Hunt Stables Harness Racing

01/25/2025

AGCO licensees & Standardbred Canada members can access two short courses for FREE this winter!

- Racehorse Respiratory Health (Jan 27th–Feb 7th)
- Gut Health & Ulcer/Colic Prevention (Feb 24th–Mar 7th)

Visit our website for more information! https://thehorseportal.ca/partner/cosa/

01/23/2025

Some unfortunate news to start 2025 💩

Our stable leader, our hardest worker, our most demanding, our pride and joy, our equine captain, the one and only, Premier Delight has hit the 60-day DL. 😢

After her last race, which the media department forgot to remind you of 🙄, she came up with a minor fracture in the right front (medial) sesamoid (bone). Which is a bone in the ankle.

The injury requires no surgery and should heal back to race form. She will be out of competition for up to 60 days. She is going to take her holidays right next to her new buddy, Pickles (videoed below), son of Lily's Lass.

We have 4 other race horses to look forward to in the meantime and we're excited to see who steps up in Prem's absence and wants to wear the 'C'!

12/25/2024

🎄 Merry Christmas to all you filthy animals! 🎁

Love: Us filthy animals.

Spend as much time as you can with your family and friends and eat all the good fixins!

Photo cred: Sosha Hunt

12/22/2024

💚 SQUAD 💚

From left to right:

Miguel "World's Best Daughter Dad" Freitas
Sonja "Sour Sis" Hunt
Premier "The Big Mare" Delight
Jeffrey "El Hefe" Hunt
Stephanie "Hangry Hippo" Jackson

12/21/2024

"You know what my old friend Scully would say"...

"It'll be fine."

OUR MEN!!

We are ecstatic for Rick Lancaster (Scully), Leslie Godlien (wife) and It'll Be Fine (Finn) and the success they've been having this year!

Scully, first gave Jeff an extremely generous chance to drive most of his horses, except Finn coincidentally enough, in the fall of 2023 at Fraser Downs in Surrey, British Columbia. Without knowing anything about Jeff save for a few kinds words ushered from mutual friend, Paul Megens.

After the fall season in BC, Rick was the one who recruited Jeff to travel to Minnesota and race at Running Aces in the summer of 2024. There, Rick once again played too generous to Jeff and once again allowed him to drive most of his stable, this time allowing Jeff to sit behind the "little horse", Finn.

Rick, Jeff, Finn and the rest of their teams enjoyed a successful summer together, working alongside one another, visiting the winner's circle together and cohabitating in a trailer together, drinking Budweiser, solving the world's problems and repeating Scully's favourite phrase at the end of every conversation:

"It'll Be Fine" 😜

Outside of Pat Hunt, Rick has been the biggest supporter of Jeff's career to this point. He has given opportunities, time and wisdom. We certainly cannot thank him enough and we couldn't be happier for their continued success!

Repeating a feat accomplished in the last Preferred Pace held two weeks ago at Fraser Downs, trainer Rick Lancaster sent out the top two finishers in the Friday, Dec. 20 edition with Itll Be Fine topping Rum N Raisins once again.

12/21/2024

91 YEARS OF AGE! What a story!

What's your excuse for not getting things done today? Ol' W***y ain't never had one.

Horsemen and women, like farmers, like most of the Hunt family, are a different breed. This is why. Never satisfied, never done working.

Continuing to accomplish physical labour as you age is EXISTENTIAL. When you stop working the body it weakens. Work is the key to winning at 91 years of age.

Congratulations to W***y! He continues to make history and be an inspiration for all of us to quit making excuses and get it done!

In a racing rarity, a harness driver over the age of 90 won a pari-mutuel race on Friday, Dec. 20.

12/11/2024

November 24, 2024

Just a few days after Premier Delight got the stable of the schneid,

Sunshine Magic showed her ability and won impressively over at Flamboro Downs.

Fast forward to the 47 minute mark of the YouTube video to see Maggie shine! ☀️

https://www.youtube.com/live/6ZWhqUuamNo?si=yQkWI7pgPklrcqNc

11/30/2024

Fri. Nov 22, 2024

Premier Delight does what Premier Delight does and gets co-owner, Miguel Freitas, the Woodbine photo he wanted. An early Christmas present.

Thank you, Prem 💚

Watch the race replay on YouTube by clicking the link below:

https://youtu.be/t6I4DHOFVS8?si=dkx-pbnciildX0Dm

11/30/2024

Occasionally Sharp (black mare)
&
Lilz Muscle (brown gelding)

A moment of peace in what is allegedly a complicated, love-hate relationship.

10/27/2024

We're getting busy back in Ontario again! 6 horses trained up, qualified and ready to go!

On Friday, Job Hunter made her first Ontario appearance for the Hunt Stable after a long summer in Minnesota.

Like the absolute pro she is, Job Hunter gave us exactly what we asked her for in her first start in over a month; finishing a strong 3rd in the big leagues.

Check out the replay below as we did not inform you beforehand.

We look forward to sharing Job Hunter's career progress as we begin the winter racing season.

Race 10 from Mohawk, October 25, 2024

10/27/2024

Here at the Hunt Stables we are obviously health and performance minded, and podcast obsessed. We've recently stumbled onto Dr. Andy Galpin's new podcast, PERFORM.

Dr. Galpin is a tenured, full professor at Cal State Fullerton and Director of the Centre for Sport Performance. We first found Dr. Galpin when he was featured on The Huberman Lab podcast where both Dr. Galpin and Dr. Huberman are on a mission to "enhance the human condition by providing the world with free and entertaining health, human performance, and nutrition education." We think you can trust the science being thrown around here.

Certainly if you also condition race horses there will be lots of science that you already know and hopefully, much more that you don't.

Today we're sharing Episode 1, HOW AND WHY TO STRENGTHEN YOUR HEART & CARDIOVASCULAR FITNESS. It's a great topic to begin with because heart health is existential to all of us from everyday civilian, all the way up to race horse.

There are many other pertinent episodes from this podcast like, EP. 5 on Lactate or EP. 8 on interpreting blood results. For now, we'd like to see if there is anyone out there who dives into PERFORM with us.

Leave a comment with your takeaways if you listen to this episode. We'd love to discuss our findings with you!

Happy Podcasting! 😁

10/11/2024

Pickles says it's a beautiful Friday! 🌞

Get out and go for a run!!!

Video credit: Jen Armstrong

06/17/2024

Happy Father's Day to the one and only champion sire in our stable. Without Pat the stable wouldn't exist or compete as well as it does!

He is a fantastic role-model and leader. We could not be where we are today without him!

Despite the picture, no, he is not (yet) in a wheelchair 😂. Just always occupying a chair wherever he is!

Happy Father's Day to all the Father's in horse racing as well. Many of us in the industry inherited it from our patriarchs and I don't think we'd have it any other way!

Cheers 🍻

06/16/2024

Sunday Funday, Funky Sock Giveaway Day at Running Aces!

Job Hunter goes postward from the rail position in the 6th race tonight! Looking for a 3rd straight win!

7:40pm CST, 8:40pm EST for our Ontario followers! Stream for free on facebook or YouTube under Darin Aces Announcer.

Get off your wallets and support the track by betting at https://www.hpibet.com/

Join us this Sunday for a night of live racing to celebrate Father's Day featuring a Funky Sock Giveaway.