The story of Sintra

For the first time in Sintra’s 145-start harness racing career, there was no uncertainty that he would reach the winner’s circle last Saturday.

The bay Mach Three gelding officially retired in a ceremony at Woodbine Mohawk Park, Canada’s premiere oval, where he won the 2017 Canadian Pacing Derby. It was also a reunion between him and his original co-owners, the Menary family, as they took him to their farm for his post-racing life.

Dave Menary, Sintra’s longtime trainer, said the return of the champion, who spent his last two racing years with Anthony MacDonald’s The Stable, is more than welcome.

“The kids were screaming about it,” he said. “I told Anthony when he got him, if the horse ever needed a home, ‘make sure that I’m the first one you call.’”

The excitement of Menary’s daughters is one feeling, among others, the horse has brought to his connections time and time again. He won 37 times at Woodbine Mohawk Park, 23 of which he earned by defeating open company. In his eight racing years, he earned more than $1.6 million and was victorious 48 times. The gelding’s big triumphs and sustained ability earned the admiration of fans and the love of those closely involved with him.

Mike Guerriero, a longtime part-owner, said the iron horse is special to him.

“Humbling,” he said, describing his journey with Sintra. “I’ve been doing this maybe since 2008, and I’ve had some horses that showed some flash and some good ones, I’ve had a few that have done really well for me, but he was just — the consistency every year, you could count on him putting in his best efforts. And he was just a great horse to be around as well. He just (had) this thing about him. It was almost like a ‘he knew who he was’ sort of thing. He just had this energy.

“He put his work in all the time, he always showed up. It was very rare he put in a bad effort, and a lot of them were through no fault of his own — more than likely it would be soreness or sickness. But yeah, it was a fun ride. He brought us to a lot of different fun events, a lot of nice pictures.”

Two such events came in Sintra’s four-year-old year, when he earned the O’Brien Award for Older Pacing Horse and rose to stardom on the North American racing scene. That year, 2017, he contended with several powerhouses – future Hall-of-Famer Mcwicked, triple millionaire All Bets Off, and Grand Circuit stakes winners Rockin Ron, Keystone Velocity, Dealt A Winner, and Check Six.

On Sep. 2, he beat them all in front of his home fans in the Canadian Pacing Derby. Driver Jody Jamieson said he “scorched him out of there” from post nine to get the four-hole, the type of early move which he said often blunted the gelding’s big late kick. The pair remained trapped in that position on the final turn, but as every rival drifted off the pylons, “the four-hole turned into the two-hole, and away we went, the rest is history.” Jamieson called on him for his all, and Sintra exploded to catch Rockin Ron by a neck and win the $615,000 stake in 1:48.1.

The victory, over the continent’s best pacers, was a thrilling one for Jamieson and Menary, who embraced in the winner’s circle.

“It was special,” Menary said in his broadcast interview during the retirement ceremony. “To win a race like that on your own stomping grounds.”

SINTRA CANADIAN PACING DERBY REPLAY

But it was another race that year that Jamieson called his favourite memory and Menary and Guerriero highlighted as Sintra’s best performance.

Two months prior to the Canadian Pacing Derby, the gelding visited The Meadowlands for the $240,000 Graduate Series Final. The 10-horse field of four-year-olds included Dr J Hanover, who broke the world record in 1:46.4 in a preliminary leg, Grand Circuit winners Boston Red Rocks and Western Fame, and Check Six. He got “his ideal trip,” Menary said, as Jamieson placed Sintra second-over approaching the half and let the horse hunt down opponents.

Loaded with pace, he tipped three-wide on the final turn and turned on the jets. Sintra powered to the front down the stretch with with no work needed from Jamieson, and he streaked clear to a four-and-a-half length triumph. He stopped the clock in 1:47.2, which remains his lifetime mark.

“If I had to say his all-time best performance, it would have to be the Graduate Final,” Menary said. “I almost think he could’ve gone 45-and-a-bit that night.”

To Guerriero, it was Sintra’s coming out party. Despite watching it on his phone from afar, the thrill of seeing his horse cement himself among the elite makes the race number one for him.

“I think that was a turning point for me, maybe in my mind, that he belonged,” he said.  “Because that was when he went from three to four, and he was a nice horse, he raced against Betting Line, and it was really tough racing. We knew he was a good horse, but (the Graduate Final) is kind of where he changed gears. It was like ‘listen, I can compete with anyone, doesn’t matter who’s here, I can do it.’ And that, in my mind, was like, ‘I guess he can do it.’

“Even though I wasn’t around him, he was still able to give me those endorphins, those feelings. It was like ‘you’re 1,000 miles away and you’re still giving me that excitement.’”

SINTRA GRADUATE SERIES FINAL REPLAY

It was Sintra’s first win in a final on the Grand Circuit. Menary focused his three-year-old season on the Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS), which the horse finished with two wins and three places in the Golds and a show finish in the $250,000 Super Final.

He started his four-year-old season with three straight wins, including the first Graduate leg in a romp. He finished third in the Confederation Cup from post eight and took another round of the Graduate Series before his victory in the final. He then won the Canadian Pacing Derby and two Preferreds at Woodbine Mohawk Park en route to nine wins and more than $617,000 in earnings from 19 starts. For his breakout season, he was named Canada’s Older Pacing Horse of the Year at the O’Brien Awards.

Sintra, with his on-track successes, also gave Guerriero solace during a difficult time.

“It was great. I had a lot going on personally too, so it allowed me a pleasant distraction,” he said. “A lot of us do this (not as) necessarily a money-making endeavor. So, it’s those moments that you get, that exhilaration, those kinds of highs, and he provided a lot of them that year. He provided a well-needed distraction from other things that were going on in my life at the time, which was great.”

The horse came to Guerriero at the same time as Menary. Brad Gray was Sintra’s first owner — he purchased him through Daniel Lagace for $22,000 at the 2014 Harrisburg Sale and gave him to Lagace to train. Gray sent him to Menary after his second start at two, and the conditioner bought in with Guerriero. But an injury in the Battle of Waterloo elimination ended Sintra’s rookie season.

“There’s some injuries that we thought were going to be catastrophic,” Guerriero said. “One of them was as a two-year-old, we had to shut him down.”

But the gelding came back as a different horse. He qualified on May 6, 2016 and won six consecutive races to begin the year, including an OSS Gold and the first leg of the Summertime Series.

Betting Line, who earned $1.6 million that year, defeated him for the first time on Jul. 2 in a Gold before Sintra came back to win the $47,000 Summertime final.

Gray, Guerriero, and Menary’s gelding won once more in eight starts, ending the year with a show finish in the OSS Super Final — behind Betting Line.

“He had a great three-year-old year,” Menary said. “He was the closest — no other three-year-old beat Betting Line; he came close three times. He had a really good three-year-old year, but he wasn’t heavily staked, because of not racing at two. I think not racing a lot a two and (not) real heavy at three, that helped his longevity.”

Sintra’s durability kept him at or around Canada’s top level for four more years after his award-winning four-year-old campaign. He starred on North America Cup night in 2018 by winning the $100,000 Mohawk Gold Cup over Mcwicked and Jimmy Freight, who won the OSS Gold Final four months later. Sintra’s clocking of 1:48 was the fastest time in Canada that year.

He ended that five-year-old season in September after a string of poor efforts and troubles with thumps, but he returned at six in a similar manner he did at three — this time winning five in a row.

One victory, though, was vacated due to a positive test that resulted in Menary being suspended and therefore forced a change of ownership.

The partners tried to sell the horse, but Guerriero was unsatisfied with the bid and bought him outright. He then added Kelly Waxman, Nunzio Vena, and Frank Cirillo as owners and sent the gelding to trainer Stephanie Jamieson.

Jody and Stephanie Jamieson guided Sintra to another two consecutive wins, making it five Preferreds and seven races in a row. The gelding aimed for the Camluck Classic after his only loss of the year on May 18 but developed a wall separation — a hoof condition — and was shut down again.

Guerriero said the injuries were one of the low points of his experience with the horse.

“There was a couple of times we had to shut him down because of (the lingering effects of his two-year-old injury) and soreness,” he said. “We weren’t ever sure if he was gonna come back. And lo and behold, that old man just kept on trucking.”

Sintra’s persistence manifested in 13 more wins at the Preferred level at Woodbine Mohawk Park from 2020 to 2022. Menary got him back before the 2020 season and oversaw another flying start, this time four consecutive Preferred-Handicaps, before COVID-19 hit and caused a temporary move to the United States.

Sintra bounced between trainers as he won nine top class races in 11 tries that year and earned an O’Brien Award nomination, four years after winning his first. He lost by 15 of 111 votes to Century Farroh, who was also named Somebeachsomewhere Horse of the Year. Menary regained Sintra mid-2021 and guided him to another solid season, but the gelding’s performance level began to drop in 2022. Watching the slide into mid-level conditions by summer, most of the partnership wanted to sell.

For Guerriero, that was the other low point.

“That was a disappointing day, that was upsetting” he said. “There were multiple partners, and he wasn’t performing what they would expect of him. To me, he didn’t owe me anything — I was happy if he just wanted to race, and if he didn’t want to race, I’d be happy to shut him down too. But I didn’t have the funds to just tell everyone to take a hike, to buy him out and do what we needed to do with him.

“I was in a predicament where I didn’t have the funds to allocate. So you do what you have to do when you’re with partners, and you gotta disperse.”

But Sintra wasn’t finished winning hearts. The Stable paid $76,000 USD for the horse in July, distributing shares of him among the organization’s fractional owners. New trainer Harry Poulton improved his form quickly with a win and three top-three finishes at the Woodbine Mohawk Park mid-conditioned level. From there, they pointed him to another classic Canadian race — the $100,000 2022 Gold Cup and Saucer.

MacDonald said he was impressed to see another Sintra resurgence.

“When I got him, I got him as a horseman,” he said. “I thought ‘we’ll race him in Indiana or Illinois, we’ll help try and hide him somewhere, and if he’s a 50-claimer, he’s a 50-claimer.’ But it became pretty clear that he was far from a 50-claimer, and he was far from anywhere near the end. This horse broke his foot twice up front and came back to elite level twice. That’s truly hard to believe.”

The Gold Cup and Saucer was the race MacDonald always wanted to win, and his attempt with Sintra was his 14th in two decades. MacDonald’s brother James took the lines in the race’s trial, guiding Sintra to a two-and-three-quarter length victory. Then he drew the nine-hole in the final against stablemate Patrikthepiranha A, the best horse in Massachusetts, and No Plan Intended, who was dominating the Maritimes that year.

But it didn’t matter. Sintra followed out the hard-leaving Ideal Perception and snuck into the three-hole behind Patrikthepiranha A, who was driven by another MacDonald brother, Mark. The top two produced a blazing opening quarter of :26.1 as Patrikthepiranha A strung out Ideal Perception, with the latter only making front at the first station. Sintra pulled out at the midway point and put his vintage self on display, exploding to the front on the backside.

The previous leaders faded behind him, and only No Plan Intended and Jody Jamieson had a shot on the final turn as they emerged from the pack. Three lengths back at the head of the lane, Jamieson ceased urging as his old partner made it clear he would not be beaten. Sintra thundered to the wire and won the Gold Cup and Saucer.

MacDonald savoured the moment. 1:50.1 showed on the teletimer, a clocking that equaled Charlottetown’s all-time track record. He brought Sintra to the top of the stretch and walked him back in front of the packed rail for the fans, beaming the whole time.

MacDonald said the moment was awesome for him, and it seemed to be for Sintra too.

“I’ll never forget the Gold Cup and Saucer when he won,” he said. “If you’ve ever been around him or watched him race, it’s very difficult to pull this horse up after the race — sometimes you had to go around another lap. That was just him. And I remember, (after the Gold Cup and Saucer) it was almost like he was soaking it up.

“I pulled them up to the fence, and for a horse that can be so aggressive after the race, he walked all the way around the turn and let people take pictures with him and pat him on the nose. It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And it was almost like he was as excited as I was.”

SINTRA GOLD CUP AND SAUCER REPLAY

In the moment, MacDonald emphasized his fractional owners, saying “all these people represent horse racing” as he was interviewed on-track. Fans patted the horse, congratulated the reinsman, and snapped pictures with both. A cheer went up as MacDonald reached the winner’s circle, and the crowd there attempted to organize for a picture.

Guerriero, who no longer owned any part of Sintra, said he was hyped for the horse and his owners.

“I was one of the ones that I’m sure texted Anthony first, I said ‘great job,’” he recalled. “And I even thanked him because I didn’t want (Sintra) to go out on a sour note. He went to a new ownership and I was disappointed, but I was really happy that Anthony was able to get him — I wouldn’t say at the top of his game — but get him to where he should be: stakes horse, primetime, doing well. So yeah, I was really excited.

“To know that there’s so many people that got to be a part of it, and to see that picture of how many people that were in there, and how many people commented on the posts after that are all part of it — that’s great. It’s good for the industry too.”

Menary also never stopped being a fan.

“I was always rooting for (Sintra),” he said. “And it was just nice to see Anthony get the job done with a big ownership group in The Stable. It’s hard not to cheer for that combination.”

A few weeks after returning from Charlottetown, Sintra made a trip to The Meadows in Pennsylvania and rattled off three consecutive Open wins. His second performance, in which he scored in 1:49.2, MacDonald called “bionic.”

Sintra returned home to Woodbine Mohawk Park in November and won his final race at the Preferred level in a Preferred-2 on Dec. 3. The victory over So Much More, who was at the end of an O’Brien Award-winning season, became his last win ever at the track.

Poulton shut the 10-year-old down in February 2023 and sent him back behind the gate in May, but he was forced to low-level conditions. On Jul. 11, Sintra visited an Ontario B-track for the first time since his Confederation Cup attempt at four. He lost by a head but returned to win a week later.

As summer waned, he roamed between tracks. He went to Grand River Raceway on Sep. 25 for a conditioned contest. Scott Coulter secured him the pocket behind Ideal Perception, who, again, pushed forward to take the lead. Sintra remained on his back into the final turn, when he swung out and used his characteristic kick one more time to fly by and win by two lengths.

The victory came with bad news.

“He hadn’t had a great 2023, and he was a little bit flat at times, and it was just taking him an extra day to recover, his left hind ankle was bothering him a little bit” MacDonald said. “(After his last start) Harry (Poulton) called me and said ‘hey that Sintra horse, he was good Saturday, Sunday he had the day off, Monday he’s a little bit sore. I’d like to get him x-rayed.’

“When he said that, I thought the worst news I would get that day was that he had injured his ankle and he would need time off; I certainly didn’t think the vet would call me and say he was done.”

The diagnosis was that the horse’s cartilage was eroded, the joint capsule was bad, and recovery was taking longer. The veterinarian had worked with the horse for much of his career and presented MacDonald options to treat him for racing.

MacDonald took time for consideration, then made his decision.

“I sent a message out to the owners saying ‘I think we’re going to retire this horse. We could put him on onGait, we could put him in a sale, we could put him in a claimer, but he doesn’t owe any of us a nickel,’” he said. “’He was an O’Brien Award-winning horse one year, he went in (1):47, he’s made $1.7 million, and in the short time we’ve had him, he’s meant a lot to me himself. We can’t always do the right thing, this is a tough game, but in this case we can. And I think we should just retire.’

“It was funny because not one owner objected — not one.  Everybody just asked ‘where will be able to go?’ and ‘do you have a home for him?’”

MacDonald knew who to go to for that.

“When we bought the horse, Dave Menary was kind of upset that they had sold him, I don’t think he was in a position to do anything about it,” he said. “And he said to me when we bought the horse ‘if you’re ever done with him, we’d be happy to have him back, my dad and I.’”

After 145 starts, 48 wins, $1,691,168 in earnings, and one O’Brien Award, Sintra’s racing career ended. MacDonald publicly announced the retirement on a video on Oct. 13 and began the process of returning him to Menary. He also put in motion a plan for the retirement ceremony.

Menary said he was pleased to see a happy swan song and a timely conclusion.

“I was gonna retire him before he left my barn,” he said. “I’m glad other people got to enjoy him, and I’m glad to see him go out a winner. I wanted to see him be remembered as Sintra, not a horse that’s getting beat at the B-tracks. He doesn’t deserve that.”

His longtime trainer remembers the gelding for many things. He said Sintra’s great personality made him a joy off the track and that the horse fostered connections. “He’d jog easy, he’d train easy, and he just knew where the head of the stretch was.” That killer instinct drummed up a big appetite and a love for food.

“He knew within four minutes every day what time lunchtime was, it didn’t matter what was happening,” Menary said. “And I think he’s ate more bananas in his life than any monkey.”

Menary also remembered the connections Sintra had with him, his family, and others.

“I was always pretty attached to him,” he said. “In my stable, Mark Cecile took care of him his whole career, and him and Mark had a really good bond too. It was sort of like my wife and kids: when Mark was around, everybody used to say he liked Mark more, and then when Mark wasn’t around, I was his buddy. It’s sort of like my kids — everybody loves mommy and when mommy’s not around, everybody’s a daddy’s girl.”

The trainer said Sintra’s tenacity, consistency, and style made the horse a big part of his career.

“You’re kind of known by your best horse, and there was a lot of years Sintra was the best horse in the barn,” he said. “You’re the Sintra guy. And people love a closer, he made things exciting.”

“There were so many times where he was caught third- or fourth-over flat-footed, and no horse should win from there, and he’d just stick his head up and win. There was a lot of times he made Jody and I look pretty good.”

Of Sintra’s 48 career wins, 33 came at the hands of Jamieson. Sintra accounts for 84 of the driver’s 52,966 starts, but Jamieson ranks him near the top.

“I’ve been quoted in the past — (when) people ask me some the best horses I’ve ever driven, I’ve always mentioned Sintra,” he said. “He was homegrown, I got to race him from the time he was three until he was eight before Anthony got him, and he was always a treat. He was always just a wonderful horse, and it was great to be part of a horse like him, a horse that would line up with any of the best horses around in his prime.”

His prime years, in which he competed against North America’s best, gave Guerriero a similar “Sintra guy” reputation to Menary.

“I have some friends that I met through racing stateside, and not even people that are in the industry, more like people that are in the grandstands,” he said. “People would talk to me, and they would text me about Sintra all the time: ‘oh, my God, look at your big man, he’s smoking right now,’ ‘look at him, he’s on fire,’ ‘I can’t believe he beat so and so.’ All the time they’d be like, ‘kudos, man,’ and like ‘I don’t know, he might be the best horse in the world right now.’ And having that feeling like ‘yeah, guys, us Canadian guys can have some nice horses too,’ that he’s Canadian-bred, from a Canadian sire, that was amazing too.”

The journey concluded on Nov. 18 with the ceremony at Woodbine Mohawk Park. MacDonald drove Sintra onto the track, where announcer Mark McKelvie belted out an introduction and retrospective as the horse strolled up and down the stretch.

The fans applauded as the speech concluded, and a red cooler bearing his name and record went over his back. Jamieson held his bridle with his family, while the Menarys and MacDonalds lined up beside the bike. Each family got a headshot with him, and he was receptive to pats from younger members. Menary and MacDonald were interviewed, and Sintra later went home to the Menarys’ farm.

Jamieson said the return was a happy ending.

“Dave loved this horse,” he said. “I don’t think he wanted to sell, and the situation arose that they had to disperse the partnership and he just couldn’t keep the horse at that point. So that was disappointing, but it’s awesome TheStable.ca and Anthony and Amy thought enough of the horse to ask Dave if they would take him back. He’s supposed to be hanging out the rest of his life at (Menary’s) dad’s farm, which is beautiful. He’ll love it, and I love it, I’m pumped about it.”

Guerriero was pleased that MacDonald made the call at the right time. He called it a relief as he wished he would have been able to retire him rather than sell.

“He did so many good things for me,” Guerriero said. “He helped me buy so many other horses, he got me through a rough year of my life personally, giving me some excitement. So I really wanted to do good by him. And doing good by him would be knowing he’s going to be kept well at home with us. So I was ecstatic.”

He also expressed gratitude to MacDonald for the gesture and his care of the horse.

“Thanks Anthony,” he said. “I realized what a good horseman Anthony is — I know he is, but now I got to feel that firsthand. His first call was saying ‘that’s what we’re gonna do by this horse, we want him to go back to you.’ That’s class.”

Throughout his life, Sintra provided excitement to many people. His owners, trainers, drivers, and fans got behind him as he raced his heart out every week. Menary, Guerriero, and Jamieson were hopeful and optimistic, but uncertain of his chances at a Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame induction. MacDonald expressed no doubt in a matter-of-fact rundown of the horse’s case, saying “I don’t see how he couldn’t be — he won in (1):47, raced against the best horses in the world, made $1.7 million, a lot of it in Canada, and showed off how good he was. He really represented an entire country for a year or two. How he couldn’t be in the Hall of Fame would be shocking to me.”

Regardless, it’s clear the horse is a legend in the minds of many that knew him. His owners, trainer, and driver emphasized their esteem for the horse and their connection with him.

And there may be room for a few more memories.

“He’s gonna have to wind down and learn to enjoy retirement as much as he enjoyed racing,” Menary said. “Winter’s coming, but I think as long as he’s sound and not too fat, the girls are looking forward to maybe riding him a little bit.”

by Nicholas Barnsdale, for Harnesslink