Page 10 - May 2007 The Game

10 The Game, May 2007 Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
WOODBINE Opening Day - Continued from Page 8
Dos Ramos feels the off-season riding does him nothing but good.
“Absolutely. You’re more fit and it keeps your weight down,” he says. You don’t get as heavy as some of the guys who stay here year round.”
Gerry Olguin also comes back to town after a successful foray to the States. Olguin had 10 winners from 103 chances at Santa Anita, clearly one of the more difficult jockey colonies to crack
“It was important to me for the fitness level and keeping my weight under control,” says Olguin of his California experience. “I feel better without stopping for a couple of months. Two years in my career I didn’t ride in the winter and then I had a lot of trouble getting my weight down.”
Chantal Sutherland returns to Woodbine after two and a half years in New York learning from and riding against the best jock- eys in the world.
“I really enjoyed myself in New York. It was really nice,” she says. “Saratoga was an amazing place to ride. I really enjoyed myself and it was wonderful.”
Sutherland won 11 races in the winter at Aqueduct, con- necting at almost 10%.
“I just worked hard like anyone else,” she says. “I had some suc- cess.”
Steve Bahen found a creative way to keep slim in the winter.
“I worked for about an hour a day mucking stalls for John Calhoun,” he says with a huge smile on his face. “I go in there and help him out. He’s 87. I spent the rest of the time playing hockey or messing with my kids. I’ve never ridden in the winter any- where. You need horses. Horses make the difference.”
Robert Landry put in some hours in Florida.
“I was riding at Gulfstream Park just to get in shape before the season and I got lucky and won a couple,” he says. “For an old guy, I’m hanging in there. I get on horses every morning. If you can ride five a day and not crawl back to the jocks’ room, you’re in pretty good shape.”
Trainer Josie Carroll and Jockey David Clark with Hello Haley, owned by Donver Stables
Justin Stein’s first full season at Woodbine was
dously uplifting; he won 109 races, good for fourth in the stand- ings. Stein mixed relaxation with work in the off-season.
“I went to Vancouver for a couple of weeks, then I went to Mexico for two weeks,” he says. “I came home for a month then went to Florida and I have been getting on horses since the middle of February.”
Stein isn’t convinced that jockeys suffer much from being off race horses in the winter.
“I don’t know. People seem to think that the horses that win- ter race down there have an edge. I’m pretty confident that I haven’t gotten rusty over the winter. For sure it will take a few races but it shouldn’t take too long.”
Action speaks much louder than words, and finally it was post time at Woodbine. The first winner of the year was the Josie Carroll trained Hello Haley who cruised home by six lengths under David Clark, who found he had more than enough horse to make the win- ning move.
“Josie did a great job on her,” says Clark. “I was third until we turned for home.”
Clark and Carroll combined for two winners on the day. Emile Ramsammy also hit the winners’ circle twice, scoring in the 4th with the six year old Archers Dream for trainer Ross Armata, then coming right back in the 5th with a three year old filly named Timely Closure for Abraham Katryan.
At the end of the day, the argument about winter racing remained unresolved. Emma-Jayne Wilson’s win in the 7th on Sue’s Regent made her the only jockey with winter rides to hit the winners’ circle on opening day. Sue’s Regent is owned by the Colebrook Farms and trained by Thomas Bowden.
Of the ten winning horses on the first day, four had raced already in 2007; the other six were making their 2007 debuts.
tremen-
Remembering John Allen
By Archie McDonald
There are characters at the race track and there are men of character. John Allen, who died in April at age 86, was a bit of the former and a lot of the later.
Allen was a fixture at British Columbia tracks for more than 50 years, running a small, successful stable with efficiency, honesty and good will towards horses and humans, a winning triactor at any track you care to name. In the rough and tumble of backstretch politics he came
across as a rare statesman. Many Hastings Park trainers lean towards wide brimmed western hats, but John favored Scottish tams, which friends would give him as gifts. When his durable claimer Beau Bunnie ran on Easter weekend he decked him out in an Easter
bonnet.
Allen’s journey through
the uneven history of B.C. racing is a lesson in economics and survival.
Born in Victoria in 1921 in
a family of 10, he served with
distinction with the Royal
Canadian Air Force in World
War II, receiving five medals.
After the war he married
Sonia Stewart, whose family
ran a riding stable outside of
Victoria. Known as Rose or Rosebud, a nickname given her by her father, she was one of the first female trainers licensed in B.C.
“If you marry me, you marry my horses”, was the pre-nup agreement Sonia delivered to John.
In 1948 they found themselves trying to grind out a living on the backstretch at Hastings Park, They considered getting out of the business. But a slight, chestnut filly named La Mouche committed them to a life at the track by winning the Ascot Derby.
Hastings has been extended from a half mile to five furlongs and when heavy rains came in August the new surface became a quagmire. The Ascot was shortened from a mile and one quarter to a mile an one sixteenth to accommodate the conditions. The Allens had to scrape together every cent they had (this not an exaggeration) to come up with the $50 nomination fee.
La Mouche, gum booted home for a $46.10 upset victory and the $2,145 pay day kept the Allens in the game. La Mouche, who was a maiden, won by a stunning five lengths over Lord Onslaught.
There are several interesting footnotes to the race. Attendance was 22,500 which was a bigger number than the winning purse. The rider on Lord Onslaught was Avelino Gomez, who would go on to become the most famous rider in the country. La Mouche had 144 starts over 10 years, with 13 wins, 16 seconds and 20 thirds. She earned $16104.
Two months after LaMouche’s victory Sonia gave
birth to the first of their two daughters, Maureen. “I was in the winners circle before I was born”, laughs Maureen, who couldn’t resist training horses for several years even though she had a pharmacist degree.
The Allens’ lives took another turn in the late 1950’s when they were approached by Dr. Fred Spohn about forming a partnership in Clearbrook Stock Farm in Aldergrove. Spohn would provide the
John Allen and Colonel Beau
working capital and Allen would supply the work.
The partnership survived seven years, until John could no longer handle the responsi- bilities of handling the farm, training at Hastings and all the travel in between.
Dr. Spohn harbored dreams of breeding a Queen’s Plate winner and he came close when Rushton’s Corsair, purchased by Aubrey Minshall, finished third, beaten less than two lengths by Amber Herod and Native Aid in 1974. Rushton’s Corsair later won the Prince of Wales Stakes.
The best runner for the Spohn-Allen team was Bouncy Belle who bounced home in the 1966 B.C. Oaks.
Freed to accept other sponsors after leaving Clearbrook John’s patience paid off with many notable winners in 70s, 80s and
into the 90s.
Dr. Ross Stewart bought a yearling from
Clearbrook in 1963 and for the next 27 years he had Allen as his trainer. Stewart’s most outstanding horse was Rumpole, B.C.’s 2 year- old champion in 1984 and the best B.C. bred runner of his generation. Fittingly, he won the 1985 Ascot Derby, 37 years after LaMouche had won the same race.
Six years later Colonel Beau, a horse the Allens owned, finished second in the Ascot.
“In those 27 years John and I had no problems at all, which is unusual in racing” says Stewart. “He was very patient with horses. He was reliable and he had integrity. Few of John’s horses ever broke down. If a horse was sound enough to get to the track John usually kept them going and got a win out of them”.
Gay Forstbauer, a long time B.C. Breeder, remembers working for John at Clearbrook. “ he was like a father to me. He was totally honest. He would never steer you wrong. He never took day money for the sake of the money. He would tell an owner, ‘this horse can’t run’. He loved animals, not only horses, but his dogs and cats”.
John was predeceased by wife Sonia in 2001. He is survived by daughters Maureen Allen and Cathy Weinberger. Two grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He is also survived by two brothers and sisters.
Did you know...
That Satan seemed to be playing jokes on the horseplayers at Woodbine on April Fool's day. On that afternoon card of racing, the first three winners all carried saddle cloth number 6, creating a devilish pick 3 of 6-6-6 that returned $138.40. To cap off a card replete
with references to Beelzebub, Constant Montpellier steered Drinknwiththedevil
to victory in the final race of the day. The three year old daughter of Devil His Due,
trained by David Cotey, returned $7.40 to win.