Handel Viarruel – Loving His Horses

Handel Viarruel – Loving His Horses  

By Jennifer Morrison

Handel Viarruel vividly remembers the moment he became hooked on horse racing.

As a teenager growing up in Trinidad, where there is a busy Thoroughbred track, he was asked to accompany a horse to a race.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” said Viarruel. “His name was Astral King and I rode with him in the van to the races. It was such a cool thing to do.”

Viarruel, who would visit Canada each summer to visit his brother, would eventually move to Ontario and became immersed as a fan in horse racing. He was such as familiar face at Woodbine at the time, the mid 1990s, that one of the customer service managers, Wendy Loiselle, asked him to help out on one of the track's biggest days, Canadian International afternoon.

“She asked me if I wanted to show the television crew from ABC around, which included [retired champion jockey] Steve Cauthen. I said, 'oh yes!'”.

Viarruel then got a job in the Woodbine race office through John Whitson, vice president of racing, and that give him an entirely new perspective on racing.

“I got to see the sport from another side and how the races are put together. It was a dream job.” Viarruel added jobs as a placing judge and then a larger role in customer service, helping to develop an expanded horseplayers area, educating people on how to wager.

It seemed as if the young man was at the track to stay until he filled in for a friend at a TD bank job in 2004 and stayed there for a decade. It was on a fateful evening, at dinner with a horseman friend, when he entered the world of horse ownership. The friend had not sold all his horses at a yearling sale, including a $1,500 filly by Yankee Gentleman, so Viarruel jumped in.

Greenbackhasvalue made one start for Viarruel and she was claimed for a whopping $50,000. A couple of years later, Viarruel bought that filly's half sister, Hilda's Passion, by Canadian Frontier, and watched her impressively win her career debut at Turfway Park. Offers flooded in for the fast filly and he sold her for a nifty profit to Jack Wolf's Starlight Racing. Hilda's Passion went on to become a Grade 1 winner, a million-dollar auction broodmare and the dam of Grade 1 winner Yoshida.

Viarruel, who started a successful software company, Wiza, with friends, continued to dabble in ownership on a small scale but now that he recently stepped away from his business, he is eager to get closer and more involved with his horses.

He currently has 10 horses at Woodbine with trainer John Coryat, a friend of his father's, and is having the best time of his life. He's also been helping friends get involved in owning a racehorse.

“This is the closest anyone will come to owning their own sports team. Your silks are like your jersey. It's a challenge and I tell my friends you don't go in expecting to make a pile of money but it's a great sport you can enjoy.”

Viarruel, whose horses now race under the stable name P413, has had a blazing start to 2025 with Hanlan, his Souper Speedy gelding who is three for three this year, and another good winner, Miss Pierre.

And Viarruel gives back too. This past winter he supplied meals to backstretch workers living in the dorms while not working and he regularly donates to charities such as food insecurity and youth programs.

He has won more than 50 races with his horses over the years and these days he is appreciating his time getting to know each horse.

“It's all about keeping my horses healthy and happy. That is what we focus on.”