A tremendous comeback to win Western Regional Driving Championship

With three races left in the Western Regional Driving Championship at Century Downs on Saturday (May 11), Phil Giesbrecht hadn’t hit the board and was second-to-last in the standings.

But the harness racing reinsman won every remaining round, catching defending champ Mike Hennessy in the final race to win the title and earn a berth in the National Driving Championship (NDC).

Giesbrecht, striking at a 21 per cent clip this season, started the card successfully. In the pre-contest races, he guided If Only Id Known to a place finish in the Fillies and Mares Preferred before taking the open Preferred with Samba Beat.

But once the Western Regional Driving Championships kicked off, he couldn’t crack the top three. He gave a smart steer to longest-shot-on-the-board Hf Aprils Kiss in the opener, picking up important points with the sixth-place finish. His other results were mixed: seventh with the fifth choice, fifth with the third favourite, and sixth with the co-third-longest shot at 6-1. The fifth leg was perhaps the crucial performance of the championship as Giesbrecht maneuvered 58-1 shot Riverunsappy to a fourth-place finish while beating leaders Hennessy and Scott Knight.

Hennessy, after two wins and two thirds in the opening four dashes, was still up by nine points over Knight with three rounds to go, and Giesbrecht had 30 to make up. This necessitated at least two wins and a sixth-place finish for the latter, with the points distributed on a 15-10-7-5-4-3-2-1 scale (in an eight-horse field) based on finishing order.

Odds-on favourite Short Sell Hanover (Bettors Delight) kicked off Giesbrecht’s run to victory, powering up in the stretch after a three-wide swoop to win leg six by a length in 1:57.1. Knight was second behind Baby Badger with Cenalta Flash and Hennessy leading much of the way but finishing fourth.

SHORT SELL HANOVER REPLAY

Giesbrecht then captured the penultimate race in dramatic fashion, holding on by a head in a three-horse photo. He sent Military Man (Heston Blue Chip) on a first-over march and got him to the front on the final turn, but the stallion was chased by Tajmania (Nathan Sobey) to his outside and Needabankloan (Dave Kelly) off his back. With the two closers bearing down in deep-stretch, Military Man found the line in time to win in 1:54.1.

MILITARY MAN REPLAY

It was then down to the finale with five drivers in contention: Hennessey in first with 54 points, followed by Knight with 51, Giesbrecht with 47, Sobey with 44, and Kelly with 42. Giesbrecht went to the front with Keystone Tenacious (So Surreal) and rated him to :28 and :56 fractions with Rockin Roller (Dave Hudon) tipping first-over for Kelly on the second turn. The latter got steppy coming down the backstretch and dropped back, leaving Tin Can Timmy and Kelly facing the breeze.

The challenging gelding was advance but remained two-and-a-half lengths adrift at the third station in 1:24.2. He reeled in the leader further on the final turn but came up empty in the lane, and Keystone Tenacious came home a length-and-three-quarter winner in 1:53.1 to secure the title for Giesbrecht. Tin Can Timmy was game all the way, denying Redstone Arsenal the place finish that would’ve meant victory for Hennessy.

KEYSTONE TECHNICIAN REPLAY

It was Giesbrecht’s first WRDC win and is set to be his first NDC appearance. He earned a spot in the 2022 event by finishing second in the regional but stepped down due to personal reasons. The driver made his pari-mutuel debut in 2007 and has since won 1,236 races in 9,550 starts with earnings exceeding $8.1 million. 2023 was his best year to date with 120 wins – his third season with more than 100 — and $1.1 million in earnings, the first time he broke the seven-digit barrier.

Giesbrecht emphasized his persistence in the early rounds as a big factor in his win.

“It’s fantastic,” he said of the victory. “It didn’t look too promising at the start, but I just kind of picked away, picked away, rode the fence a little bit, and I got some points with horses I didn’t think I was going to get points with. It all worked out in the end.”

Hennessy, via his second-place finish, will join Giesbrecht in representing Western Canada the NDC. The pair, two of Alberta’s best drivers, celebrated in the winner’s circle after the contest.

Work hard, play harder! https://t.co/ANgFfDGtXi pic.twitter.com/oWCDNSQGMj

— Trey Colbeck (@TreyHarnesslink) May 11, 2024

The NDC will be held on Jul. 5 at Hippodrome Trois-Rivieres and will decide who Canada sends to the 2025 World Driving Championship in New Zealand. The other two confirmed drivers are Tyler Borth and James MacDonald, Canada’s top two pilots of 2023, who finished first and second, respectively, in the Ontario regional. MacDonald is the one to beat, having won the Driver of the Year Award three seasons in a row and the 2017 World Driving Championship on home soil.

The two East Coast entrants in the NDC will be decided on May 25 in the Atlantic Regional Driving Championship at Charlottetown. The lineup will be completed on Jun. 2 when drivers from the Ottawa/Montreal area compete in the Quebec/Eastern Ontario Regional Driving Championship at Hippodrome Trois-Rivieres.

The final WRDC standings were:

1. Phil Giesbrecht – 62
2. Mike Hennessy – 61
3. Scott Knight – 56
4. David Kelly – 52
5. Nathan Sobey – 49
6. David Hudon – 43
7. Kelly Hoerdt – 42
8. Blake Piwniuk – 11

For more information on the National Driving Championship and its regional qualifiers, click here.

For complete race results, click here.

by Nicholas Barnsdale, for Harnesslink, with files from Trey Colbeck