Standardbred Driver (Veteran)
Gilles Gendron of Saint-Eustache, Quebec, started his driving career in the spring of 1967 at the age of 22. During his illustrious career, which spanned more than five decades, he competed in over 37,000 races, posted 7,053 victories, finished second in 5,008 starts and recorded 4,819 thirds. Horses he drove eclipsed $36.9 million in purse money.
In 1972, only five years after earning his driver’s license, he successfully competed in the Challenge of Champions at Windsor Raceway, defeating many of North America’s top drivers including Herve Filion, Ron Feagan, and Carmine Abbatiello. The young reinsman was rewarded for his efforts with a brand new Chrysler Imperial car. That same year, he set a North American record (at that time) when he won 232 races at Blue Bonnets Raceway.
Nicknamed “Le Chef” (the Chief), Gendron dominated the driving colony at Blue Bonnets Raceway during the 1970s and 1980. He led the driving standings 10 times between 1972 and 1984 and won 11 consecutive driving championships at the Montreal track where his competition included Hall of Famers Benoit Coté, Jim Doherty, Herve and Yves Filion, Jacques Hebert, Gilles and Michel Lachance, Keith and Ron Waples, Bill Wellwood and others such as Henri Filion, Robert Samson and his mentor, Marcel Dostie.
For 14 consecutive years, he won more than 200 races and ranked in the North American top 10 drivers seven times. For 17 racing seasons, he drove horses to more than $1 million in earnings, and his career best season was in 1992 when he scored 279 wins and drove horses to $2,037,391 in purse earnings.
Two equine stars Gendron drove during his career were Hall of Famers, Grades Singing and Garland Lobell. He was the regular driver for Grades Singing during her stellar three-year-old campaign in 1985, which included 20 wins in 25 starts, and the national title as the Canadian Trotting Association’s Three-Year-Old Trotting Filly of the Year.
Gendron represented Canada in the World Driving Championship on three occasions with his best performance a third-place finish in the 1979 Championship hosted in Australia and New Zealand.
In 2009, at age 64, he drove a pair of winners at Rideau Carleton to put him at 7,000 career wins to join Quebec natives Herve Filion, Michel Lachance and Luc Ouellette in the select group of about 25 North American drivers who had posted 7,000 career wins at that time. Gendron is the first driver to have reached that milestone while racing primarily in Quebec.
Gendron and Mario Baillargeon were recognized at Rideau Carleton Raceway as two of the winningest drivers ever produced in Canada in May of 2019, and the pair donated their driving commissions to charity.
Now working part-time as a marshall at a golf course near his home in St. Eustache, Quebec, Gendron has scaled back his involvement in Standardbred racing in recent years, but continues to train a couple of horses.
His celebrated driving career has earned him a well-deserved induction into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.