Page 18 - June 2005 The Game

18 The Game, June 2005 Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper
~ Alberta Racing ~
Determined to be a Success
Walk a mile in my shoes....
By Jonathan Huntington
It would have taken just one glance at Shannon Beauregard five years ago to realize she had a good chance of becoming a successful jockey.
The feisty Quebec native was just a gallop girl at tiny Marquis Downs in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in the summer of 2000 – but the determination to be a winner would have been crystal clear to the naked eye.
Although she was living
in a tent at the track on weekends, she wasn’t making enough money to live in the central Saskatchewan city through the week – however, she wasn’t about to give up her racing love.
At the age of 18, she commuted to a small town during the week, where she worked two jobs – a waitress and welder – to make ends meet.
That determination continued at other stops along her journey until she arrived on the radar map last summer in Alberta.
With an impressive display of guts and talent, Beauregard stormed onto the Western Canadian thoroughbred scene with a fantastic Edmonton summer meet.
In four months she notched 61 wins and recorded nearly $800,000 in purse earnings, even though she com- peted with a broken nose, two broken fingers and an ankle that needed surgery.
The sensational summer campaign caught the eyes of Sovereign voters, as she finished second in balloting for the Outstanding Apprentice Jockey title.
It was a far cry from where she was in the fall of 2000, living in a trailer she didn’t own at a bush track in southern Alberta.
Again, she was just a gallop girl, this time at Whoop Up Downs in Lethbridge, but didn’t earn enough to afford running water in her trailer.
“Basically you galloped a horse
(each day) to pay for power (to be connected to your trailer),” she explained.
“I lived on hotdogs, peanut butter sandwiches and chicken wings.”
Based at Stampede Park this spring, the 23-year-old personable pilot isn’t enjoying a great start to the Alberta season.
Some will suggest losing her bug is the reason, but her health is a better reason.
Showing her good-natured personality, Beauregard can chuckle about her early-season mishap now.
“That was one of my graceful moments,” she said, as she began to tell the story.
“It was 6:15 in the morning, it was dark, and I was running to trainer Ron Grieves’ barn to tell him that I’d be there at 8:15.
“I was running across his walker and I twisted my ankle and got a small stress fracture (in the ankle).”
The timing was brutal because the meet was about to start and Beauregard was exercising 15 horses a day.
In an instant she lost horses to other riders and was forced to sit on the sidelines for a month, missing the start of the Stampede Park meet.
But the slow start is likely just a bump in the road.
She’s too talented and has too much determination to stay in the bottom half of the Alberta riding standings.
Shannon Beauregard winning a stakes race at Northlands Park aboard Poor Iggy, the cham- pion two-year-old colt in the province.
By Pat Gauvreau
Dwayne's been a groom for 36 years now, ever since running away from home. He slept in a tack room and earned $5.00 a day which seemed like a lot for a young kid. He went to work at Max Bells farm which had about 70 head.
Back then he was 4'9" and
105 lbs and went to school with Brad Smythe. Brad was the
only guy in school that was smaller than Dwayne. He was
an inch shorter and about 5 lbs lighter. One day Mike Leuter came to both of them and told them they could become jockeys. However,BradwenttoRed Smith and Dwayne went to Max Bell's. Dwayne grew 6" in one year so that took care of any ideas of becoming a jockey. For a while he galloped at Trout springs for Lee Hanson. Trout Springs was a little bush track used for thoroughbred and standardbred training on the same surface, at the same time. After Max Bell passed away, and all his horses were dispersed, Dwayne went to work as a groom for trainers like Dale Sanders, Billy Norse and Rod Haynes.
In 1993 he hurt his back doing something unrelated to the horses and the doctor said walking would help him stay limber so he started walking hots, which was excellent physiotherapy. Ralph O'Bray, a farrier, put a pedometer on him one day to see just how far he was walking and discovered he walked a mile per horse, which worked out to be about 10 to 15 miles a day. He wears out a pair of runners pretty quickly, so he goes to the Thrift Store and looks for a pair with good soles on them. He likes to tell people he
Hotwalker Dwayne Kelly and Boots
has Arnold Swartzeneger legs and onePopeyearm. Heworkswithalot of two year olds and teaches them how to walk properly and not kick at people or other horses and to generally walk calmly. "People like me to take their horses to the paddock for the races because I don't hit the horses or abuse them in any way."
Dwayne likes to walk horses for the trainers that are on their own, some of them are older and can't walk very good anymore, so he tries to help them out. When he first gets started in the spring, he's pretty sore for the first week, but then he limbers up. It's a very boring job so he tries to keep his my mind busy and he picks up all the gossip as each new horse comes on the walking ring. Anything that happens, Dwayne hears about it.
His lifestyle off the track is "simple but not simple minded". He lives on the river bank in a tent, which includes a cot and a sleeping bag. "There used to be dorms here with a cafeteria where you could get bacon and eggs for breakfast, but there isn't anywhere to stay at the track anymore.”
Jonathan Huntington’s Backstretch Banter:
Jockey Ron Blinston practically saw his career flash in front of his eyes last month at Stampede Park.
Just before the wire during an afternoon card, Blinston was pitched off his mount like a rag doll and bounced face first off the track.
Somehow he walked away with just minor injuries.
“I broke my nose, three teeth and one eye is swollen shut ... but other than that, I’m not too bad,” he said the day after the spill.
He returned to riding the following week.
Finish Lines:
The richest Alberta Derby in Stampede Park history is set for June 18. The $125,000 tilt will also be televised live on Alberta’s four CTV stations... The Calgary meet ends the next day, meaning the Northlands Park season in Edmonton starts June 24... The proposed $80-million race- track in Calgary could be one huge step closer to reality by the end of July. The financial investors behind the one-mile thoroughbred track are hoping the councilors in the municipal district of Rocky View will soon vote on whether to grant the project a development permit, which is required before construction begins. If the permit is granted before council takes its August break, construction is scheduled to start this fall with opening day in 2007.
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