by Matthew Lomon

The race for the Johnston Cup, bestowed annually on the trainer atop the leaderboard at the end of the Ontario Sires Stakes season, is a lengthy, arduous endeavor.

Few know the feeling better than veteran trainer Gregg McNair, who currently leads his fellow conditioners with 123 Johnston points through the first three months of the 2024 OSS program.

As McNair prepares his charges for the home stretch of the OSS’ 50th Anniversary campaign, the savvy horseman knows it’s all about the numbers.

“Well, what helps you the most is building some strong numbers in the starts category,” McNair said. “This year, we trained quite a few trotters, so that helped us on the trotting side. We normally don’t have too many trotters. We didn’t train nearly as many pacers as we usually do, so we’ll be down on the entries on the pacing side.”

The Guelph, ON-based horseman’s trotter-heavy approach has paid dividends thus far.

Across a board-high 54 starts, McNair’s pupils have compiled 10 wins (most), nine seconds (most), and one third.

The Johnston Cup, which was established in 1993 in memory of Bruce Johnston, publisher of The Canadian Sportsman magazine, follows a simple point system to determine the winner.

Four points are awarded for each win, three for each second, two for each third, and one for each start.

While McNair noted that it gets “a little tougher each year,” accumulating coveted Johnston points has become second nature, even if it didn’t seem so at first.

“Back years ago, when we first started, I never ever thought I’d ever be up near the top because, like I said, you have to race so many horses from the start right through to the end of the Grassroots finals and the Super Finals,” McNair said.

“We were only racing maybe half a dozen horses in the stakes then and it never ever crossed my mind that we’d ever be close to the top of the board.”

McNair’s big breakthrough came in 2012, when he hoisted the first of his five Johnston Cup titles (2012-14, 2019, 2021).

“It’s something to look back on and say that to win even one of them is pretty cool,” he said. “It’s quite an honor to win it. There are top trainers up here all the time.”

Among the elite trainers to share the oval with McNair was Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Famer, Bob McIntosh, who died on July 28 at the age of 71.

In the midst of yet another intense OSS competition, McNair stepped back to remember one of the game’s greats.

“I would think I raced against him more than anybody because I had a stable in Windsor for 10 or 11 years in the ’80s and ’90s and we’d race against him all the time at that track.”

McNair began his training career at the now defunct Windsor Raceway, where he joined G G Rita and driver Ken Hardy in the winner’s circle after his first career start in 1980.

“Then we continued to compete after we moved up,” he said. “Bob was racing up here ahead of us, and we’d always race against him up here and in the Sires Stakes.

“We sure will miss hearing his name around the track.”

As McNair put it, even on the days you bested McIntosh, he would still be right on your heels.

“He was even racing the Grand Circuit back then,” McNair said. “I wasn’t, but Bob was the main opposition down there, too. If you were to ever win any dashes down there, he’d probably be the guy in second.”

McNair’s quest for yet another Johnston Cup crown continues over the weekend at Kawartha Downs (today, Aug. 9), where he will send out Beau Bear, a 2-year-old bay colt in search of career win number one.

Alongside the son of Bettors Delight, McNair’s roster of OSS competitors includes two exciting Green Manalishi offspring in Galen Erso and Sprite Seelster.

The former is another 2-year-old bay colt who has excelled in three OSS starts, going 2-1-0. Galen Erso last raced on Aug. 5 in a $150,000 OSS Gold Mid-Season final at Mohawk, finishing second.

The latter, a competitor in the 2-year-old fillies division, is coming off a tough trip last time out (ninth) but showed plenty of promise with a strong second in a $95,000 one-mile trot back on July 11 at Mohawk.

Despite the early success, McNair said he is still very much in the tinkering phase. But that’s normal at this point in the junction.

“I think I have a couple horses, maybe one or two, that could probably move up in class and probably one or two that could go down in class,” he said. “It’s still pretty early, especially for 2-year-olds. But things are rolling by quickly, so you have to move on the fly.”

As McNair continues to adjust his playbook, the accomplished conditioner remains upbeat ahead of what should be a dynamic finish to the 2024 OSS slate.

“We’re happy with how things are going,” McNair said, adding with a laugh, “If we’re complaining, then a lot of other people should be too. There’s still lots of horses that haven’t made any money but some of them have. It’s hard, some of them you think are a little better than what they turn out to be and it throws you off a bit. But some come the other way.

“There’s usually a reason for everything with the races. It just takes a while to find out what it is. That’s all.”

Some 32 years, 17,985 wins, and $59.3 million in earnings later, McNair finds himself, once again, firmly in the mix for a sixth Johnston Cup trophy.