Local families carry Inverness Raceway to 100 Years

June 25, 2026

The Inverness Raceway will celebrate the many families who kept the harness racing track alive as it celebrates 100 years this summer.

Donnie “Hoss” MacLellan, who is organizing a trivia contest in the local newspaper to get people interested in the anniversary celebrations, says there are 25 drivers from Inverness County who raced at Inverness Raceway who now have sons and daughters who race there. He says these families are the only reason the track has reached the century mark.

MacLellan grew up in a harness racing family, with his father Johnny and uncles all owning and racing horses in Inverness. He’s spent nearly all of his 69 years at the track, working as a classifier, announcer and manager off and on over the years, and he says the future of the track rests with people who treat it as a hobby.

“Going forward, it’s going to take the toughest of the toughest because we’re paying seven or eight dollars for a bale of hay right now,” he says. “If you’re going to get into it to make money, don’t get into it. It’s a hobby.”

He says harness racing families in Inverness County have not only kept the sport alive locally, but generations of these families have made significant contributions in other parts of Canada.

The name Donnie “Hoss” MacLellan is synonymous with Inverness Raceway, as he’s served as track manager, announcer and classifier at different times over the past six decades. But even he probably missed the races listed in the program shown at right. (Photos: Dave MacNeil & contributed)

MacLellan says it was the support of families from all parts of the county that got the raceway through its first 100 years.

“It’s from Port Hastings to Margaree, from Chéticamp to Whycocomagh,” he notes. “There’s been little pieces of it everywhere. That’s what it was all about, its uniqueness is what kept it going.”

His earliest memories of the raceway were when he was four or five years old, and his father would race horses and his mom would be in the canteen.

“It was a gathering place,” he recalls. “It was an interesting place. You’d come up MacIsaac Street—the rink wasn’t built yet—and there were trainers who would live in what they called their tack rooms, and they were pristine. They’d have four or five horses, and they’d live at the track.”

“That was kind of the culture. A lot of people who had horses then had a little barn in the backyard. Now they’re all stabled in Inverness or Port Hood. When they moved the stables to the back stretch in 1963, there was nobody staying in tack rooms.”

MacLellan started announcing at the races when he just 16. “There wasn’t much money back in the day,” he says. “You might get two dollars a night and maybe a hot dog and a pop. It was the experience of it all. It was the camaraderie of everybody. It was the fun.”

It was around that time that the track experienced its heyday, when in 1975 they started Sunday racing. Prior to that, there was only Wednesday evening races with 10 races a year under the lights.

“The whole island supported the track back then,” he says. “It was huge.”

MacLellan says the raceway hasn’t always been about harness racing. He remembers during the 1970s, there were more than 20 pipe bands from all over the province involved in a competition at the track during the annual community festival. He also pointed to the raceway’s hosting of track and field competitions over the years.

“They’ll never again experience the atmosphere of the regional track meets that were held at the raceway in the 60s and 70s. It was just phenomenal.”

It’s memories like those that will be front and center as people come together to celebrate the track this summer. Tammy MacKay Kearney, another child of harness racing who grew up with the raceway in her backyard, says the track has meant so much to the community for so many reasons.

“The track has really been more than harness racing—we’ve had stock car racing, the demolition derbies, banquets, dances and receptions and, of course, bingo,” she says. “It really is community-based when you think about it.”

MacKay Kearney is one of the organizers of the centennial celebration, and she’s currently reaching out to the families who’ve helped to sustain the track for the past 100 years—families that will be celebrated with displays at the track throughout the 2026 season.

“One of the things we’re working on is called Memory Lane. We’re going to have a designated area in the parimutuel where we can display the history of the track and that includes all these generations of families that have been involved,” she explains.

Her own father, John Wayne MacInnis, was very active in harness racing in the late 60s, 70s and 80s before a racing accident ended his driving career. They lived in a trailer next to the raceway and she recalls being at the track all the time.

“There was a grey horse called Circle Gratton,” she recalls. “I remember walking to school in Grade One. I would have been maybe six or seven, and Dad used to take Circle Gratton over to the yard and turn him out in our yard and we used to feed him peanut butter sandwiches.”

She remembers her and her sisters spending a lot of time at the raceway during the late 70s and early 80s.

“I remember sweeping the barns, getting my boots stuck in the centerfield, playing in the mud—that really was our playground.”

She says the key to the longevity of the Inverness Raceway is family.

“There are so many families within Inverness County for whom harness racing has been multi-generational, and there’s a lot of pride in that and just a love of the sport in general,” she says, echoing MacLellan’s notion that treating harness racing as a hobby is the only way the track will survive.

“As my husband says, the only way to become a millionaire with horses is to start off as a billionaire,” she laughs.

In addition to the Memory Lane displays, she says centennial celebrations will also include a dance at the raceway on July 10, as well as a pancake breakfast during the annual Inverness Gathering Walk and Run. And, of course, there will be the Gathering Pace on July 22, which will feature a Kid’s Day and barn tours.

She says proceeds from the dance and the pancake breakfast will hopefully fund the other events planned this summer, which will include a Caretaker Appreciation Day for harness racing grooms in August, mini horse races in September and a Veterans’ Day in October.