(Iron Horse Photo - Gregg McNair (right) with his son Doug after they teamed up in 2015 for their third Battle of Waterloo victory)
Trainer Gregg McNair didn’t have to think long to come up with the name of the horse that changed his life. After all, pacer Lusty Leader not only earned more than $500,000 on the track from 1994 to 1996, he helped slingshot McNair to the upper echelons of the sport.
Lusty Leader, a son of Abercrombie out of Helen Buck, won the $100,000 Battle of Lake Erie at Northfield Park in 1995 and was fifth later that year in the $300,000 Breeders Crown for older pacers at Northfield won by That’ll Be Me and Roger Mayotte.
“I was racing in Hazel Park in Detroit,” McNair said. “I was stabled over there and they sent Lusty Leader to me in the mid ‘90s.”
McNair, a career winner of nearly 2,300 races and purses just shy of $42 million, sports a career UTRS of an impressive 0.345. While Lusty Leader was one of McNair’s first great horses, it was more where Lusty Leader took him that resonates with the Guelph, ON resident today.
“We went to Lexington with him and while I was down there I bought a cheaper Laag filly that year that ended up being a nice horse,” McNair said, referring to Down Time, a Laag filly out of Computer Chip that earned more than $150,000 at age two, but cost just $3,500 as a yearling.
“I never would have gone to Lexington, but (Lusty Leader) was in some late closers down there in the fall,” McNair said.
Shortly after returning home, McNair moved his stable from the Windsor / Detroit area to the big Mohawk circuit and the rest is history. He said it’s all thanks to Lusty Leader.
“He just took off right after I got him. For another 15, 16 months, he was one of the nicest horses in North America.”
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