Page 14 - March 2019 Thoroughbred Highlight

Artist Linda Shantz with Gracey at her farm in Milton.
A crazy passion that won’t let her do anything else
It started with crayons. Linda still has the drawing. Age 4 in Montreal where she was born, horses, owers, and the sun were the subjects of her elemental passion for drawing and painting.
Self professed as horse crazy, artist Linda Shantz did not have the usual physical exposure to horses at an early age as most counterparts who claim the same addiction. Living in Brampton, Ontario by the age of 6 her mother had begun reading to Linda books by Marguerite Henry; Black Gold, King of the Wind as well as Walter Farley’s Black Stallion series of books thus further fueling her passion for horses.
All through her years at school any of her completed writing assignments would feature horses; any art assignments always had horses and by age 13 Linda would spend weekends, holidays and her summers working and riding horses at Rocky Ridge Ranch.
While her parents did not discourage her artistic and equine passions they did encourage her to pursue a career which
utilized her aptitude for math.
Close to nishing high school (she had half a semester left to
complete) Linda was unsure of her direction in life when on a whim, the timid teenager, dragged her friend Theresa Sauren to Woodbine Racetrack. At 6am that day it was announced at the East Gate that they were available to walk hots.
Danny Vella, then training for Steve Stavro’s mighty Knob Hill Stable, answered the page and Linda and Theresa both worked for Danny for the rest of the summer.
In January with high school completed, Racing Manager Pat Collins employed Linda to travel with the stable to Payson Park in Florida where she walked the likes of Granacus and Why Not Willie.
In the next barn over where Dave Maclean was training for Lt. Col. Charles Baker’s Norcliffe Stables, there was a horse that caught Linda’s eye. It was the striking chestnut horse Corseque. Before the end of the winter Linda was walking Corseque and
Thoroughbred Highlight, March 2019, Page 14