The meeting Dan Loiselle had long hoped for was finally here.
Throughout his celebrated career as Woodbine Racetrack’s revered Thoroughbred race caller, Loiselle brought numerous high-profile champions to the finish line.
Of those horses, there is one, in his eyes, who stands above all.
Loiselle, inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2018, was about to meet another legend, Wise Dan.
“He was as gentle as a pup—just a beautiful soul,” recalled the man who called over 55,000 races. “It was a moment I won’t ever forget.”
It would make sense that a horse who shares the same name would be a star in Loiselle’s eyes.
But for Loiselle, his admiration for the chestnut gelding who traces his lineage to the iconic Northern Dancer, extends well beyond that.
“He was stunningly impressive and just refused to lose. It sounds cliché, but that’s what he was.”
Bred and raced by the late Morton Fink, Wise Dan, a son of Wiseman’s Ferry-Lisa Danielle, under the tutelage of trainer Charlie LoPresti, launched his career in 2010, and promptly won three of his first four starts, including the Phoenix Stakes over the synthetic track at Keeneland.
Those performances led him to a spot in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (Grade 1) starting gate at Churchill Downs, where Wise Dan finished sixth, 2 ½ lengths by the winner.
His solid rookie campaign didn’t translate into a successful start to the following season.
After he endured three consecutive defeats on the synthetic and dirt tracks at Keeneland and Churchill Downs, Wise Dan tested the turf for the first time in the Firecracker Handicap.
Ignored on the tote board—he went off at 14-1, Wise Dan won the one-mile test by nearly three lengths.
After a half-length score on the synthetic in the Presque Isle Mile, he returned to the turf and finished a strong fourth to a formidable group of foes, which included two-time turf champion Gio Ponti, who won the race, and respected veteran Get Stormy.
Wise Dan’s next engagement was a winning performance in the Fayette Stakes on the synthetic track at Keeneland. Next up on his dance card was the Grade 1 Clark Handicap over the dirt at Churchill Downs, which yielded a 3 ¾-length triumph.
In 2012, the Kentucky-bred went from star-on-the-rise status to certified superstardom.
After a record-setting win in the Ben Ali Stakes on the Keeneland synthetic, Wise Dan lost by a head on dirt in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs.
And then it happened: Wise Dan became front-page racing news.
Wise Dan reeled off victories, of head-turning variety, in the Fourstardave Handicap, Woodbine Mile, and Shadwell Turf.
“To see him from where I was, six floors above the racetrack, was unbelievable,” recalled Loiselle. “You get chills just thinking about it.”
In the Breeders’ Cup Mile, Wise Dan was tasked with taking on top-shelf competition, including Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, and European invader Excelebration.
It was Wise Dan who made the trip to the winner’s circle after a course-record time of 1:31.78.
But his campaign wasn’t solely impressive for what he did on the racetrack.
Wise Dan collected three Eclipse Awards for that brilliant 2012 season, including Horse of the Year.
What would he do for an encore?
As improbable as it seemed, Wise Dan was equally remarkable in 2013, taking wins in that year’s editions of the Maker’s 46 Mile, Woodford Reserve Turf Classic, and Firecracker Handicap before repeat victories in the Fourstardave and Woodbine Mile, the latter in a course-record time of 1:31.75.
“I got to call his two Woodbine Miles,” said Loiselle. “They were both outstanding performances, but the 2013 win was one of the most impressive things I had ever seen in my race-calling career. Johnny didn’t even move a muscle on him, asked him a little bit at the top of the stretch, he pulled away from the field and set a course record. He did it with hardly being asked.
“I thought he had incredible guts and determination. I can remember after Leroidesanimaux won the [2005] Woodbine Mile, John Velazquez said what a freak the horse was. After he rode Wise Dan, he said he was twice the freak Leroidesanimaux was.”
His only defeat of 2013, a second, came in the Shadwell Turf Mile, moved to the synthetic track at 1 1/16 miles after torrential rains forced the race off the turf.
Wise Dan ended his year with another Breeders’ Cup Mile triumph, en route to three more Eclipse Awards, including a second Horse of the Year crown.
In 2014, at age 7, Wise Dan won the Maker’s 46 Mile and the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic.
Two weeks after the latter, he faced his stiffest battle, one that had nothing to do with racing, when he underwent emergency surgery for colic.
Much like the resolve he showed when the gates opened, Wise Dan made it through the procedure.
Four months later, he was back in training.
On Aug. 30, 2014, he dug deep to win the Bernard Baruch Handicap at Saratoga by a nose.
Just under five weeks later, he took on seven rivals in the Shadwell Turf Mile.
A slow start and a soft pace had conspired against him, but in typical Wise Dan fashion, he found a way to win.
Just over a week after the victory, news came that he had incurred a small fracture in his right front cannon bone.
After it healed, he was back in training, with a third Woodbine Mile on his dance card.
It was not to be.
A small tendon tear, found less than a week before the race, meant Wise Dan’s racing career was over.
In early October of 2015, he was on the racetrack for a final time, when he paraded at Keeneland in front of an adoring crowd on Shadwell Turf Mile Day.
He has called the LoPresti Forest Lane Farm home ever since.
“After Wendy (Loiselle’s wife) and I retired, we went on a two-week road trip to places we had never been to before. I could never go to those places during the racing season because of my job, so we went to Keeneland, Louisville, Memphis, Nashville, to Cleveland, to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a baseball game.
“When I was in Lexington, I called Charlie LoPresti. He wasn’t there, but his wife, Amy, answered. I knew Wise Dan was there at the farm, and I asked if it would be okay if I came to see him, if it wasn’t too inconvenient.
“She was so nice, very sweet, and invited us to come to the farm. She told me that just the week before, her and Charlie were watching replays of the Woodbine Mile races. So, we drove out the next morning—Charlie was at the racetrack training—and Amy brought him out of the stall. When we went into the paddock with Wise Dan and his brother, Successful Dan and we got pictures of Wendy and I—me being Dumb Dan—with Wise Dan.
“Amy said Johnny Velazquez had popped over to the farm to see him a couple times when he was at Keeneland. She told me it was the first time an announcer had come to see him.”
Not long after the visit, Wise Dan was inducted into the Horse Racing Hall of Fame at Saratoga.
Loiselle watched the ceremonies from his home in Milton, Ontario.
“I watched Charlie make his presentation and he had this beautiful Wise Dan hat. I thought, ‘Wow, I like that hat.’ He is my favorite horse of all time, so I got a hold of Amy and asked where I could get one. She said that they had them specially made and one would be in the mail for me. I told her, ‘No… let me buy it,’ but she was so kind and sent one to us. She knew I was a fan of the horse. I still have it with me.”
As he does the memories of the horse that he proudly shares a name with.
Now, over 10 years after he called the back-to-back Woodbine Mile victories, Loiselle will, every now and again, open his computer and watch the replays of those races.
“I do [watch them] every once in a while, especially the 2013 one. I don’t know where I came up with it, but at the wire, in 2013, I called him the ‘Titan of the Turf’ and after that, it kind of stuck. If you read a story about Wise Dan, they will call him that.”
For reasons, far too many to list, that require no explanation whatsoever.
