Doug McNair reached win number 5,000 by making horses go fast
by Melissa Keith
Doug McNair’s 5,000th driving win came courtesy of pacer Wicked Express, in race 9 on Monday (Jan. 19) at Woodbine Mohawk Park. Leaving down the center of the track to take the early lead, the 1-5 favorite maintained command from gate-to-wire over a snowy racing surface. Under mild urging in deep stretch, the 4-year-old McWicked gelding delivered a win that had been tantalizingly close for the previous week.
“Five thousand is a huge number for me,” said McNair, recalling the victory a few days later. “I thought about it for a couple of weeks before, so it was a great feeling.”
On Friday (Jan. 23), he answered questions after winning a few more races at Mohawk. Edging out favorites in perfectly-timed wins with Nazare and La Miki N, McNair was clearly not resting on his laurels.
Nearly a week earlier, the 36-year-old reinsman was on the brink of reaching the 5,000-win milestone on Saturday. But in eight drives that night, McNair’s horses Superior Delight, Booker Seelster, American Road Trip, Wallace Hartley, and Ginger Tree Finny finished second in five races, with the remainder finishing off the board.
Starting the Sunday (Jan. 18) card with a show finish in race 3, driving pacer Shanes Dream, McNair’s quest continued. Two trotters brought him within range of win 5,000: Distance Learning capitalized on a race 7 pocket ride, edging out pacesetting Veracruz by a head; Sid The Kid repeated with a front-end victory in the race 8 open trot.
Monday night began on a promising note. McNair’s first drive was also his first win, in race 3 with pacer Volcanic, trained and co-owned by his father, Gregg McNair. But 8-5 co-favorite Carsonsbuckngo broke on the first turn and refused to reset in race 6. He pulled up with broken equipment. Two races later, Wicked Express came through with the elusive 5,000th victory.
Doug was voted 2017 Driver of the Year in Canada, the season of his first Breeders Crown (Gr. 1) win, when 2-year-old pacing colt Stay Hungry (p, 3, 1:47.3m; $1,303,709) captured the elimination and final at Harrah’s Hoosier Park. Although he drove the winners of two more Breeders Crowns, both at Mohawk (Grace Hill in the 2022 Older Mare Pace and The Last Martini in a dead heat with Miki And Minnie in the 2025 3-Year-Old Filly Pace final), he has not won another Driver of the Year Award. He did earn Canadian National Driving Championship titles in the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.
Doug was a noteworthy or primary driver on nine of the current O’Brien Award finalist horses: 2-year-old filly pacer A Clean Deal (p, 2, 1:50s; $329,394), 2-year-old colt pacer Windor (p, 2, 1:51.2s; $160,575), 3-year-old pacing colt Crack Shot (p, 3, 1:48.2s; $538,733), older male pacers Brue Hanover (p, 5, 1:47.4s; $547,341) and Ervin Hanover (p, 5, 1:46.2s; $1,309,785), 3-year-old trotting colt Galen Erso (3, 1:53s; $340,248), older trotting mare Bella Cavalla (5, 1:53s; $313,512), and older male trotter Logan Park (6 , 1:49.2m; $1,735,178). His one catch drive on 3-year-old male pacing finalist Prince Hal Hanover (p, 3, 1:47.2m; $1,117,881) produced a May 31 Somebeachsomewhere (Gr. 3) victory at Mohawk.
One of Doug’s top regular drives of 2025 was not O’Brien eligible: New York Sires Stakes pacing filly champion The Last Martini (p, 3, 1:49.2s; $1,163,786). The Huntsville daughter broke her maiden in a NYSS event at Saratoga Harness on Aug. 1, 2024, their first race together.
“My favorite race last year was probably the Breeders Crown dead heat, [driving] The Last Martini,” Doug said.
Doug also teamed up with a pair of 2025 Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) Gold Super Finals champions.
“My favorite horse last year was probably A Clean Deal or Crack Shot,” he said. “Both horses were the best in their [OSS] division, so it made my job a lot easier.”
Bettors Delight colt Crack Shot was trained by his father Gregg, now the winner of seven Johnston Cup titles as top OSS trainer. In 2014, Doug won the Lampman Cup as leading OSS driver; in 2024, he edged out James MacDonald by a single point to earn his second trophy.
With the 2025 O’Brien Awards gala coming up on Saturday (Jan. 31, 2026) at the J-AAR Expo Centre at Western Fair District in London, ON, Doug is somewhat surprisingly not a top-three finalist for Keith Waples Driver of the Year.
“I’m not sure if I’m going,” he said. “It’s always a great night out, so I’ll decide shortly. [Driver of the Year finalists] Bob [McClure], Louis [Philippe Roy], and James [MacDonald] all had exceptional years as well.”
Puslinch, ON-based Doug had a precocious start to his career. His first driving win was Feb. 8, 2008, in his first-ever Mohawk qualifier, sitting behind pacer Life Of Crime. He won his first pari-mutuel drive on Feb. 22, 2008 at The Raceway at Western Fair, driving Gregg’s trainee Eagle Kay. It stands as the mare’s only victory in 40 career starts. Doug was 20 when he and Greystone The Grad won from off the pace at Western Fair on Dec. 14, 2010, making him the youngest driver to reach 1,000 victories. Tyler Smith was a few months younger when he reached win number 1,000 in Aug. 2013, also at age 20.
Doug told HRU that he wasn’t looking to make history with his 1,000th winning drive.
“No, I never really thought about it much back then,” he said. “Obviously moving to the bigger track [Mohawk], it’s tough to win 500 or 600 races a year.”
Doug drove in 1,289 races last year, his lowest number of annual drives since his 2008 rookie season.
“I traveled quite a bit last year and the year before,” he said. “So, when you’re traveling, you don’t have as many starts, which I don’t mind. I get to drive so many top horses, I’m very fortunate.”
One of the best horses Doug was associated with retired in August 2025. Grace Hill set a 1:47.4s stakes, track, and Canadian record when she captured the 2023 Roses Are Red (Gr. 1) final at Mohawk. The victory was all the more amazing because it followed Doug’s involvement in a serious accident in the Mohawk Gold Cup (Gr. 3) one race earlier in the June 17, 2023 card. He was driving Wheels On Fire when rival Billy Clyde broke stride, causing interference. Doug and Wheels On Fire — the gelding he once described as “the biggest horse I’ve ever seen” — went down hard, but both walked off the track.
Looking back, Doug said, “My memories of that night were very up and down. They were shooting a TV series that night, so it ended up being very interesting.”
Although unsure of his own attendance at the upcoming O’Brien Awards banquet, Doug’s skills undoubtedly helped put many horses into contention for divisional honors. When matched with them, “I’m aggressive as well,” he said. Other than that, Doug said there was no secret to his success on the track: “I don’t know for sure. I’m just lucky that the horses go fast for me.”
