by Ellen Harvey, Harness Racing Communications

Freehold, NJ — Driver Yannick Gingras visited Wall Township (NJ) High School today to speak with two advanced French classes about harness racing — in his native French.

Gingras, a native of Sorel, Quebec, spoke with the classes, switching back and forth between English and French, about how he learned English, his move to the United States nearly ten years ago and his profession.

USTA/Ellen Harvey photo

Yannick Gingras talks a French 4 class through his strategy in the 2010 Wellwood Memorial with Pastor Stephen at Wall Township High School on Tuesday afternoon.

Gingras talked the class through videos of two of last year’s major victories for him, the Wellwood Memorial with Pastor Stephen and the Quillen Memorial with Foiled Again. He also passed around his helmet (a casque, in French, he said), colors, goggles and in the process, taught the class a new vocabulary word — the French word for “mud,” which is bouette.

The classes, about 40 students total, were taught by Kathy Hoch Ricci, a Standardbred breeder and daughter of the late trainer Louis Hoch. Mrs. Ricci had prepared the class with harness racing-related vocabulary words and helped them construct questions to ask Gingras. The questions included those about the danger involved in driving, whether he speaks to horses in English or French, how he learned to drive a horse and whether his French suffered now that he speaks mostly English.

One light moment came when a student asked Gingras, “Vous etes epuise?” This elicited a puzzled look from Gingras, who after conferring with the student and Mrs. Ricci, determined the student had meant to ask, “Vous etes epouse?” “Yes,” Gingras responded in French with a smile. “I am both, epouse (married) and epuise (exhausted).”

The trip marked the second time Gingras has visited high schools to talk about harness racing “en Francais.” He also invited the students to visit his facebook page and promised to “friend” them right away. The visits were arranged by the USTA’s Harness Racing Communications division.