Page 32 - The Game February 2006

32 The Game, February 2006 Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper
~ Olds College Certified Exercise Rider & Jockey School, Olds,Alberta ~
The Certified Exercise Rider & Jockey School
combines practical and theory to allow the students to focus on safety while acquiring the skills needed to perform their jobs.
The mechanical horses allow them to hone their skills and fitness levels safely and without stressing or tiring the school horses.
Student Jeanette Richter is here from Ontario attending the course.
Jockey Real Simard aboard “outriding” pony Tonto
Jockey Real Simard is the head instructor for the Certified Exercise Rider & Jockey School at Olds College in Alberta. The new 12-week course started on November 28, 2005 and teaches its students to exercise horses at the racetrack. “A lot of the horses are retired racehorses,” said Real, “There is a good variety of horses, flighty, tough, easy and lazy, just like you’d find at the racetrack.”
The students begin at the College and finish off the course on the actual racetrack at Stampede Park which opened at the end of January.
Real mentioned that this first year of the course has been a learning experience for him as well, “I have learned a lot about the horses.” admitted Real who says he is used to knowing the horses from the top of them, not underneath.
Real got involved in horseracing when he met a guy at a gas station in Northern Alberta where he grew up who said, “you’re too small to be working in a sawmill...you should be a jockey.”
In 1984 he began working for trainer Rod Haynes and “became his fifth child”. Real rode his first race in 1986 and has been one of the top riders in Alberta ever since. He finished fourth in the standings at both Stampede Park and Northlands in 2005.
Real applied for the instructor position for the course because he said the horseracing industry has been good to him and if he can help someone get into the business he would.
Students Tyson Zacher (inside) and Dee Boychuk
Nancy Wrayton and Salty
Co-instructor Nancy Wrayton is a former jockey (Nancy Jumpson) who rode for 10 years before hanging up her tack in 1994. Nancy began galloping racehorses in the morning before going off to school at the age of 14. She spent two years in Newmarket, England working for Harry Thompson Jones before coming back to Alberta to begin her career as a jockey.
Nancy was leading apprentice in 1985 and quit riding in 1994 to start a family. She had been out of the horseracing business for the last six years and applied to the College to help develop the curriculum for the Exercise Rider and Jockey course, she then applied to become an instructor of the course which began in November 2005.
Student Lisa Mackenzie (left) was nervous about riding Sunny Ciano, however she handled the exercise like a professional. Originally from B.C., Lisa was a waitress that was looking for a new career. She moved to Alberta in 2004 to attend the Certified Groom School Training Program and has worked at the racetrack since.
The extent of her riding ability was a trail ride when she was six however with a few lessons she passed the ability requirements for the Exercise Rider course and is doing very well. “I love it” said Lisa when asked about the course, “It gets better every day.” Co-instructor Nancy Wrayton aboard her pony Salty walks back with Lisa.
(from the inside) Students Ken Ellis,Travis Verlaeckt,Tyson Zacher and Dee Boychuk warm up their horses on the dirt track at Olds Agricultural grounds as part of their daily curriculum.
Student Travis Verlaeckt