Stateside shots came quickly for Canadian driver Colin Kelly
Recently, he won 10 races over two consecutive cards at The Big M.
by Debbie Little
As a child, Colin Kelly grew up watching The Meadowlands. Now, as an adult, he not only gets to drive there, but he’s making headlines by racking up winners.
Kelly, 32, made 10 winner’s circle visits on the weekend of Jan. 16-17, notching five victories each night, becoming the third driver since 2025, and in recent memory, to have 10 or more wins at The Big M in a weekend. Mark Herschberger scored 10 the last weekend in November (28-29), while Brett Beckwith tallied 11 twice, but he needed the three-night weekends of Dec. 4-6 and Dec. 11-13 to do it.
Kelly has come pretty far, pretty fast considering that at the start of 2025, he was still driving in his native Canada, where short fields on the Ontario B-track circuit prompted him to consider an opportunity in the States that he’d turned down several times before.
“I got offered a job down here working for [trainer] Jared [Bako],” Kelly said. “He was asking me for two years to come down… So, when he asked me again to come down for like the eighth time, I finally gave in and said, ‘Okay, well, I’ll try it.’ And then it kind of just worked, so I never went back.
“Originally, I was just riding and training for him, and then I was driving a little bit at Monticello. Then it picked up at Yonkers, and then Pocono opened, and it just kind of all came in bunches. I started to get a lot of work and quality trainers were putting me down, and ever since then it’s just been a lot of work, and not in a bad way. I’m very fortunate to drive as many horses as I do in a week and for it to come about as quickly as it did.”
Kelly had been working for Bako at the Mark Ford Training Center in Middletown, NY, which eventually led to his first win at The Meadowlands, driving Gazoo for trainer Mike Kimelman.
“I almost drove for that whole farm, really, on and off,” Kelly said with a laugh. “That’s kind of where it all started. It was being there and just showing up every day.”
The Meadowlands made quite the first impression on Kelly, a native of Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island.
“The first week I drove there, I was trying to focus on racing, but I was just looking at everything around me, instead of being concentrated whatsoever,” Kelly said with a laugh. “It’s an awesome place to race so I really like it.
“It almost exceeds what I thought it would be, to be honest with you. You just can’t help but appreciate the fact of where you’re racing, because you go down the backstretch and you can see the skyline [of Manhattan] and everything, and to me that’s just the coolest thing in the world.
“Even though I’m from Canada, I never watched anything but The Meadowlands when I was a child. It was Sears and Brennan and Lachance and Luc Ouellette, John Campbell and Tetrick. It was the best drivers in the world and it made me want to watch The Meadowlands more. And now to get to drive there, it’s a pretty cool experience, for sure.”
Kelly, who currently resides in Goshen, NY, where he can see Historic Track out of his living room window, has positioned himself perfectly to be about an hour from the tracks he regularly drives at.
Now that Kelly no longer works for Bako in the morning, he said he plans on being available more for qualifiers and baby races and hopes that will lead to more opportunities and maybe even a Grand Circuit-caliber horse.
“That’d be pretty special, for sure,” Kelly said. “It’d be something you dreamed about, like driving a horse of that caliber. I was lucky enough to drive Jim Campbell’s trotter [Take All Comers on Jan. 23] at The Meadowlands, and he is everything that you’d want in a horse. He’s the coolest horse in the world to drive. And to even sit behind horses of that caliber, it’s cool… For people to trust you with a horse of that caliber, it’d be pretty special, that’s for sure.”
Jim said he didn’t know Kelly at all, but became aware of him in a random conversation at Harrisburg with John Floren, the owner of Coyote Wynd Farms, and his trainer in Canada, Clark Beelby.
“Something came up about Yonkers, because we have Once In A Lifetime, who was racing at Yonkers, and Jordan Stratton usually drives, he’s my first choice when I race in Yonkers,” Jim said. “And I said, ‘I don’t really have anybody in particular after Jordan,’ and they both said, ‘Oh, use Colin Kelly if you ever get the chance. He’s a really good driver and a really good guy.’”
Jim said he made a point of introducing himself to Kelly at Yonkers one night after Harrisburg, and had his name in the back of his mind just in case.
In regard to how Kelly came to drive Take All Comers, Jim said it was another recommendation, this time from Brett Beckwith.
“I had entered Take All Comers to qualify, because we couldn’t get a race for him at The Meadowlands, and I put Brett Beckwith down,” Jim said. “Brett had told me early in the morning he wouldn’t be able to go with him, and Brett said, ‘I think Colin Kelly will be there.’”
Jim said Kelly finished first with Take All Comers in the qualifier.
“He got along terrific with the horse,” Jim said. “And then when we entered [Take All Comers] for The Meadowlands, we just put Colin right back down on him, because he liked the horse and got along great with him. And he did a terrific job with him when he raced at The Meadowlands. So, that’s how it all got started.
“He’s very, very professional to deal with, and he’s a great driver. You know, you don’t win 10 races on one weekend at The Meadowlands because you don’t know what you’re doing.
“Racing at Yonkers, if Jordan’s unavailable, Colin Kelly’s the first choice I’m looking for next.”
Jim said he’ll also keep Kelly in mind at The Meadowlands.
“He’s proven he knows how to drive on a mile track,” Jim said. “He’s a guy I’d put him on any horse, any place, that’s what I think of him.”
According to Kelly, Jim was not the only Campbell that took note of his 10-win weekend.
Last weekend Kelly got a call from Western Fair race secretary Ian Fleming, where the O’Brien Awards were being held in London, ON.
“He was with John Campbell, and he called me and said, ‘So I didn’t realize that you won 10. John Campbell says, anytime you win 10 races at The Meadowlands, you’re doing something right,’ and to me, that’s just like, the coolest thing,” Kelly said. “I met John Campbell the last day he ever drove [on Legends Day at Clinton Raceway in 2017]. I think I was only 23 maybe, the last year he drove.”
Kelly is coming off his best year in earnings with over $3.2 million in 2025 and Jim Campbell thinks he should stay the course for 2026.
“Just keep doing what he’s doing because he’s very professional to deal with,” Jim said. “He’s already proven that he can drive a horse on any size track. And I think there’s probably a lot of trainers who maybe aren’t racing right now that have taken notice of him and will keep it in the back of their heads that, hey if I need a driver and Colin Kelly’s available, they are definitely going to use him. So, he just has to keep doing what he’s doing. Don’t change a thing.”
For Kelly, a third-generation horseman, racing is all he ever wanted to do.
“When I was a kid, I told everyone I didn’t need to go to school, I was going to drive horses,” Kelly said. “I thought that was the coolest thing, I was going to drive horses. Well, then I graduated high school, and guess what? You can’t drive horses in Cape Breton for a living. So, I drove horses in Cape Breton for like, two years, which sucked, but then when I left, I didn’t think it would ever come to what it’s actually been lately. It’s kind of like a dream-come-true type of situation. And it’s cool. I grew up idolizing George Brennan and George Brennan sits four feet away from me [at Yonkers] five nights a week.”
Kelly said he is so thankful to all the owners and trainers that have given him the opportunity to drive and be successful throughout his career.
“In high school, we had like 10 horses, so you get up at like 5 [a.m.], and you go to the barn, and then you go right to school, and then you go to hockey practice, then you go back to the barn, and then you go sleep,” Kelly said, adding with a laugh, “not a whole lot of time for homework, so it’s a good thing the harness racing thing worked out.”
