Natalie Elliott didn’t have to go far to find her passion for harness racing

by Matthew Lomon

Natalie Elliott doesn’t need a greater purpose to contextualize her deep connection to standardbred racing, its equine athletes, and the people around her – all the devoted horsewoman needs is what already lives within her.

“It’s passion,” Elliott said without hesitation. “It’s driven by a love of life, not reward money. It’s literally that I want to be here. I want to do it. I want to see it all be true.”

A native of Clinton, ON, Elliott grew up one street over from the renowned raceway that has stood as a pillar of the quaint community for nearly six decades.

Her childhood, however, didn’t include many visits to the racetrack. In fact, she wasn’t at all aware of the world that existed just steps from her front yard.

Then, one Sunday afternoon changed everything for a then 10-year-old Elliott.

“I went to the races with my grandparents and my grandmother came down to the vehicle in the Clinton homestretch where we were hanging out and said, ‘Do you want to go see the horse that won the race today?” Elliott said. “A 10-year-old girl sitting, watching races would much rather be hands on touching these majestic animals, so I went to the barn with her after he raced – and that was it. Every day after school, I’d walk through the barn grounds afterwards… Just one horse race had me hooked.”

It was through her budding attachment to horses and the sport of racing that Elliott developed a bond with local horseman Frank MacDonald.

“He was a very modest man; kind and gentle,” Elliott said. “He was a grandfather figure to me.”

The respected industry veteran owned the horse whom a wide-eyed Elliott greeted after a trip to the winner’s circle that Sunday at Clinton Raceway.

The pair soon became inseparable.

“From that moment forward, I ended up at the track with Frank most Saturday and Sunday mornings for their foreseeable future,” she said.

MacDonald, Elliott’s mentor, taught her everything from how to muck the stalls and bathe, brush and feed horses to properly harnessing them and wrapping their legs.

He even helped Elliott obtain her groom license, at just 10 years old.

Unfortunately, their time together was cut unexpectedly short, when MacDonald passed away suddenly in 2007.

A teenage Elliott was stunned upon learning what had happened.

“Saturday morning, I woke up and heard the news because his lifelong best friend was with my grandmother,” she said. “They contacted me before I went to the barn that morning.

“Frank and I had been at the races Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday together that week alone. I was 15 at the time and now all of a sudden, he’s gone, but he’s got a barn full of horses. I was the groom that kind of picked up the pieces for the family in those, ‘What are we going to do?’ kind of days.”

In a tribute to MacDonald published on Standardbred Canada in September of 2015, Elliott wrote that she stayed away from horse barns for “nearly a year” after his passing.

In the years that followed, she made it her mission to preserve her honorary grandfather’s memory by adopting his signature orange and yellow colors.

The bright, bordering on neon shades, remain can’t-miss.

“Just last week as I was pulling my colors on, a guy across the way from me said, ‘You know, every time I see your colors, it just makes me think of Miss Belle Bars,’” said Elliott, referencing an old mare of MacDonald’s named after his wife Isabel.

“I never met the horse because she was 20 odd years before I ever came around, but it’s neat to know that people still recognize my yellow and orange from the Frank MacDonald days.”

The feeling never gets old.

“It’s always heart-warming to hear those things,” she said. “Just to know that they’re not forgotten, that they are remembered, they made an impact, and they were the gentle person that I remember them to be.”

Inspired by her mentor’s teachings and spirit, Elliott embarked on the next step of her journey – acquiring a Racing Under Saddle license.

After doing so in 2014, Elliott began competing that same year.

She needed just two starts to track down her first win — in dramatic fashion — on Sept. 20 at Flamboro Downs with Amigo Hall trotter Lexus Hawkeye.

“It was actually in the turn after the wire that [rider] Riina Rekila congratulated me,” Elliott said. “My initial response was, ‘Did I get there?’”

Elliott did indeed get there, on the right side of a photo finish.

However, the spectacle paled in comparison to the events that took place in Lexus Hawkeye’s qualifier a month prior.

“We thought as long as I could get him off the gate cleanly, we’d be in good shape,” Elliott said. “As we’re going into the first turn at Hiawatha, there’s like 20 Canadian geese on the track and I’m just thinking to myself, ‘We did the hard part and now these geese are going to interfere with us and make him run or something – this isn’t fair.’

“There’s geese flying over his head, over my head, but he trots through them, and never missed a beat.”

Maneuvering through a skein of Canada geese was just one of several unforgettable moments from Elliott’s racing under saddle days.

But true to her roots, it was the people, and one, in particular, that made it extra special.

“I had a great sponsor, John Patterson,” Elliott said. “He also passed away, but he was an accountant for a lot of the trainers and drivers down the Mohawk way.

“I had a lot of family and friends that would come out every time and John bought us t-shirts as a sponsorship that were yellow and orange. We had a nice horse logo with a rider on it. We were team ‘Beauty and the Beast.’”

When referencing the team’s name, Elliott said with a laugh, “Whether Beauty and the Beast was me and John, or me and the horse, or John and the horse, it was never quite determined.”

Though, one thing was certain: Patterson had left an indelible mark.

“John was so good to me,” Elliott said.

During her time under saddle, Elliott also spent time sharpening her skills as a standardbred trainer.

Her protégé, at the time, was a veteran trotter named Thor Seelster.

Elliott was conditioning the Pegasus Spur bay in 2016 when she decided to take another leap and officially obtain her trainer’s license.

“Thor was my first training win, my first everything… I got my license with him,” she said.

Their bond has only grown stronger in retirement.

“He’s still in the barn,” Elliott said. “He still gets his warm mash at lunch and goes out to the field every day with my broodmare, along with all the other trainees in the barn. He’s 17 now and he’s my pet. He’s got a home for life. We did a lot together.”

Thor Seelster is joined today in Elliott’s stable by Heave Dude E – a horse who has made a profound impact both personally and professionally.

“His mother [Marclif Aisalinda] was actually bred by Frank MacDonald,” Elliott said. “When Frank passed away, she was sold but ended up in a couple different places because she had done well.

“I kept tabs on her and inevitably got my hands back on her a few years later. So, Dude [Heavy Dude E] is not only a homebred, he’s a protégé of Frank’s legacy.”

The now 8-year-old Holiday Road gelding remains a significant source of pride for Elliott.

Heavy Dude E’s résumé includes 26 wins and nearly $218,000 in earnings, headlined by a breakout 2022 campaign that saw the athletic trotter capture Horse of the Year and Older Trotting Horse honors at The Raceway at Western Fair District.

“He was a monster,” Elliott said. “You couldn’t beat him. He just climbed the conditions. He even got into the non-winners classes and did pretty well late in the year to come up with both those awards.

“He’s a special boy.”

Also on Elliott’s active racing roster is a trio of 4-year-olds in trotter Charmbro Cash and pacers My Little Friend and Lauras Crush.

The latter has been another anchor for Elliott and her family since coming over at the start of December.

“My mom passed away when I was pregnant with my son [Hugo], so Lauras’ owner, Allan Shelton, who was in Clinton, took on the grandpa role,” Elliott said. “He’s papa Allan and his wife’s grandma Brenda.

“Now, Allan is undergoing cancer treatments, but before he started them, he offered Laura to me.”

Although she was initially hesitant to take on another horse, with four already and little time to complete her day’s tasks, Elliott found comfort to do so from her 5-year-old son.

“He said to me, ‘Mom, of course, we’ll take Papa’s horse; we have to help him, he needs us,’” Elliott said.

Nearly two-and-a-half decades into a life she once could never have imagined, Elliott now finds herself helping others, just as they have her for so many years.

For the first-generation horsewoman, it has been the ride of a lifetime.

“I never knew these animals were right in my backyard, now here I am, 20 odd years later, in the thick of it,” Elliott said. “I truly didn’t imagine it to be my career, and I don’t know that it will be forever. I’ve got a young son that has to be raised, and there’s no telling where he’ll take me, but right now, I’m having a lot of fun.”