by Dave Briggs
I seldom root for one person or horse over another, but I was unabashedly cheering for Moment Is Here — or more precisely, his trainer, Bob McIntosh — to win last year’s Little Brown Jug. I was always taught to root for the home team and McIntosh’s operation isn’t that far from where I grew up in LaSalle, ON.
I suspect a lot of people at last year’s Jug were pulling for McIntosh, who died on Sunday never having won that race, which is a shame and a rare blank spot on a Hall of Fame resume chock full of black type. Trying to marshal the Racing Gods in his favor — especially after Moment Is Here won his heat — went beyond the fact that on Jug Day McIntosh was laid up in a hospital in Ohio after a fall. My support wasn’t about pity, it was about character.
McIntosh was the kind of decent and deeply-talented guy even some of his fiercest competitors didn’t mind losing to; a man that did things with integrity and hard work, not shortcuts — and what speaks better of a person than that?
His passion for the Jug — for everything harness racing, really — was legion. But his indelible mark on the sport went far, far beyond that. Long one of the most legendary of the big stable operators, McIntosh’s work ethic and success were rarely matched.
I once spent an entire day at his stable in the mid-1990s and it was amazing to see such a well-tuned machine humming along with incredible efficiency.
McIntosh was inducted into the U.S. Harness Racing Hall of Fame in Goshen, NY, in 2003 and the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2010.
Only three other trainers in history have earned more purse money than McIntosh, who piled up more than $92 million in his career and is the all-time leading trainer in Canadian history. He won more than 4,600 races (by Standardbred Canada’s accounting), was named Canada’s Trainer of the Year seven times, the U.S. Trainer of the Year twice, Canada’s Horseperson of the Year twice and campaigned three horses voted Horse of the Year — Artsplace and Staying Together in 1992 and 1993, respectively, in the U.S. and Whenuwishuponastar in 1996 in Canada.
McIntosh is perhaps best known for his prowess in the Breeders Crown series. His 16 Breeders Crown wins as a trainer is third most in series history.
He also excelled as an owner — almost always owning a piece of the horses he trained, which is notable. But he was particularly successful as a breeder. He long ago transitioned from buying pricey yearlings to simply breeding his own. The owner of one of the greatest broodmare bands in Canadian history outside of Armstrong Bros., McIntosh had more success with homebreds than perhaps any trainer in the sport’s history. He also was the man that trained Camluck, who went on to become one of the greatest sires in Canadian history and put Seelster Farms in Lucan, ON on the map.
While McIntosh never won the Hambletonian, a Meadowlands Pace nor a Jug, he did win the Jugette three times and the Canadian Pacing Derby four times, including three years in a row between 1991 and 1993 with Odds Against, Artsplace and Staying Together. His 2012 Pepsi North America Cup victory with Thinking Out Loud was one of the most popular victories in recent memory. I can still hear the roar when he raised that trophy.
But I’ll remember McIntosh as much for his willingness to be quoted — and his insightfulness while being quoted — even though I often suspected he was reticent owing to a desire to avoid the spotlight. Still, he cooperated to promote the sport he loved.
His many passions went beyond horse racing.
We shared a love of the Detroit Tigers and for the far-too-maligned Windsor / Detroit area. Even after racing in Windsor and Michigan ended and moving closer to Woodbine Mohawk Park clearly would have made McIntosh’s life easier, he remained in the community. I admired him for that. If you’re from that part of the country, you understand.
Apart from, maybe, LaSalle-born tight end Luke Willson winning the 2014 Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks, McIntosh is perhaps the biggest sports star from the town.
McIntosh and I also shared a love of dogs and photography and, in McIntosh’s case, he was a talented amateur when it came to the latter.
But of all his passions: for horses and photos and Tigers and dogs, none trumped McIntosh’s love of family — his two sons, his brother Doug, their cousin Al and their sister Mary Ann.
When Bob’s beloved wife, Patty, died in 2021, McIntosh not only lost the love of his life, but also the person most responsible for his success in the business as the stable’s second in command.
I worried at the time that it probably wouldn’t be long before Bob followed and now, sadly, he has at age 71.
But not before leaving a legacy that will be virtually impossible for others to match.