Pat Dixon and AT Cassandra Jeschke a great season at Woodbine

By STEVE BUFFERY

Irish eyes have been smiling quite a bit at Woodbine Racetrack this season.

At least around the barn of Dublin native Pat Dixon.

Dixon, who has been a full-time head trainer at the Etobicoke oval since 2021, is enjoying a career year at Woodbine, posting 17 wins, 29 seconds and 34 thirds in 194 starts, with earnings of $1,046,858, placing him among the top 10 in the leading trainer category. The highlight of the season for Dixon was the win by his three-year-old gelding Humormeastory in the $150,000 Lake Superior Stakes on July 26, with jockey Jalon Samuel aboard - Dixon’s third career stakes victory. He can add to that total on Sunday when his gelding Decadent Danish takes on the competition in the Lake Ontario Stakes, a 1 1/16^th mile endurance test for three-year-old colts and geldings. Owned and bred by Colebrook Farms, Decadent Danish (Danish Dynaformer-Mintaka Belle by City Zip) has two wins, a second and third-place showing this season from eight starts

Pat with his Lake Superior Stakes winner Humormeastory

“It’s been excellent,” said Dixon, sitting in his office in barn five at the Woodbine backstretch. “I’m so proud of the horses. They have all tried and all I ask them to do is go out and try. It’s never perfect because they’re horses and they have their own minds and they’ll do what they want to do, but the most important thing was to try to make them more competitive. And you have to get them in the right spots and evaluate them and make sure that they’re the right horses running in the right spots. And I think I’ve gotten better with that. (This sport) has its ups and downs but, all in all, when you look at how the horses have been running, a lot of them have been hitting the board and winning, so it’s been an incredible season for not having that graded stakes, or this upper stakes level horses. We’re running in a lot more competitive races.”

Dixon arrived in Canada from Ireland, via the U.S., in 2005 after a brief career as a jockey back home and worked for some of the best trainers in Canada, starting with Kevin and Tino Attard before moving on to become Sean Smullen’s assistant and then two years with both Roger Attfield and then Reade Baker, both Hall of Fame conditioners. He then worked as assistant for Ashlee Brnjas until her untimely death in 2021.

Pat Dixon with his Lake Ontario Stakes entree Decadent Danish

“Each one of them was so different but every one of them was an amazing trainer,” said Dixon, who, after Ashlee’s death, took over the training of the Colebrook Farm horses, owned and operated by Ashlee’s father John Brnjas. His last five seasons with Colebrook have been on the upswing and the personable conditioner believes the future is looking bright. Dixon has a healthy batch of two-year-olds in the barn.

“I’m pretty optimistic,” Dixon said. “Some of them are getting close to running. One of them finished second the other day, Silent Explosion.”

Silent Explosion is a two-year-old brown colt owned by Colebrook and Roseita Uniacke, and bred by Howard Walton, who finished second in her third career start on Nov.8.

“He’s looking very promising for next year,” said Dixon, who won’t run any horse unless he feels they’re completely sound and ready to compete.

His stakes winner this year, Humormeastory, didn’t run at all as a two-year-old and has hit the board four times in five starts this year, two of those victories.

“He wasn’t ready. He was just a big baby,” said Dixon of Humormeastory (Frac Daddy-Tory’s Humorgirl by Sharp Humor). “He never really showed anything as a young horse. He was never really high on my radar. But as a three-year-old, he just did things very, very easy. It was very natural to him.”

Dixon is quick to give credit for the excellent 2026 season to his assistant trainer Cassandra Jeschke who, along with Erika Smilovsky, was named assistant trainer of the year by the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. Natalie McMullin, Tylonn Green and Rolando Buckner were named Grooms of the Year at the HBPA’s annual Backstretch Appreciation Day last week.

“She’s amazing,” said Dixon of Jeschke. “She really is kind of the backbone of the operation.”

Echoing the sentiments of pretty well every trainer, Dixon said assistant trainers (and grooms) are worth their weight in gold.

“You have to have the drive to want to be here and want to be part of the barn and it’s a very difficult job,” he said. “And you have to be completely immersed in it and you have to give 100% and that means showing up all the time and being involved in every aspect of the barn – knowing about entries, feeding, payroll … You have to be involved in it all to do it. And I know that myself because I’ve been an assistant for two Hall of Fame trainers. And they would just say to me, ‘Goodbye. The rest is on you.’”

“(Cassandra) is amazing and I would be lost without her,” Dixon added. “She’s a very hard worker and extremely dedicated. We have a really good team overall, a good bunch of people who care about the horses.”

When not assisting Dixon at Woodbine, Jeschke is one of the leading quarter horse jockeys at Ajax Downs – something that Dixon encourages her to keep doing.

“She’s still young and she’s a very good rider and I think you’re always better to see it through,” he said.

Dixon said he and John Brnjas talk every day and he visits Colebrook Farms in Uxbridge every chance he can, especially in the off-season and says it’s an honor working for the veteran horseman.

“I try to take it as it comes, and I try to look to the future and look at the potential of the horses and see where they belong. You’re always hoping that the next horse that comes through the barn could be your next stakes horse,” said Dixon. “You can always dream because if you don’t dream, what’s the point of doing it? It’s a very unpredictable sport. Sometimes you think they’re the best thing you’ve ever seen and they surprise you.”

A resident of Bolton, ON, Dixon spends as much time as he can with his wife Candace, 13-year-old daughter Madison and 11-year-old son Conor, which is not always easy as being a thoroughbred trainer is an all-encompassing gig. Dixon often arrives at the barn at 4 a.m. and doesn’t leave until 2 p.m. Candace, a former assistant for trainer Catherine Day Phillips, works in the science department at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.