Clinton keeps Legends Day fresh with imagination and innovation

by Debbie Little

(Editor’s note: This week, Meadowlands Matters columnist Debbie Little went on a road trip to small-town Ontario)

In a recent column in HRU, Murray Brown wrote that there are three great small-town events — the Little Brown Jug, Gold Cup & Saucer, and Vincent Delaney Memorial — that should be on every harness fan’s bucket list.

With all due respect to Mr. Brown, I think that his trifecta should be a superfecta that also includes Legends Day at Clinton Raceway.

The community of Clinton, ON, with a population of a little over 3,100, boasts a must-see biennial event thanks to the track’s general manager Ian Fleming, marketing manager Jessica Carnochan, and their hard-working staff.

The Hall of Famers who put the “Legends” in Legends Day, explained why being there was so important.

John Campbell pointed out what a great job Fleming, Carnochan, and their team do to put on this event.

“They try to keep it fresh,” Campbell said. “Last time, two years ago, the Hall of Fame was involved with an exhibit; they’re here again celebrating. And then you add the National Driving Championship in and it just adds more to the day and it does bring more people, but it just goes to show the imagination and innovativeness that Ian and his staff have for keeping Legends Day fresh all the time.”

For Campbell, who grew up in Ailsa Craig, ON, Clinton has special significance because it’s where he had his very last drive on July 30, 2017.

“I promised the people here that that was going to be my last drive, and I’ve honored that,” said Campbell, who has attended every Legends Day event since it started in 2001.

With Canada set to host the 2027 World Driving Championship, Legends Day was chosen as the venue for the eight-race National Driving Championship (NDC) competition to pick a representative to join reigning WDC titleholder James MacDonald in representing the Great White North next year.

Just like Campbell, Bill O’Donnell is also a Legends Day lifer. He said the people and memories keep him coming back.

“It’s great to see this many people in a small town here,” O’Donnell said. “It’s unbelievable what a job they’ve done here this year, especially with the National Driving Championship. It’s always been big, but this is three or four times as big.”

Carl Jamieson said he was enjoying the festivities at Clinton, especially the meet and greet with the fans, but added with a laugh, “My hand’s getting cramped a bit [from signing autographs].”

It was an extra special weekend for Jamieson as his granddaughter Siara competed at Clinton on Saturday (July 25) in the Junior National Driving Championship and his son, Jody, won the NDC competition on Sunday at Clinton.

“It’s an honor to be here and do this for the people,” Carl said. “I’ve driven lots up here. We had lots of horses that raced in the Grassroots through the years… Before Jody started driving, we had lots of horses that raced up here.”

Doug Brown also drove quite a bit at Clinton over the years.

“It’s always been a good place to come,” Brown said. “They look after you well and the track’s always good. The turns are a little tight, but other than that, it’s a good place to race.

“Ian does a great job. He’s always looking for new little twists to everything, and this year is just awesome with the National Driving Championship and Legends Day all worked into one. It’s really good.”

Steve Condren has been a fixture at Legends Day following his Hall of Fame induction in 2011.

Condren competed in and won this year’s Legends Day Invitational Trot over Mike Saftic, Chris Christoforou, Blair Burgess, Doug Brown, Paul MacDonell, and Carl Jamieson.

“It was great to win,” Condren said. “It was good to see everybody again and the atmosphere was special.”

Some of Condren’s Toronto-based fans call him “The Technician,” because he would always make the right move at the right time and he knew what trip to give each horse, being that all horses are different. They also said he seemed to make very few mistakes during the running of a race.

Wally Hennessey was scheduled to compete in the Legends Day Trot, but could not due to a recent injury at Saratoga that left him with fractured and bruised ribs.

But that didn’t stop him from catching a ride with Michelle and Jessica Hallett for the eight-hour excursion to Clinton, so he could spend time with the fans and his fellow Hall of Famers.

“The ribs are doing very good; they’re chilled and about ready to get barbecued,” Hennessey said with a laugh. “It’s just an honor to be sitting here with these guys. I mean, anybody that’s a part of Legends Day has definitely had a successful career in racing, and we all know what it takes to get to be invited to this, so it’s not an easy thing to be invited to. When you’re sitting with this kind of company, it’s pretty special.

“They take very good care of you here. Ian Fleming, who runs the track here and everyone else, they couldn’t be any better to you. They just treat you like royalty.”

Even though not part of the Legends Day Trot or autograph session, Hall of Famers Jack Darling and Dr. Ian Moore, among others, were present to enjoy the experience.

It was a busy weekend for Moore who was at The Meadows racing 24-hours prior on Adios Day, and had to leave Legends Day a little early to drive back to Mohawk to compete that night.

“Well, they asked me to be there, being a Hall of Fame member up here, and I also wanted to go and see my good friend Wally Hennessey,” Moore said. “I enjoyed it. I always try to enjoy myself wherever I go.”

Just like Campbell and O’Donnell, Ron Waples has been part of Legends Day since the beginning.

“As long as I’m breathing, I’ll be here for the rest of them,” Waples said.

He cited the fans and atmosphere as a reason to come back year after year.

“You walk through the grandstand and everybody’s having a great time,” he said. “They’ve got a great crowd today, one of the best, I think, and you know, the racing is excellent for a small track.”

Waples knows plenty about what Hambletonian Day is like at The Meadowlands and what Hall of Fame Day is like at Goshen Historic Track. When asked how he would compare the experience of Legends Day to those types of events, he said, “I think they’re both on par. The fans are there because they love the racing, they love the horses, and you know anytime you can get that it’s always a good time.”

As if the Legends Day Trot and the NDC wasn’t enough, the Bet Ontario Handicapping Contest sponsored by Ontario Racing, HPIbet, and the Central Ontario Standardbred Association, was part of the festivities as well.

The on-track, in-person wagering contest featuring total prizes of $10,000, had been a big hit at its previous stops — The Raceway at Western Fair District on Camluck Classic Night and Woodbine Mohawk Park on Pepsi North America Cup Night — and Clinton for Legends Day was no exception.

“It’s really an initiative with Woodbine as well as our partners at OR, Ontario Racing,” said Klaus Ebner director, simulcast and remote wagering for Woodbine Entertainment Group. “So, we decided to find ways of really getting more players to the racetrack. We’ve been working on a handicapping contest initiative for a while now, and it just happened that we finally put these together in terms of the technology side as well as the marketing side. So, it came together in time for this year, and we said we’re going to try it as a sort of trial for this year.

“This is our third stop so far of the year… and then we’ll also have another one next week for Industry Day at Grand River [Aug. 3], which is their big day there, and then from there we’ll kind of focus more towards some of the bigger events we have at Mohawk for Ontario Sires Stakes [Oct. 3] as well as the Mohawk Million [Sept. 26].”

The championship for the contest will also take place at Mohawk on Ontario Sires Stakes Super Finals Night (Oct. 10).

“So, a lot of people are kind of used to the $2 win, place, show kind of contest,” Ebner said. “We kind of said, ‘You know what, like, why put limits on it? We’re going to try it for the first time as being a wide-open contest.’

“So, to that point, obviously, we’re checking the wagers to make sure that the transparency is there, and everyone understands that we’re monitoring the wagering. So, the leader right now [in the contest at Clinton] had a Pick-3 and a Pick-4, for instance, which are traditionally not wagers you would see in handicapping contests on the thoroughbred side or other contests. So, you wouldn’t typically allow that to happen, but we’re just saying to all the players, ‘Hey, listen, play how you want to play, and it’s more a case of winner takes all.’ That’s what it is.”

NOTE: A year ago I spoke with Mike Lachance about his experiences at Legends Day including winning the inaugural Legends Day Trot. He encouraged me to go and check it out and I told him, “If you go next year, I’ll go too.” Although Lachance was not able to attend this year, I did go to my first Legends Day.

It was everything everyone always said it was and more.

Thanks to Jessica Carnochan for making me feel so welcome and to Garnet and Nick Barnsdale for picking me up at the Toronto airport and letting me tag along on their Legends Day excursion.