The story behind the Dutch horses in Ontario

Ontario harness racing fans may have noticed the emergence of a rarity in the past year: the rare name suffix “NL.”

Lucas NL (Quite Easy), Lions Wish NL (Muscle Massive), and Lincoln Transsr NL (Muscle Mass) have all begun racing in Ontario the past 11 months — three horses imported to Canada from the Netherlands.

The man behind the Dutch-breds is Pieter Delis, a longtime harness owner in the Netherlands with more than 30 horses in his barn. Lucas was first off the boat when Delis sent him to trainer Richard Moreau last July, and the gelding made an instant impact. He won back-to-back races at Georgian Downs, one in 1:55.4, and made the leap to Woodbine Mohawk Park. It was a quick turnaround for a trotter who had won once in 16 starts in his home country.

Delis said the decision, a suggestion by his colleague Fred Handelaar, had two main reasons: race conditions and medication rules.

“One of the problems of the horses here in the Netherlands is that you always start on your total gains (earnings),” he said. “And the three horses that are now in Canada were one-two-three in the biggest two-year-old race in The Netherlands, so they have a lot of gains, and that means that you have to always run against the top horses in the Netherlands. And the nicest thing in Canada is that you more or less look to how much a horse did in the last three or four or five starts. In Holland, you can never drop to a lower class.” 

“Lucas had to run on Lasix, and that’s forbidden in the Netherlands. And we did try it in training, and it was a completely different horse. So we thought ‘no, we can’t send him to Sweden, it’s not allowed there either,’ so Fred Handelaar told me ‘maybe we can try sending the horse to Canada.’ And that’s what we did.”

Delis explained that due to the class system in the Netherlands, most horses end up being sold to Sweden. A horse that is forced to the top level in the Netherlands may qualify for beginner races in Sweden. For the same reasons, Delis sent Lions Wish and Lincoln Transsr four months later in November.

“The other two did win too much already in the Netherlands, and then you have very stiff competition, and you never win a race,” he said.

And winning is the top priority for Delis, a 63-year-old resident of Almere, who began owning horses after selling his company 10 years ago. Like many first-generation horsepeople, he caught the bug young. Delis visited the racetrack as a child with his father, who worked in a betting parlour on the grounds. He developed the plan to one day have his own horses, when circumstances allowed. When he sold his business, he used the spare cash and time to pursue that passion.

“I always had the idea that when I had money and when he had time that I would buy some horses,” he said. “And I did sell my company 10 years ago, and so I had money, and I had time, so I bought some horses. I am now one of the biggest owners in the Netherlands, and with Bas Crebas, my trainer, I think I have 30 horses there, or something like that. And we race a lot in the Netherlands, but also a lot in France – the prize money in France is quite high in comparison with the prize money in the Netherlands.”

He developed his love for the sport as he followed it through his years. And his favourite part: either you win, or you lose. It’s a game of concrete results.

“I grew up with it, I was a fan of one of the biggest trainers in the Netherlands in the 70s and 80s,” he said. “It is the directness of the races. You hear all those stories – as a yearling and as a two-year-old, all horses win the Derby, all horses in the Hambletonian – and that is nice, it’s a sport with a lot of illusions. But on the short side, it’s very direct. You win or you do not win. Sometimes you can have bad luck, but that is the nicest thing – the directness.

“I’m a sports fanatic, in the broader sense as well, and I like to watch a lot of sport. But that is what I like – the excitement of winning. That is what makes the sport nice.”

Delis has experienced that with his Canadian squad. Lucas has brought the owner six wins in Canada, Lions Wish has tallied three times, and Lincoln Transsr has won twice. This totals to a record of 11-for-66 for the Dutch horses in Ontario. After Moreau, Canada’s 10-time Trainer of the Year, decided to downsize, Delis transferred them to Francis Guillemette. The horses have won twice each in his barn and have been consistently competitive. Lions Wish, who was scratched from his last start due to injury, has missed the board once in his 12 starts since Mar. 11.

Though he was initially perplexed by the concept of “giving a hole”, also known as the courtesy tuck, he has gotten used to it. Overall, he has enjoyed the experience of having horses in Canada, and he said he has been happy with the decision to ship the trio across the Atlantic.

“It is a lot of fun,” he said, regarding racing in the country. “Another thing is that they run every week, and that is also quite different from in Europe and in the Netherlands. Normally, those horses would run maybe 15 times in a year for us. So it has been a lot of fun, and for us, there is a lot of prize money.

“In the Netherlands it is a very small sport, and you always get a bill; there are not a lot of horses who can pay their own training costs. In Canada, in normal situations, I do not have to pay anything to Francis. So yeah, that’s a lot of fun.”

Delis is also a co-owner of Breeders Crown champion Rebuff, who bought in through his connection with Lucas Wallin. It was his first U.S. purchase after being told to do it but to “start small” by Crebas. He therefore bought 10 per cent of Rebuff when offered by Wallin. He owns other horses in the United States, including five two-year-olds and some broodmares with Wallin. He also plans to expand the Canadian fleet with more Dutch imports after the season is over in the Netherlands.

“I think I will send more horses to Canada, especially horses who can start very quickly,” he said. “I have two other horses, maybe in October, when the races in the Netherlands are over.”

The two slated for a trip to the Great White North are Marcos Wish, brother of Lions Wish, and Niki Lauda – likely a name connected to Delis’s passion for Formula 1 racing. He also plans a trip to witness his horses live.

“It is great fun, because they race a lot, and they can earn their own money,” he said. “And I hope to see them live one day in Canada.”

by Nicholas Barnsdale, for Harnesslink