Third generation horseman Kyle Ruhl always found his way back to the track

by Matthew Lomon

No matter where life steered him from adolescence to adulthood, standardbred racing was never more than an arm’s length away for Kyle Ruhl – after all, the game was coded in his DNA.

A third-generation horseman on both his mother’s [Chris] and father’s [Paul] side, Kyle did his best to balance life on the ice with life on the track.

“I love hockey, but horse racing was the passion,” said the former University of Guelph goaltender. “When I was playing junior hockey, I was trying to train a couple horses at the same time too, but you’ve got to make a choice.”

It was after graduating university that Kyle — who had spent every summer since age 12 working around various barns — made his decision.

The Tara, ON, native’s foray into horse ownership started in 2018, when he teamed up with trainer Anthony MacDonald — whose house he was renovating at the time — to buy Screaming Hawk.

While Kyle only had the bay son of Angus Hall—Screaming Prayer for one year before selling, Screaming Hawk helped pave the way for the next step in Kyle’s harness racing career: obtaining his trainer’s license.

“I started buying yearlings myself in 2020, which is when I got my license,” said Kyle, who’s familial ties to the industry remain strong through his dad Paul, the track manager at Golden Horseshoe Training Centre. “The first one I bought when I got my license was off my uncle [Jim Ruhl], who was heading towards retirement.”

That horse was Halliday Dream, who hailed from a familiar bloodline.

“He was an Angus Hall,” Kyle said. “We’ve always had Angus Halls because my uncle bred a lot too, so I had experience with the pedigree and was ready to take a crack at doing this myself.”

Kyle, in his words, found “some success” with the bay out of the Striking Sahbra mare Always Dreaming, compiling a 4-1-1 line from 19 starts.

Numbers on a stat sheet, however, cannot adequately capture Halliday Dream’s true value.

“He was a handful,” Kyle said with a laugh. “That was the first full-in, hands-on, you’ve got to pay attention to everything, horse that I had. It’s not when I was a kid working for my dad, or Frank O’Reilly – my grandpa used to own horses with Frank when he was still training.

“I liked going to the barn and jogging horses in high school, but you’re not really indulging in the life yet.”

Kyle relied on both his family and time between the pipes to navigate his days as a neophyte trainer.

“I’ve preached this for a while – there is a major connection between athletes and good trainers,” he said. “Your horse is an athlete, so being able to spot and develop talent is a major part of it.

“We see it with drivers, and being a catch driver, too. All those guys are good athletes – James [MacDonald], Dougie [McNair], Todd [Ratchford], all the guys on the Mohawk scene were good hockey players, good athletes all around.”

Kyle’s athletic background continued to serve him well during his conditioning career, particularly from a scouting perspective.

Standing at the 2023 London Selected Yearling Sale, Kyle, with his father, identified a Green Manalishi S filly by the name of Show Me The Green as their prized prospect.

“She was my dad’s top ticket of the sale,” Kyle said. “I have a cap on what I want to spend on babies, and didn’t think she was going to be in my price range. Dad was more wait-and-see.”

Ultimately, the junior Ruhl’s intuition proved spot-on, as Show Me The Green fetched a price tag of $59,000 — over double his budget — leaving him with no choice.

“We let her go,” he said.

While difficult at the moment, Kyle knew the talent evaluation process doesn’t end with the sale.

“We still had our eye on her at 2 when [Marcel] Barrieau had her,” Kyle said. “She still wasn’t trotting great, but we wanted to keep an eye on her at 3, and saw she was popping up in a qualifier.

“I’ve been partnered with Carl Kuepfer of Triple S Equine for a few years now, and one day dad and I were heading back home and called Carl to ask if he was at Mohawk. He was, so we asked him to go see how much they wanted for Show Me The Green because she made a break.”

With Kuepfer on the case, Kyle was finally able to bring the brown filly home after the former acquired her from trainer Gabriella Sasso for a modest figure.

Moving swiftly to make up for lost time, Kyle had Show Me The Green in training within two days of bringing her home.

After a few tweaks, the 3-year-old made her first qualifying appearance for Kyle with driver Scott Young at the helm on June 25 at Grand River Raceway.

Both agreed afterwards that further adjustments were necessary.

Once the tinkering, which included tightening the hopples, was complete, Show Me The Green was ready to debut for her new trainer.

The only catch, however, was that Young was unavailable the night of July 4.

In stepped Daryl Thiessen, following a single instruction from Kyle.

“I said, ‘Daryl, I don’t care if you’re five-wide this whole race, you will not get beat tonight,’” Kyle said. “He goes, ‘I don’t know, man. She doesn’t have a flat line in 15 months.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m telling you, she will not get beat tonight.’ She won that night in [1]:58 – down the road, plugs in, and she’s been a lot of fun since.”

The impressive tally in 1:58.4 at Grand River sparked a sizzling run of six straight victories for nearly $23,000 in prizes.

While Kyle was hoping for lucky number seven in an Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots leg on Aug. 13 at Grand River, Show Me The Green’s unbeaten streak ended with a hard-fought fourth.

“We didn’t quite get the job done, but she still raced huge,” he said. “We had to wait for her, and we lucked out. She’s been really good for us.”

Joining Show Me The Green in Kyle’s modest two-horse stable is Clare Island – a rookie My MVP filly also owned by Kuepfer’s Triple S Equine.

Whether he had two or 20 competing for him, Kyle would coach his equine athletes the same way.

“I’ve always been a little more cautious or conservative with my animals,” he said. “I have no problem scratching a horse that’s a little sore somewhere and missing a few starts. These are athletes, you’re not going to send out an athlete with a broken foot to play a hockey game, so why would I send a horse out to race if they’re not feeling right?

“That’s one thing I’ll always stick to: treat an animal like how you want to be treated.”

Finding his footing in the game that generations of Ruhls excelled in before him has been a full circle endeavor for the netminder turned trainer.

Reaching this point involved some detours, but Kyle is exactly where he is supposed to be.

“I’m pretty content with where I’m at, to be honest with you,” he said. “I’m very busy with work outside of racing, but if I can just stay at this level of involvement – one, two, three horses moving forward, while I build a company and do all sorts of other stuff, then I’m happy.

“You try to leave, and you just can’t. I just turned 35, but most of my 20s, I was kind of out of the game finishing school and figuring out what I want to do with my life, and then once the dust settled, I kept finding myself at the track.”