Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Stephane Bouchard

Stephane Bouchard, 42, a native of Montreal, has found his greatest success in the sulky in his adopted home of New York, where he has in recent years been prominent in the driver standings at Yonkers and Monticello Raceways.

He has recorded more than 7,000 driving victories, but his first experience with horses, at age 10, came as a barrel racer, following in his father’s footsteps.

While a college student in Montreal he became a regular fan at l’Hippodrome Blue Bonnets, where he approached trainer Pierre Touchette to ask for a job. His first rendezvous with Yonkers came in the mid-1980s, when he was a groom for a Yonkers Trot entrant.

"I came here in 1986 with On The Take," he said. "I was working for Jean-Paul Gauthier."

On The Take, with Gauthier driving, broke stride early in his elimination race and finished ninth (last). Gauthier, who also worked for a tree company in Quebec, died in a car accident in 1988. His widow then asked Bouchard to wear Gauthier's driving colors -- green and white and adorned with tiny trees. Bouchard wears those colors -- trees and all -- to this day.

He was first licensed to drive in 1989 and demonstrated his aptitude by winning 28 of 101 starts and a .404 UDR that year. His first win was behind D I Resplendent at Ottawa's Rideau Carleton Raceway in 1989.

In his career, he has driven in Canada, Italy, and Germany, but came to prominence when he became based in New York. Shortly thereafter, in 2000, he won the U.S. Harness Writers Association’s Rising Star Award. In 2001 he won Harness Tracks of America’s Driver of the Year Award, and in 2003 won more races than anyone else in North America.

He saw his career explode in Westchester as the Raceway's dominant force in the first portion of the decade, winning five consecutive driving titles from 2003 through 2007. His $5.3 million in local purses in '07 was a single-season record before Jason Bartlett went by it this season.

Bouchard piloted the mare Winnie The Who to his 7,000th victory of his driving career on Friday night, October 7 at Yonkers Raceway.

Winnie The Who, a 5-year-old daughter of Emile Angus, won the $20,000 fourth race trot in the passing lane by a nose over Self Righteous in 1:57.4.

"As I was getting closer (to 7,000), I began counting down," he said. "It was fun, but I didn't want to wait too long to get it done. Winnie The Who didn't really go when I moved from third, but when I put her inside in the stretch, she was back on the bit. I thought I won, but I wasn't totally sure at the wire."

The 42-year-old Bouchard, a native of Montreal, was fifth in the 2009 local standings with 153 wins at the time of his 7,000th victory.

He also shares (with Walter Case, Jr. and Luc Ouellette) the local record of nine wins on a single program. Both Bouchard and Case have done it twice.

Bouchard's overseas driving stops included Italy and Germany, but his career highlight came right here, when he guided Napoleon to victory in the wild-scramble 2008 Yonkers Trot.

"It's been a lot of hard work, but also very rewarding," he said. "You really have to have persistence."

Bouchard, with more than $57.5 million in career purses, ought to know.