Richard Moreau on his appeal verdict: ‘My dream is that I’ll never have to talk about it again’

The trainer spoke to HRU after his 10-year suspension was reduced to five years, with two years and four months stayed. He is permitted to resume training in March of 2027.

by Melissa Keith

Late in the afternoon on Wednesday (Oct. 7), trainer Richard Moreau answered his phone. The call was one of the most consequential of his career. His Ontario Horse Racing Appeal Panel (HRAP) hearing concluded on Sept. 2, over two years after the Puslinch, ON horseman was fully suspended for 10 years and fined $40,000. Moreau and driver Sylvain Filion were identically penalized after pacer Funtime Bayama’s positive test for banned performance-enhancer DPO (darbepoetin alfa) on June 10, 2024.

“My lawyer called me at 5:30 yesterday [Wednesday (Oct. 7)], and I didn’t expect anything,” Moreau told HRU on Thursday (Oct. 8).

The length of the HRAP hearing list led Moreau to think that he would continue to wait for a decision.

“We were so far down,” he said.

But he was encouraged by the words of his counsel, Jean-Marc MacKenzie.

“He said, ‘You should know the ruling or the verdict before they start with Sylvain,’” Moreau said.

Although Filion’s HRAP hearing on the Funtime Bayama matter has yet to take place, the Panel released its decision on Moreau’s appeal on Oct. 7. The trainer’s 10-year suspension was reduced to five years, with two years and four months stayed. His fine was halved, to $20,000. He is permitted to resume training as of March 22, 2027.

“We were so far down the line that I thought I wouldn’t hear anything,” Moreau said. “I didn’t hear anything or expect anything, and then I get that phone call.”

As word spread about the decision, his supporters reached out in droves.

“Next thing you know, honestly I count a hundred messages between 6 o’clock and midnight last night [Oct. 7]…,” Moreau said. “This morning, it’s my phone that wakes me up because the messages were coming left and right, because some people were posting stuff on Facebook… I’m happy, but at the same time, surprised, because my cell phone wouldn’t stop!”

Among the congratulatory messages was one from driver Yannick Gingras, whom Moreau recalled babysitting when they were growing up in Quebec.

Moreau is still subject to restrictions set out in the original Oct. 31, 2024 HRAP decision, plus the condition that any positive tests for non-therapeutic Class I or II medications during the stayed period will mean that he must serve those two years and four months of his suspension. Even with months to go until he can get back in the jog cart, he said he was feeling “stress relief, a little bit” after learning his fate.

“You know, at the end [of the appeal hearing], I was kind of saying, one way or another, I can’t wait for this to be over,” he told HRU.

In his words, it all came down to “knowing your future.”

“It’s hard to believe you’re guilty of the worst crime and you never touch a gun,” said the 10-time O’Brien Trainer of the Year. “It never even crossed my mind that this was going to happen back when I was on top of the world, you know.”

Moreau has always firmly denied involvement in the blood doping of Funtime Bayama, but noted that in his hearing, “the lawyer from the racing commission [Brendan van Niejenhuis] said, ‘Yes, but you failed to protect the horse.’”

Funtime Bayama was stabled at Moreau’s farm ahead of the 2024 North America Cup.

Time away from racing horses at Woodbine Mohawk Park and other Ontario tracks has been frustrating for the man who once led the training statistics.

“I’ve been to the track once in a while; I’m just not allowed in the winner’s circle or the paddock,” he said. “I can’t walk in through [paddock] security, no. But when I walk into the grandstand, there’s like 20 people asking about me. Ten, I remember their name, [but the other] 10, I am getting older and my memory is not my friend. After an hour, people ask you [about the suspension] and I feel more like going to the pub and watching the hockey game than [answering] all those questions, you know?”

Moreau turns 62 on Oct. 29. He reminisced about beating the odds just to compete at Canada’s top track.

“When [Hippodrome de] Montreal shut down, not everybody could have moved to Ontario to keep doing what they were doing, so they sent me,” he said. “Half my owners were Quebeckers, and they gave me their best horses to try to make it… I was racing in Ottawa; in the winter, I was racing at Windsor. I was driving by Mohawk, and I said, ‘Hopefully I make it one day.’ I had my 10 best horses three kilometers from the track, at Ian Reid’s farm; Cal Campbell and Roger Mayotte [were] at the same farm.”

Coming from a non-racing background, the odds of eventually establishing his own stable were never in his favor.

“Can you believe, when I was a kid, I studied administration and finance?” Moreau said. “My father was a banker at the head office in Montreal, and I skipped school to go play hockey with the boys at the track… One day, I wait for the boys to be done, and next thing you know, the boss said, ‘Richard, you’re here every day, instead of every second day. I’ll pay you at the end of the week.’ That’s how I started in the horse business, waiting for the boys to come and play hockey.”

While looking forward to resuming his training career, Moreau said he would not return to the same number of horses in his barn at its peak.

“I used to run a 50-, 60-horse barn… One night, I raced 23 horses on a Saturday, [between] Mohawk and somewhere else. In one night… To be honest, when I shut down because I was suspended, I had 58 horses or something. I owned a third of a very cheap horse, and I don’t usually own too much, you know; an occasional claim, but that’s all. How can I say? I want to stay low profile and I don’t want a big barn. I probably have to learn to say ‘no,’ because next thing you know, it’s going to be full again.”

It will be an adjustment for Moreau, who described passing time and making a living while serving his suspension.

“The [farm] property has been rented to different trainers all along,” he said. “I just tried to keep busy all summer. What I did: cut grass, clean [the] pool, do the [training] track. Trying to find something to do lately, I was shipping horses for a transport company, left and right. It was standby; if they need me, they call me. They know I’m always available.”

Because he tended to focus on overnight horses rather than Grand Circuit and stakes performers, Canada’s Trainer of the Year from 2013 through 2022 said he did not have any major races he still wanted to win.

“I don’t want to catch attention; I just want to survive and enjoy,” he said. “Everything is already lined up [to start training horses again]; I don’t have to do much. The main thing is, don’t get my feet wet; don’t break any rules. My circle is getting narrower; people I trust, people I work with. Some of them, we don’t even need to speak because we have the same language. Back then, the employees were like my brothers and sisters.”

With his own appeal finished, will Moreau have to revisit the Funtime Bayama controversy later this month?

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said grimly, confirming that he must testify in Filion’s HRAP hearing. “I was ready to turn the page and never talk about it again. I have a meeting with the race commission [AGCO] on Zoom next Friday [Oct. 16], preparing for whatever’s going to go on between late October and November.”

The relationship between Moreau and Filion, a four-time O’Brien Driver of the Year (2012, 2013, 2015, and 2016), disintegrated completely after the Funtime Bayama scandal.

“We don’t speak to each other since this happened,” Moreau said. “I have voicemail or text message[s] [from Filion] from two years ago. I never replied.”

While clearly relieved, Moreau is still troubled by the experience. For a time, he considered leaving the industry entirely.

“I didn’t know if I was going to sell the farm or keep the farm,” he said. “I said, ‘One day I will live in a condo apartment, face the ocean, and nobody will know my name in the building,’ you know? But if they let me go back to the track, it’s 10 minutes down the road, [horses] keep me busy, and it’s not the sideline. It’s a real job.”

On Oct. 3, Funtime Bayama (p, 5, 1:48.2m; $443,049) won the open handicap pace at The Red Mile, his fifth win from 17 starts this season for trainer Andrew Harris, driver Dexter Dunn, and owner Punisher 11 Stable LLC of Freehold, NJ. Moreau said he hasn’t followed the horse at all, or even watched much racing, in general, during his own absence from the sport.

“I know that [Funtime Bayama] was an outstanding horse, and it was nice to work with, [and] it was good for my name, because it was going for a million [in the North America Cup], and the [Filion] family, I know them for many years,” he said.

With Filion’s appeal hearing slated to start on Wednesday (Oct. 21), Moreau is resigned to revisiting the subject matter one more time.

“I wouldn’t do that to anybody,” he said. “The only reason it happened is that whoever did it figured they could get away with it, but I guess they didn’t. I have nothing to prove. I just want to clear my name.”

Moreau said he is ready to testify once again, this time with a better sense of his own future.

“It’s going to be short and sweet and all I have to say is the truth, the truth that I swear… I don’t need to make up any story,” he told HRU. “Anyway, my dream is that I’ll never have to talk about it again.”