Ridiculous eligibility requirements leaves major Canadian horse ineligible for O’Brien Award

Standardbred Canada’s many layers of restrictions and requirements has watered down a once-great honor.

by Dave Briggs

In 2025, Lexus Kody won both the $1 million Yonkers International Trot representing Canada and the $459,900 Maple Leaf Trot, his home nation’s biggest race for older trotters. He set a record for the fastest mile ever recorded by a trotter on Canadian soil (1:49.1) and he led all standardbred horses in earnings in North America with over $1.3 million earned. He was a huge Canadian success story in 2025. Yet, the Ontario-sired and Ontario-bred gelded trotter is not even eligible for the O’Brien Awards honoring the best in Canadian harness racing.

That’s not a misprint, but it is ridiculous for an awards program that states its guiding principle is to honor the people and horses that made “the greatest contribution to Canadian racing” each year; an awards program generally accepted as the highest level of annual achievement in the Canadian harness racing industry.

Lexus Kody, a son of veteran Ontario stallion Archangel out of Lexus Helios, was bred and foaled in Canada by Norm Dunstan of Caledon Village, ON. The trotter even exceeded the requisite O’Brien eligibility requirement of starting at least three times in Canada. He raced in both the eliminations and final of the Maple Leaf Trot and the eliminations and final of the Breeders Crown held at Woodbine Mohawk Park (finishing third in the final).

What made the former Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) competitor ineligible – to borrow from Animal House’s Dean Wormer — is a little-known codicil in the O’Brien rules that say when the Breeders Crown is held in Canada, those starts don’t count toward the minimum “three starts in Canada” requirement for eligibility.

Say what?

Blame the board of Standardbred Canada – which runs the O’Briens – for this one.

Asked for an explanation, Standardbred Canada CEO Darryl Kaplan wrote, via email, that in 2019 the board added the provision that Breeders Crown races held in Canada would no longer count toward the three-starts-in-Canada minimum requirement.

“The objective of the O’Brien Awards is to recognize the greatest contributions to Canadian harness racing, with an emphasis on honoring horses that compete regularly at Canadian tracks and ensuring that eligibility reflects a meaningful and sustained contribution to racing in Canada,” Kaplan said. “The Breeders Crown is a single championship event that is not hosted in Canada on an annual basis. Accordingly, the board sought to eliminate scenarios in which minimal participation in Canada — such as competing in a Breeders Crown elimination and final and only one additional race — could result in an O’Brien Award nomination.”

That Lexus Kody would have been a runaway winner in the O’Brien Awards’ older male trotter division without this restriction is a no-brainer considering his achievements and Canadian origin story, as noted in the first paragraph. He likely would have even garnered some votes for overall Canadian Horse of the Year (HOY) despite the perfect season by 2-year-old Ontario-sired pacing sensation and probable Canadian HOY Beau Jangles.

I’m sure the horse that does win the O’Brien for older male trotter of the year had a successful season. I’m sure I’d love to own him. But it’s pretty clear whichever horse it is didn’t have a better season than the one Lexus Kody had. That’s why I think the extra layer of rules and requirements has blown up in SC’s face this year. A most deserving Canadian horse got stiffed by a technicality. It’s not a good look.

So how do we make sense of all this? There is a lot to unpack once you get through the initial shock of how dumb it all is.

Kaplan’s comment seems to confirm what I’ve believed for a long time: that Standardbred Canada is trying to force voters to put more weight on starts made in Canada than overall achievement. You can see the same in Trainer of the Year category that requires at least 30 per cent of their starts to be made in Canada.

Don’t misunderstand me. The O’Brien Awards absolutely should prioritize the Canadian industry. Trouble is, as Lexus Kody’s case clearly shows, placing starts on Canadian soil over a Canadian horse that achieved the highest level of success, is at odds with the overriding O’Brien principle criteria to select the horse or person that made the greatest contribution. Worse, it reduces the O’Brien Award brand and significance. They have become more participant trophies than champion trophies; less a national honor and more a regional awards, which is a shame.

Don’t forget, the awards are named after Joe O’Brien, a proud Prince Edward Island native that had his greatest success in the United States and still was feted for his great contribution to Canadian racing despite it mostly coming on foreign soil. The entire awards was fashioned on it being a borderless industry where the O’Brien Awards celebrates the Canadian stars in it.

As a further smell test of how other notable institutions judge excellence, those elected to the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame – for their great contribution to Canadian racing – are much more likely to be major stakes winners and record-setters with a strong Canadian background, such as breeding and/or ownership, rather than ones that raced in Canada a lot at a high level.

Why have the O’Briens strayed from being the yearly version of that industry-recognized model of excellence?

“Standardbred Canada has determined that introducing additional criteria in certain categories ensures that those contributions are meaningfully connected to the Canadian harness racing industry,” Kaplan said. “Requirements such as a minimum number of starts in Canada are intended to establish a consistent and objective threshold demonstrating sustained participation in Canadian racing, while helping to maintain fairness, clarity, and integrity in the eligibility process — particularly in an increasingly international sport.”

That smacks of the board trying to orchestrate a desired outcome and being narrow-minded on what constitutes a meaningful connection. The Canadian harness racing industry is not only the racing side, it’s also the breeding side, which is essential. Producing great horses in Canada is the beginning of the equation.

Besides, why not simply leave it up to the voters – of which I am one – to determine what constitutes the “greatest contribution to Canadian racing?” Why do you need those other layers? If the voters decide Lexus Kody, while excellent, didn’t race in Canada enough to earn an O’Brien Award, so be it. Don’t scratch him from the race.

After all, I’m pretty sure the O’Brien voters get the assignment: Canadian first, if possible, but always lean toward the horse that has achieved the most.

As for the O’Brien Awards’ Crown codicil, it still doesn’t make a lot of sense even after hearing Kaplan’s explanation. When held in Canada, the Crown is a huge event that highlights and elevates the Canadian racing product and drives handle that goes back to local purses. Participating in the Breeders Crown on Canadian soil is an honor and tremendous achievement.

Most people would agree that being competitive in one of the biggest stakes events in the world, against some of the best horses in the world, is pretty significant. So, why discount it when it comes to year-end honors?

Yeah, yeah, I know, SC is trying to prevent that oh-so-common occurrence (sarcasm intended) of Americans racing a horse in Canada “only” for the Crown and one other start to rook the system to try to take home a bronze Joe.

Except, when a Canadian-bred horse has global success – beating European and American horses in the International, no less, with the Maple Leaf flying high – and is still shut out of the awards, it all looks kind of silly.

Sure, Lexus Kody’s most recent connections, the Burke Brigade, could have started the horse one more time in Canada to make him eligible, but prominent Brigade member Mark Weaver told me they didn’t even know about the Crown codicil – which also made their champions Louprint and Loua Dipa ineligible for O’Briens despite four Canadian starts in Ontario each. Even if they had known about the Crown not counting, it’s unlikely they would have gone to the expense of sending their horses across the border to Canada one more time just for this. It all seems unnecessarily trivial and petty given Lexus Kody’s 2025 accomplishments (as well as Louprint and Loua Dipa’s).

Why do I care so much? I’m Canadian and I used to hold the O’Brien Awards up as the ultimate annual honor in the nation’s harness racing industry.

There’s also another danger here. All of these restrictions in a largely borderless industry can be misinterpreted as anti-American. They could also be seen as anti-Breeders Crown.

These rules have already led to a rise in some retributory anti-Canadian sentiment when it comes to the Dan Patch Awards. I’ve already seen comments to the effect that if Canada is going to restrict U.S. horses for the O’Briens, why should Americans vote for Canadian horses like Beau Jangles for the Dan Patch? It’s all painfully unnecessary.

Fortunately, most Dan Patch voters do the right thing and simply vote for the most deserving horse. It’s an easier and more satisfying process and a true snapshot of the continent’s best each year.

Meanwhile, O’Brien voters are left to choose from an incomplete, less-than-optimal group after sifting through layers of rules and charts about each horse’s relative Canadianness.

It shouldn’t be this way.