Trainer Mike Nault exercising his new claim Load Abroad. (George Williams)
By G. S. Thompson
Nault Enters 2025 Season with “Best Stable Ever”
Leading riders Prayven Badrie and Antonio Whitehall back in action
Two-time leading ASD rider and reigning champ Prayven Badrie was seen along with three-time leading rider Antonio Whitehall Thursday morning on the training track, as was top trainer Mike Nault, as the backstretch continued to swell with horses.
Two-time leading ASD rider and reigning champ Prayven Badrie. (George Williams)
Three-time leading ASD rider Antonio Whitehall in action on the training track Thursday morning. (George Williams)
Nault has 20 horses on the grounds, and his stable looks even better this year than it did last year. The 58-year-old Laurier native is coming off an impressive 2024 campaign where he finished in a tie for second in the trainer standings with Jared Brown, winning 24 races and finishing in the top three at an amazing 70% clip.
“I think I’ve got my best stable ever,” said Nault, who has been preparing his charges at Miracle Ranch since January. Located just off Garvin Road, the facility provides Nault with two barns, an indoor arena, and an outdoor arena where he’s constructed a training track.
Nault’s 2024 season featured five stakes victories for True North Thoroughbreds and A2 Thoroughbreds, one better than his 2023 tally of four. Nault won the Buffalo Stakes with Betterlucknexttime, the Harvey Warner Manitoba Mile and R. J. Speers Memorial with Blazing Bo, and the Hazel Wright Sire Stakes and R. C. Anderson Stakes with Commandoslastdance in 2024.
The veteran conditioner has firmly established himself as one of Manitoba’s premier horsemen since returning from a 12-year stint in Alberta in 2018. That return was perfectly timed, as he took over a powerful stable from trainer Don Schnell in 2019 and promptly won 10 stakes races, including six in a row with star Manitoba-bred mare Hidden Grace.
The year before, Nault was exercising Canadian champion mare Escape Clause for Schnell, and that included her time at Oaklawn Park when she finished second beaten a nose to the best mare in the world in the Apple Blossom Handicap (G1).
This winter, Nault has kept busy developing a promising group of two-year-olds, including three Manitoba-breds purchased at auction. His juvenile prospects include a colt by Fed Biz, a filly by Speculating, and Hidden Grace’s half-brother, also by Speculating.
Looking ahead to the 2025 season, Nault has high hopes for several runners, including Northern Echo, a 3-year-old colt he describes as being “on the Derby trail.” His stable also features the hard-knocking mare Jj’s American Diva, whom Nault claimed for $10,000 before finishing second in three subsequent stakes races.
“She can go to the lead and she can run a mile and an eighth,” Nault said. “She’s a very tough little mare.” Other seasoned stakes horses in Nault’s barn include Blazing Bo and Big Stretch, while he also has high expectations for Load Abroad, a $5,500 claim from last fall.
Nault trains exclusively for two ownership groups – A2 Thoroughbreds (Nolan Allard, Arthur Roy, and Jean-Marc Roy) and True North Thoroughbreds (Pat Beavis, Phil Allard, Grant Sissons, and Ray Bouchard). These connections also have breeding interests, with broodmares Banking on Betty and Queen of the North both recently foaling offspring by Speculating.
The 2025 Assiniboia Downs meeting opens on Tuesday, May 13, with more than 170 horses already on the grounds and many more expected in the coming weeks. If Nault’s assessment of his stable proves accurate, he’ll be enjoying some extra time in the winner’s circle this summer!