Page 4 - The Game June 2006

4 The Game, June 2006 Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper
PRINCETON RACING DAYS ASSOCIATION Box 1234 Princeton, BC VOX 1WO
January 30, 2006
To: JIM REYNOLDS
Dear Mr. Reynolds:
The Executive & Directors of The Princeton Racing Days Association would like to extend their gratitude and appreciation to you, for your efforts toward the 37th Running of our Racing Days in 2005.
Your article in The Game, August 2005 was the best thing that we could have hoped for.
To us that article was like a review about a new play on Broadway. People that have read this article, but did not attend our Race Meet are now asking when are we holding our Race Meet in 2006 and for how many days. The people that did attend, had the time of their lives and assured us that they would be coming back in 2006, but told us that we should have two days instead of one.
Our Volunteers made this day happen, but it is someone like you that highlights the day for all of us. We would like to invite you back this year for our Races which, to this date will be held on Thursday June 29, 2006 when again you could possibly let people know who we are, where we are and what we are all about.
Again, Thank You and Yes we are THE BIGGEST LITTLE RACETRACK IN CANADA!
Yours truly,
John Bey
President
Princeton Racing Days Association
The Game
Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper
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On June 17, CARD (the Community Association for Riding for the Disabled) will once again be hosting CARDathon in the Park: a rideathon to raise funds for CARD, Community Association for Riding for the Disabled.
CARD's mission is to improve the lives of children and adults with disabilities through quality therapeutic riding programs.
You can help to support this very worthy organization by making a pledge for me, Stacie Roberts, as a celebrity rider during their annual fundraising event.
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Stacie Roberts Managing Editor The Game
Letter to the Editor
Dear Ms. Roberts,
I read with interest, in your April edition, the memoir letter from a backstretcher recalling his experiences at, or around, Dufferin Park. It sparked fond memories of three horses who epit- omized the horse-for-course adage. They were Mud Puppy, Teddy’s Sister and Youville.
Youville was the essence of the from-the-clouds runner. Picture, if you can, a half-mile track with about a 1/8th mile stretch run, a 1/4 mile back stretch, and two turns, each of 7/16th mile.
He performed mostly in 1 1/16th mile races which started around half way up (or down, if you see it that way) the stretch, past the finish line, then twice around the track. The race would end when the horses passed the finish line for the third time.
The races would end, but not all the horses. Some of them, unable to negotiate the rather sharp turn, almost wound up on Bloor Street. But that’s another story.
The second, and last time around the track, the leader would be entering the far turn (to the uninitiated, the far turn leads to the home stretch) with six horses gasping to catch up. Dufferin could only accommodate a maximum of eight entries.
Youville would be loping along, almost out of sight of the rest of the field. He would be coming out of the clubhouse turn (again, to the uninitiated, that turn leads to the back stretch). If the back stretch was 1/4 mile long, Youville would have been around 3/16th of a mile BEHIND the lead horse, with 3/16th of a mile to finish.
Simple mathematics dictate that, in order to win the race, Youville would have had to run TWICE AS FAST as the lead horse. He did it time after time after time. It was spectacular!
Perhaps they were not running as fast as today’s runners, espe- cially on a half-mile track, but they were thoroughbreds, running their hearts out, and Youville made them look as though they were standing still every time he raced at Dufferin. He should have been named Pegasus. He sprouted wings and absolutely flew past them. It was, indeed, a sight to behold.
If Mud Puppy ever won a race outside of Dufferin, I fail to remember it. If Mud Puppy ever lost a race around the Dufferin track, I fail to remember it.
He was the king of the claimers there. The fans knew it, and bet accordingly, and lavished praises upon him, every time he showed up.
Teddy’s Sister was Dufferin’s Queen of the Stakes. The purses may not have been what they currently are. The King’s Plate, as recorded in Louis Cauz’ “The Plate - a Royal Tradition” had an added value of $10,000 from 1944 to 1949 inclusive. In 1950, it ballooned to $15,000. This year it’s one million dollars.
Be that as it may, she ran against the best of her time, and they couldn’t beat her at Dufferin. At other tracks, yes, but not around (and around) the bull ring. To put things in perspective, she was 16th of 21 horses in the 1951 running of the King’s Plate. When she raced at Dufferin, she was superb.
I made many a lucrative wager on these three, at a time when a $30 weekly pay cheque was only on the horizon. In the words of H. (I think it was “H”) Joe Palmer, a New York racing colum- nist “top of his field”. The course is gone, the horses are gone, and the money is gone, but they were all grand and glorious while they lasted. - Bill Brooks
ORC Assist. Supervisor, Bill Hicks, Retires
Bill Hicks, an Assistant Supervisor for Standardbred Judges with the Ontario Racing Commission has retired after 21 years with the Commission.
Bill, who celebrated his 65th birthday in May, made the decision to retire and “allow the young blood to come in and take over.”
Bill and his wife June of 40 years (this November) love to travel and they already have a cruise to Alaska planned as well as tentative plans to attend a wedding in South Africa in the fall.
“I will hopefully get some golf in,” said Bill who officially retires on May 31, “and my spare time will be used up by my two grandsons Hunter and Chad.”
Bill began in the horse racing business at age 16 as a standardbred driver/trainer
helping his father, Vern Hicks, who had 15 to 25 horses at a farm near the village of Greenwood, Ontario.
Bill says had a “fairly suc- cessful” racing career winning more than 700 races mainly on the OJC circuit as well as some races in Michigan, New York and Montreal.
In 1985 he was asked if he was interested in working for the ORC as a racing judge and began working as an Associate Judge in 1986 working his way up to a Senior Judge Position before being promoted to Assistant Supervisor in 2001.