first pari-mutuel drive at Kingston Park with a horse named Karens Happy Lad the same year.

“I remember my future brother-in-law, John Murphy, and I went and got us a bottle of vodka,” Robbie said. “We were going to a school dance, and I got sick in the middle of the dance floor. I got escorted out. I drove that Sunday and I still had a headache. And it was funny, the same horse I won with, I was coming to the top of the stretch and went to hit him, and the whip went flying. So, I had no whip the rest of the race. I never did that again.”

Robbie drove one race at Greenwood Raceway when he was still 18.

“I went to go work for Bill Wellwood for six months,” he said. “I drove a mare called Ore Dana. It was pretty uneventful. She was sitting 10th, then moved up into eighth on the backstretch, and I still think she’s there somewhere. Well, I would think that, other than she’s the mother of Elegant Killean, the first horse that Jody Jamieson ever won with.”

A year later, Robbie drove — and won — his first race at Rideau Carleton Raceway with a trotter named Mountain Trout.

“Sporadically, I’d come [to Rideau Carleton] and pick up a win every year,” he said. “I think I was like 24 and starting to do good. I was working for Ted Huntback, and he was the first guy to give me a real good chance at catch driving because he would send me to Ottawa. He sent me to drive at Greenwood one time. I just got beat at the wire. I was so happy, but I was disappointed at the same time.”

After meeting his future wife Jacqueline Dinelle when she was paddocking a horse at Rideau Carleton, Robbie relocated to Metcalfe, ON, near Ottawa. He said that his highlight of racing at the track for 40 years was when he won an Ontario Sires Stakes Gold elimination with Jim Masse’s 2-year-old trotting colt Tracs (3, 1:56.1f; $265,358) on Aug. 15, 1999.

A decade later, Robbie recorded his most personally-significant training victory, at Mohawk Racetrack. He had first driven Gutsy Volo (5, 1:52.4s; $246,748) at Mohawk in a break-marred effort on July 13, 2008. The trotting gelding jumped it off again a week later at the Campbellville track. He went on to race at other tracks that season, before returning to Mohawk with a fourth-place finish on May 31, 2009, with his trainer in the sulky. Gutsy Volo and driver Mike Saftic debuted in the Mohawk open trot on June 29, 2009. At odds on 9-1, he was a relative longshot.

“Gutsy Volo had finished second two weeks in a row, and he had to jump two classes and race in the open,” Robbie said. “He come first up and went toe-to-toe with San Pail. The last three-eighths, they raced like a team, but we got up at the wire to win. That was really special.”

San Pail was later voted 2009 O’Brien Older Trotting Horse of the Year.

Known as a skilled developer of young and problem horses, Robbie named multiple OSS Gold and Simcoe Stake winner Warrawee Vicky (3, 1:54s; $304,035) as one mare he was proud to have helped get started. She won her first-ever qualifier with trainer Robbie in the bike at Rideau Carleton on June 16, 2019, then broke her maiden with him driving at Woodbine Racetrack, before moving to the barn of Scott McEneny.

“At one point, I won with The Magic Of Life [3, 1:55.4m; $139,127] at Mohawk [May 23, 2019], and my next drive there was Warrawee Vicky [June 25, 2019], and then my next drive there was [the maiden win in first career start for] Tokyo Seelster [5, 1:51.4s; $376,939, on June 30, 2020],” he told HRU. “I got three wins in a row there, so that was pretty special.”

Stepping back from driving and, to a lesser extent, training, Robbie said he “probably won’t” continue to look for diamonds in the rough.

“A lot of people know me for developing problem trotters, but I can’t get them anymore,” he said. “I used to be able to get them, but after 2013, trotters became too valuable in the Amish market, which kind of ruined the kinds of horses that I could buy. You know, I’d buy horses for between $5,000 and $10,000 then. The same horses are $20,000 to $25,000 now, and you can’t make money with them.”

Robbie’s connection to the sport runs deep, even as his day-to-day participation is scaling back with the imminent closure of the Rideau Carleton backstretch next month.

“You know, I’ve got a lot of friends in Toronto and all over the place,” he said. “I might own a horse with the trainer I have in the States, or maybe keep one of the ones I have now, but I won’t leave the sport completely. I’m just tired of the winters in Ottawa; they’re brutal.”

The driver known as “The Rocket” said he currently owns four horses at Rideau Carleton, and has three in Montague, NJ, with Rob and Patti Harmon.

“I think one we’re going to sell shortly, and then the other ones will stay there,” he said of his U.S.-based horses.

Robbie said that he and his wife have a great friendship with the Harmons.

“I met them in 2017 when we had Kwik Talkin [p, 3, 1:51.1f; $215,998],” Robbie said. “A couple of friends of mine, Dave Reid and Steve Bray, they recommended I send the horse there. Dave Reid said, ‘Oh, you and Rob will get along perfectly.’ We’re pretty much like family now. We go and stay there all the time.”

Friends of Robbie will have a chance to visit with him at an upcoming retirement party at Rideau Carleton, date to be announced.