Page 29 - May 2007 The Game

Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper The Game, May 2007 29 ~Alookbackintime~
“The Colonel” - Dale Saunders
By Michele Brewster
Dale Saunders has been training thoroughbreds since the early 1960’s. As an employer of grooms, exercise riders, apprentices and jockeys, he has had nearly fifty years of
positive impact on the racing industry in Alberta. He has raised his fair share of good runners, trained and owned noteworthy stakes winners, solid claimers and allowance horses, and won the honor of trainer of the year in Alberta nine times.
He trained seventy-two
winners in 1982 and
eighty-eight winners in
1983. Since 1976,
according to Equineline
statistics, Dale’s horses
have earned $11,694,609,
with 9625 starts and 1581
wins and has once been nominated for a Sovereign Award.
For more than five decades, the white Diamond D on red silks has been a familiar symbol in western Canadian paddocks and winner’s circles. While racing mainly in Alberta at Stampede Park in Calgary and Northlands Park in Edmonton, Dale has also saddled stakes winners at Hastings Park in British Columbia, Assiniboia Downs in Manitoba and Marquis Downs in Saskatchewan.
In his early career, he had winners at Lethbridge, Millarville, Sandown and Turf Paradise in Arizona. Awards including bronzes, plaques, crystal, artifacts and paintings are displayed in the Saunders’ home at Bowden, Alberta and are testimony of a lifetime of achieve- ment.
Dale’s roots are entrenched in racing – parents Roy and Florence encouraged his talent that was evident in childhood. Roy’s cousin, breeder and trainer Les Saunders, fostered his burgeoning ability. Another relative, Fred Saunders was named as owner while Dale was still too young, at age fifteen to legally own a racehorse.
Many other horsemen provided advice in breeding and caring for thoroughbreds. During the early years he absorbed knowledge from his mentors, learning the ways of more experienced, successful
trainers.
Dale’s first job was with Charlie
Jasper, during the summer of grade ten, then with Ken and Ann Buxton until completion of high school. In 1963 Dale began working for Neil Cressman, at that time from Sundre and later at Fort McLeod, as an assistant trainer. In all, he apprenticed for six years.
In 1965 and 1966 Dale spent the winter racing season at Turf Paradise in Arizona, had several wins while gaining self-confidence and independence.
as a licensed trainer in 1968. Blessed with natural athletic ability, Dale sits a horse with ease and he became proficient at galloping and ponying horses. The skills he learned during his apprenticeship
have been invaluable to his success.
Dale is a quiet, introspective man, who embodies integrity, strong values and beliefs and demonstrates tremendous work ethic. He is intelligent, he thinks before he speaks, is a quick mover – he walks faster than most ofuscanjog-andhasbeen labeled as a “stall walker” because of his restless energy.
Nicknamed “the Colonel”, Dale is a private person. He is a good listener, capable of
maintaining a comfortable, thoughtful silence. His memory retention is phenomenal; names and details of horses, grooms, owners, trainers, sales, track personnel and race statistics come easily to him.
During the early years, Roy and Flo cared for the horses at the farm, foaled mares, treated the injured, remaining hands-on and ever so proud of Dale’s achievements. Roy could generally be found at the farm, and passed away at the age of ninety-one following a barn check.
Perhaps Dale’s best claim was his wife of twenty-seven years, Barb (Willis), who began working for him in 1976. Barb began as a groom, then, taught by Dale, galloped horses until 1985. A year before daughter Nicky was born.
Barb now manages the farm operation. She has supervised long time farm staff Ernest Cullen, Kathy Heatherington, Leanne McKenzie and Jackie Sargeant. Loyal to Dale’s race stable crew include Linda Reynolds, Bev Smith, Buzz Bourke, Larry Zazula, the “Morton girls”, Sylvia Gaetz, Helen Anstruther, Faye Haeberle, Judy Cuthbertson, and Scott Allen. “Shakey” Dean Martiniuk has exercised and galloped for Dale for six- teen years, just recently obtaining his trainer’s license. Dale understands that all of his staff are part of the team and incorporates a bonus system, which rewards staff for the value they bring to his stable.
Many people have worked for Dale’s Diamond D stable, remaining as loyal employees for years. Legendary jockey Don MacBeth, who rode stakes horses to victory in the 1970’s, including winning the Japan Cup as well as riding in the Kentucky Derby, began his career learn- ing to stay aboard on one of Roy’s draft horses. A very youthful Robert “Pinky” MacDonald rode Dale’s Mistake to five wins in seven starts in one season during the early sixties.
Dale trained his first winner, Sharonita
Cont. Page 35 - see The Colonel
A photo of Dale Saunders in an Awards program in 1984
Dance Smartly or Glorious Song? Canada’s Greatest Racemare
By Gary Poole
Name the greatest Canadian-bred male thoroughbred of all time. There’s one answer, no arguments, no second guessing. Northern Dancer. Now name the greatest Canadian-bred female thoroughbred of all-time. If your interest in the sport goes back twenty years or less, you’ve probably got another automatic response. Dance Smartly. Those of us who’ve been around the game a little bit longer might think the issue is less cut and dried. We’d wander back to the late seventies and early eighties and recall an iron tough mare that emerged from this country and proved herself at the highest levels of competition both at home and abroad. Her name was Glorious Song.
Twelve years separated these two amazons of the turf. Glorious Song, a foal of 1976 and an E.P. Taylor bred, raced for Frank Stronach, who later sold a half interest to Nelson Bunker Hunt. Dance Smartly, born in 1988, was a Sam-Son Farms homebred through and through.
Glorious Song competed over four seasons, won 17 of her 34 starts and earned just over $1 million dollars. Dance Smartly campaigned over three seasons, captured 12 of her 17 races and banked in excess of $3.2 million dollars. While Dance Smartly holds a clear edge money- wise, there are extenuating circumstances. Purse levels were higher when she raced; the rich Breeders' Cup, which the Sam Son filly won, didn’t exist in Glorious Song’s day, neither did the $1 million dollar bonus which Dance Smartly earned for her Triple Crown sweep.
Dance Smartly’s claim to indelible fame rests squarely on her three year old season. She won only a single stakes race at two and was quite disappointing at four. However, what she did as a sophomore was quite remarkable. She went eight for eight, defeating males on four occasions, became the only female winner of Canada’s Triple Crown and beat older mares in her Breeders' Cup Distaff score. That race was her lone open Grade One win.
Glorious Song’s development into a world-class performer took some time. At two she won her only start. As a three year old, never leaving Canada, she won seven of ten races, four of them stakes against fellow Canuck bred fillies. At age four she expanded her horizons, going stateside. There she was simply brilliant.
She won three straight Grade One stakes and that was just the beginning. Her connections then bravely submitted her to a seven race stint against males. While she didn’t win all of them, she did herself proud and in defeat probably lived up to the glorious in her name more than in any win.
One race, the Aug.16, 1980 Amory L. Haskell at Monmouth, stands out. After a scintillating workout at Fort Erie, Glorious Song shipped south to face Spectacular Bid, a colt that was in the midst of one of the greatest seasons any runner has ever achieved. After battling the grey superstar at the top of the stretch, she finished less than two lengths behind him in a courageous display. She followed that with another runner-up finish against boys in the prestigious Marlboro Cup.
While her five year old season was less extraordinary, the Stronach miss did capture the Grade One Spinster and was a neck loser in the Grade One Santa Margarita despite carrying a burdensome 130 pounds.
Dance Smartly’s exploits at age three and Glorious Song’s at age four earned both of them North American racing’s most coveted post-season prize, an EclipseAward.
A final way to compare these two great racemares is to examine their records as broodmares. Again the competition is fierce. Glorious Song’s offspring include the good racehorse and prominent sire Rahy. She is also the dam of Singspiel, victor in the Canadian International, Japan Cup and Dubai World Cup. Dance Smartly is the mother of back-to-back Queen’s Plate winners Scatter The Gold and Dancethruthedawn. Both mares have disproved the theory that top fillies on the track tend to be underachievers in the breeding shed.
The question remains. Which of the two are more deserving to be called Canada’s greatest female racehorse? It probably comes down to the criteria on which they are judged. If you look at the pure perfection of Dance Smartly’s three year old season, she would get the nod. If you consider the overall quality of the competition faced and the consistent game showing against them, Glorious Song deserves the edge.
What a treat it would have been to see these two superlative mares square off on their best day.