Page 22 - May 2007 The Game

22 The Game, May 2007
Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
Veterinarian Jennifer Creer’s Long Productive Life at the Track
On March 19 of this year Dr. Jennifer Creer turned 60. With the help of The Game, she reflected on a live of owning, riding and helping horses. Creer describes her initial passion as a young girl.
“Every time I saw a horse, I went a little silly,” she says. “I identified with the horses.”
Creer was born in Liverpool, England and moved with her family to Canada in 1956 when she was 9. Apparently her mother got homesick after a while, so a few years later, they moved back to England.
“The first time we went back to England, I was about 13”, says Creer. “A neighbour around the corner from a relative had a couple of horses. Then when I came back, a fellow in Dundas had some riding horses and I started riding there.”
Creer went to high school at Parkside High in Dundas and was a horse owner before graduating.
“I bought my own horse in grade 11 or 12,” she recalls. “He was only a couple of hundred. I was working at a dog kennel. I worked there all summer and even during school. I would look after the dogs, feed them and walk them.”
As a teenager, Creer was certain of her future career. After finishing grade 13, she enrolled in Veterinary Sciences at the University of Guelph. While spending six years getting her degree, she was also getting a lot of hands-on equine experience.
“When I had my first horse, I was boarding it at a farm and a fellow named Dennis Lyell that ran that farm was training a couple of thoroughbreds for Mr. Ken Sobel who ran Channel 11 in Hamilton. I ended up breaking one of the thoroughbreds for Dennis and then he started taking me to the track.”
From the first time she saw the track, Creer realized there was something profound about it for her.
“Every time, I drove up the road and saw Woodbine, I thought, ‘This is my second home,”
It was the early 60s. Woodbine wasn’t even ten years old. Creer carries a great memory of a formative moment in Canadian racing history.
“It was the year Northern Dancer won the Plate,” she says nostalgically. I remember watching him win the Derby
and Preakness on TV. Then he come up here to run the in the Queen’s Plate. I watched the race from the backside. He just ran away and hid on the rest of them. He was a superhorse, the first Canadian- bred to win the Kentucky Derby. I still remember all the publicity about how people turned him down at the sales because he was too small.”
Creer started grooming and hot-walking for a
trainer named
George Hoover
who had three or four horses.
“He was a
pretty good all
around horseman,”
she says. “He
taught me some
basic grooming
and horse
management and
that helped get me
through the vet
course. He had a good horse called Poets Dream who won allowance races. He was one of those kind of horses that was good looking, big and strong. When he won- that was a great feeling.”
Poets Dream might have been Creer’s first experience in the winner’s circle, but another horse has special place in the archives of her memory bank.
“In 1967, in the fall, I bought a horse called Battle Note. He ran for three years and paid the last three years of Vet school. Hewonatotalof9races.Igothimasa five year old maiden and ran him at five, six, seven and eight. You couldn’t run five year old maidens at Woodbine back then, so I ran him at Finger Lakes and won first time out. He won two that year, then he won in Montreal, then he won three as a six year old on the grass and he won a couple at seven. When I graduated, I retired him and he died at 21. His nick- name was Misery because he was mean, but he put me through school.”
While still at the University of Guelph, Creer continued to work through the summers at Woodbine. She remembers grooming along side a young Sandy Hawley, who was getting his introduction to the horse game.
“I galloped horses for five or six years,” says Creer. “I started working for Duke Campbell and was rubbing horses
there. Then I worked for a trainer called Patsy Santo. He went to Montreal that year, so I went to Montreal.”
Creer knew that being a veterinarian was her life’s calling. Even so in 1968, she took out her trainer’s license.
“Training’s sort of my hobby,” she says cheerily. “At the beginning, I had a lot of horses. Battle Note won nine. Another named Ballacashtal, which I
Shot. Sadly, Mr. Stewart passed away last year.”
In her many years at the track, Creer has found herself working with some of the more notable horsepeople in the business. She rhymes off a long list of her clientel.
“Laurie Silvera, Mike Silvera, Tommy O’Keefe, Julia Carey, Lorna Perkins, Mort Hardy. I’ve been with Alex Bankuti a long time; John Leblanc, Ray Lawrence, Shelly Fitzgerald, Conrad Belaire.”
Belaire has had just one vet working on his horses since 1971
“She’s a good person and a good vet. I was one of her first clients,” says Belaire. “She’s worked on thousands of my horses. I used to have a farm and we used to have 100 horses. This spring she’s helping me with Jet Black Caddy and Luhuk Gal.”
The Game asked Creer if there’s any evidence the kickback from the polytrack is showing up in the horses’ systems.
“We scoped some,” she says. “”The odd one you could see some little particles, but not a lot. We heard originally from different sources that when you scoped them, you would see some particles in the trachea, and we did see some but not as much as we were led to believe.”
These days, Dr. Jennifer Creer is quite the hyphenate (as they say in Hollywood). “Every year I get an owner, trainer, vet and exercise license,” she laughs. “Elaine in the office says I get more than anyone
else.”
Actually, she gave up the riding a few
years ago to focus a little more on the training.
“I got smarter. I didn’t want to fall off. I’ve got a horse now I’m training. He’s the he great grandson of Balla Cashtal. He’s called Feline Fury –a three year old gelding by Cat’s At Home who recently died.”
Creer feels that over forty years at the track have gone quickly. Trainers and owners know she’s a woman with extraordinary skill and experience.
“It’s all gratifying,” says Creer about working with horses. “We like to think we’re part of the whole package. Obviously the horse has to have the talent. You just hope nobody messes up.”
Dr. Jenny Creer, enjoying a morning at Woodbine, watching her horses train.
raised, won nine as well. Ballaqueen, a daughter of Ballacashtal, won 12 and her foals have won some races, but I ended up selling most of them.”
Creer graduated in 1971 and started her own veterinary practice at Woodbine. She discovered that
when the meet shifted to Fort Erie in the summer, many horses remained at Woodbine and she was able to pick up a few clients because of the overflow.
“It was slow the first year or two, then it seemed to take off after the second year,” she says of her early career. “I guess because I was there every day and didn’t back off, people began to realize that I was reliable. They were a little chauvinistic at first. The time when I first started at the track, I think there were maybe six female exercise riders or grooms at the whole racetrack. All the barns had male washrooms. The only female washroom was at the kitchen, so barns one to twelve, all the female workers or visitors had to run to the kitchen.”
The first few years of Creer’s career brought her into contact with many trainers who have made historical imprints on horse racing in Canada.
“I worked for Jacques Dumas when he had Giboulee and a horse called Ben Fab,” she says. “Mort Hardy had Muzzledick. He was a sprinter and he was fast. Another one I worked for was Laurie Silvera when he came up from Jamaica. He had a horse called Solo Guy. I remember him being a fast one. I worked for Bill Stewart for at least twenty years. He had a really nice horse called Mr. Hot
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