Harness: Delving into the work-life balance of the modern catch-driver

Eons ago, in a time without time and a space void yet spacious, God decided to invent time. And after some time inventing other things, even God had to rest (which is honestly reasonable when everything you make is good, or so says your Old Testament). How God spent the time before time, I'm not sure. But I imagine it felt like eternity.

We all understand our time is valuable. Sans currency, time is the sole investment we as people can make. That's why time is money and not the other way around. But time also is valuable in the moments it encapsulates - watching your son take his first steps, baby’s first roller coaster, etc.

This world forces us to learn that we have to wrangle time. For one, we have to figure out our specialized labor we can provide the world just so we can eat. Then we have to balance our battle for survival with our need for family. So in our pursuit to survive and maybe even to succeed, we must sacrifice. Such is the Tao.

Our top harness racing drivers challenge this balance day after day. For one, the stakes calendar pushes the drivers wanting to race at the top stage to travel thousands of miles a week. And aside from the Grand Circuit, racing is still plentiful in certain areas to give drivers many opportunities if they're willing to drive the distance. But over time, we see drivers like Brian Sears go from a nightly competitor with around 2,000 starts a year to a solely prime-time stakes driver who has not cracked 500 drives in the last three years - by intention, of course.

Yannick Gingras notably challenged this balance in 2020 when pacing virtuoso Tall Dark Stranger took aim at the North America Cup. Because of travel restrictions instated in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, Gingras (and later Andy McCarthy) quarantined and stayed in Canada through September to race in Mohawk's month of Grand Circuit races – all solely because he had a solid chance to win Canada’s richest race. And he won it. His month-long residency - and month away from his family - proved not for naught, and that catharsis brought one of the only moments in Gingras' career where a win caused tears.

"That's 100 percent the longest I've ever been away from my kids prior," said Gingras. "And then to be away for like 40 days after that. But if it wasn't for [Tall Dark Stranger] I would have never gone, so you do all that and it's really putting all your eggs in that one basket, even though I did make money on other ones. But he was the reason. That race: the million-dollar NA Cup - that's what you're doing it for. I don't feel a lot of pressure often racing; you get on the track and you race the horses, but that one, no doubt there was a lot of pressure, not by other people, pressure I put on myself. Crossing the line that day it was definitely emotional, with the kids and stuff."

But that's the sacrifice. For Gingras to stay at the top and make his mark as a prolific catch driver, he must make tough decisions. Because a drive he decides not to take is one another gains. And had he decided not to go north with Tall Dark Stranger, the opportunity to win Canada's race would have been gifted to someone else while the opportunity for Yannick to win may never come back around.

"It's a tough business," Gingras said. "It's hard to get near the top and it's definitely harder to stay near the top. That's not only in horse racing, that's life in general. [In] any business you can rise up the ranks but then staying near the top of those ranks is difficult. There's no doubt we have to do it. You can pick and choose a little bit here and there - a place somebody asked you to go and you feel the horse doesn’t have the greatest chance and logistic[ally] it's going to be hard. And it's not made for everyone, no doubt about it. The stress - the racetrack part of it is only one part. The organizing is another one, the dealing with the losses is another one because you're not winning all those races. If you're winning 20 percent, you're doing a pretty good job. So that means that's 80 percent losses. That all goes into the life of being a catch driver. You've got to be able to deal with all that at once and make it work. It's something I enjoy though so I'm not complaining.

"As far as balancing it, it's not easy," Gingras also said, "but for me, the way I balance it: those are Fridays and Saturdays, so you have five other days in the week. I could choose to go race at Chester on Wednesdays and Thursdays or, in the summer, go race at Yonkers on those Mondays. But that's when I choose at that time, you cut those days off. Of course, you miss on those Fridays and Saturdays, if the kids have activities those certain nights it sucks, but then you see them on Monday and Tuesday and those other days. In the summer, we could race seven days a week, two tracks a day, if you choose to."

Yannick, for the most part, no longer chooses to drive doubleheaders. In his scrappy years climbing the ranks at the metropolitan tracks, Gingras could record around 2,500 starts a year. Those race days included afternoons at then Harrah's Chester and then shooting up the New Jersey Turnpike to The Meadowlands. But now, Gingras tries to race one track a day - with some exceptions like the Adios Day/Hambletonian elimination doubleheader - while dropping his number of drives as he needs.

"Gradually, maybe from 2010 - maybe even 2015 - until last year, I raced gradually less every year," Gingras said. "My amount of starts always was going down; it was definitely on purpose. I wanted to be there for the kids growing up and be there when they were little and all that stuff. It was important to me to be there for them and be there for their activities and stuff. That's why I don't race as much as some of the other guys - and I'm perfectly content and happy with that. There's no doubt my kids remember when I was there and they also remember when I wasn't there. I remember myself the times my dad was there and the times my dad wasn't there. [Those experiences are] something that's going to be there forever and I wouldn't change that for the world.

"Ideally if I can keep going like this another seven or eight years, at the same tempo I'm doing now… maybe once I turn 50, when the little one goes to college, maybe at that point [I'll] take winters off," Gingras also said. "Or really slow down, you know like Brian [Sears]'s way maybe, but I definitely don't want to race forever, that's not something that appeals to me. I love horse racing but there's definitely other things than horse racing in life, so we'll see where it takes us, but hopefully I have another seven or eight, 10 good years in front of me."

Aaron Merriman has also gone on record saying he was going to slow down. The multiple-dash title winner admittedly has cut his workload, but did so by going from over 4,000 starts a year to just under 4,000. Even in the slower winter months, Merriman is still doing two doubleheaders a week at The Meadows then Northfield, and driving a commute of over a thousand miles a week in (what he guessed) was either his eighth or 14th car in the last decade-ish he's pulled this schedule.

"I will tell you, I despise being in my car," Merriman said. And reasonably so, given his travel for work annually amounts to somewhere around 100,000-plus miles and the hours inside a car total to over a month's worth of days. For perspective, people annually spend only about 12 days total of their year on a toilet.

But Merriman's balance centers on his sense of duty and caring for his own well-being. He has driven in many of the sport's premier races, but part of Aaron's drive to compete in all of those miles is a loyalty to serve the people who help keep the tracks' lights on night after night.

"Like the last couple years, I said I'm not going to chase [the Grand Circuit] as much," Merriman said. "There are so many people that count on me, between the two, three, four, five tracks that I race at. It's very important that I'm there. You know what I mean? And that's one reason why I don't take much time off. I mean, these people work all week. They're expecting me to say okay. Especially some of the people I have loyalty to, one person I have a hundred percent loyalty to. There's the next one that I have a ton of loyalty to. And then there's the next one. You know what I mean?

"I'm not like ready to say 'I'm not going be here this day' or whatever. So what I've done is I'd take days [off] where I wouldn't take days. Like I just had three days off. So instead of being rushed, I just took days off. Before, I would not do that. I would try to do everything in my power to race and do whatever before. Like I said, until I get to a certain point here soon, I want to cut like 10 percent of my starts out. I owe a service to my family. I have two children and my son. I've raised my son with his mother for his whole life. I've got a service to him to make sure he's going to be able to do things."

Such steps for balance took time for Merriman to foster, he admits. Merriman still has an intensity to him, but now it's more a joyous fervor he exercises versus an aggressive ambition which he carried in his younger years.

"I’m always self-punishing," Merriman said. "So before [now], if I got a favorite beat I would toss a helmet, toss a program. Like, just like throw a tantrum. Like nothing at anybody, whatever. But throw a tantrum; be very, very childish. But now I use the word gratitude. Like I should be grateful for any position I was in. We are grateful to be in this, to be able to race horses and make a living at it, and make a good living at it. We are grateful to be around people; that some people care. We're going to find that in every business. But we're grateful, we're grateful."

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Todd McCarthy certainly is grateful, too. The transplant from the Down Under has made ripples in North American harness racing in just two full seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. He has already won a Hambletonian and a North America Cup, in the same year as a matter of fact - something that took John Campbell over 20 years to accomplish when he pulled that million-dollar double in 1995. Campbell is also the only other driver ever to win both races in the same year. McCarthy did it after one season.

And now, as he did last year, Toddy readies for his annual reprieve back to Australia for holiday.

"As drivers, we're also lucky to be in the positions that we're in to be able to do this for a living," said McCarthy. "It's not something that I take lightly. For me, it was a dream career. So to be able to move here to the states and make a living out of it, it's just unbelievable. I just love racing horses and I get a thrill out of it every time I'm on the track. So, it's nice when you can go away sometimes and reflect on it and, it makes you super eager to get back and get into it."

While other drivers weather through the winter off season, McCarthy has always had a compass to give himself time to recharge. He also admits that he is not built to brave the northeast winter.

"It's obviously hard when you're as busy as we are through the summertime to slow down a little bit," McCarthy said. "It's something that I feel very fortunate that I'm able to do over the winter. It's a very fortunate thing to be able to take that time off over Christmas and just reset there for a month or two and get right back into it. I've got a sister and my oldest brother Luke who lives back [home] and some nieces and nephews. I'd like to get back and see all of them this time of year if I can. I think it would be really cool to catch up with them. They're all in that age group between toddlers and getting up in almost teenagers now. So if I don't get back and see them, they'll be unrecognizable before I know it."

Todd came to North America full time in 2020 and hopped onto the Grand Circuit hustle promptly in 2021. While the Australian Grand Circuit helped prepare him for the long travel as it required between Perth and Sydney and Melbourne, Todd admitted he took some time to get into the rhythm of the North American grind.

"I knew about the traveling schedule over here, obviously - seeing Andy [McCarthy] do it for some time. But until you kind of do it yourself, where you're on the go every day and [going to] multiple tracks and different states… yeah, it's a little bit of a shock to the system. So, it took me a little bit to get in the groove of things. But once you get used to it, it's quite enjoyable.

"Being able to come from [Australasia] and have that experience driving in those high-purse races, it definitely helped getting here," McCarthy also said. "It was kind of something that I had been through a little bit before. And I think it helped me mature a lot as a driver in Australia being able to do that before moving over here. So it was a huge asset to have moving here. And then fortunately enough I was able to get the opportunities to drive in some of them races. And it's been really great."

In his downtime, Todd said he's putting up shelves or something like that. He's not looking to get into carpentry anytime soon, though.

The constant travel of the modern catch driver is a taxing cost of the job. Interestingly enough, the consensus among all the drivers I spoke to was that they leave everything behind on the track. Which makes sense - they're professional athletes. The racetrack is their meditative place in that way. If they don't get enough sleep, it doesn't matter. Jet lag doesn't faze them. Racing is their state of mind, and they can click into that adrenal focus always.

At the same time, the glory is in the mud. Yannick said it well in a Monday afternoon conversation: "It's super-exciting at Meadowlands Pace night, or Hambletonian Day, or Breeders Crown night - those are super-exciting races, and that's why we go to work every single day. But I go to work at Yonkers tonight, punching in, punching out the same way somebody works at a factory - that's work."

Each of these drivers are woven from the same cloth. They feel a desperate need to make a profession from driving horses, so they drive endless miles and spend many nights far from home in an attempt to succeed at an endeavor in which they only have limited time. And this sport, as well as any other industry, will quickly whirlwind anyone from their feet unless they learn the boundaries to set for themselves. Thankfully, many of these drivers put the quality of their life first, but that still comes at the sacrifice of many days away from family or just giving this sport the time in life they will never get back. Because it's their passion.

And sure, all of these guys make great livings just going in circles compared to the crumbs I grind for in my pursuits. But when I turn to any track and I see mud, sleet, snow and these guys out on the track still competing, I know I would not be there on the track with them.