CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Clarkie Smith remembers the day well at the end of an Old Home Week in the late 1960s.
Smith and good friend Francis McIsaac were in a virtual tie for top driver of Old Home Week but McIsaac had yet to win a race that week for prominent owner George Murphy of Augustine Cove. McIsaac asked Smith to drive Chum that evening as he knew he had won with her in the past.
“But Francis, you know we’re pretty close in the driver’s standings?” Smith recalls saying.
“I don’t care about that,” McIsaac said. “I need to win a race for George and that mare hasn’t raced well for me all week.”
Chum and Smith teamed up to win that race and Smith beat McIsaac by two points in the British Consul driving standings for leading driver that week, an award McIsaac would have received if he had of left himself down to drive.
“He was the finest man you could find,” Smith said of McIsaac. “We were the best of friends, playing cards and telling stories. Francis always loved a good story or a good joke. There wouldn’t be two horsemen in the Maritimes that wouldn’t agree that award should be named after Francis.”
McIsaac would go on to win the Old Home Week driving title 10 times, an even more impressive record considering the horseman never drove in a race until he was 26 and passed away 15 years later at the age of 41.
McIsaac, a native of Fairview, left working in construction to start building a public stable in the 1960s and quickly rose to prominence with top horses like Another Mecca, Mr Jollity and Columbo Seelster.
McIsaac was tragically killed in a racing accident during Exhibition Week 1979 at Exhibition Park Raceway in Saint John, N.B. Before his death McIsaac had a stable of horses at home in Fairview, at the Charlottetown Driving Park (CDP), at Exhibition Park Raceway and at Blue Bonnets raceway in Montreal, all at the same time.
After his death, the award for top driver of Old Home Week race was renamed the Francis McIsaac memorial award, a tradition that continues to this day.
Smith said he never saw McIsaac come off the track disappointed or mad over a race.
“He always had a big smile on his face and was friends with everyone. Him and I got knocked down previous to his death and we both got up laughing.”
Smith was in the race that took McIsaac’s life and will never forget watching it happen.
“I can’t believe something so simple looking could have that kind of result,” Smith said. “I didn’t sleep right for a month after that. I just couldn’t believe he was gone.”
McIsaac was only the third Island driver in the history of the sport to reach the 1,000 wins. He was leading driver in the Maritimes in 1978 with 171 wins and more than $95,000 in prize money, and he finished in the top 50 among leading North American dash-winning drivers that year.
McIsaac was the leading dash winner at Exhibition Park Raceway in 1976, 1977 and 1978 and the CDP in 1977 and 1978.
“For a guy starting late, he could really drive a horse,” said veteran driver Garry MacDonald, who won the Francis McIsaac memorial award a record 11 times. “He had a bunch of New Zealand-bred horses that pulled real bad, but no one would know they pulled until another fella jumped on them and couldn’t hold them. He kept them covered up and made sure they were never empty. Back then if you quarter-pole moved, people would think you have a broken rein or something.”
MacDonald said McIsaac was impressive to watch in action.
“He had a whole bunch of horses that only made the races because of sheer determination. If someone dropped off those kinds of horses to somebody now, you’d just be asked to walk right out the other door with them. But Francis made them into good horses.”
MacDonald said McIsaac was just starting to break into the driving colony in Montreal at the time of his death.
“No doubt, he would have been running it there before long if he hadn’t of died,” MacDonald said. “It was ironic he got killed in a race because he was the safest driver that was ever on a racetrack.”
Driver Wally Hennessey, who has been inducted into multiple Halls of Fame, remembers racing against McIsaac in Saint John in the 1970s. McIsaac would list Hennessey to drive the horses he couldn’t on a given day, a move that gave Hennessey an amount of prominence.
“It was like Michael Jordan handing you a basketball,” Hennessey said of McIsaac listing him to drive. “He was someone you idolized. You just wanted to be around him. If you got Picasso to paint perfection in Atlantic Canadian harness racing it would be Francis McIsaac. You were mystified by the guy. There never was, and there never will be, another Francis McIsaac.”
Nicholas Oakes is covering harness racing at Gold Cup and Saucer Week for The Guardian. This is his 11th year covering the big week for the news outlet.
