Page 19 - March 2009 The Game

Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper Other siblings were known as ‘Viper’ and ‘Sharkey’ on the farm.
This is the outlook Dave the Knave would carry with him from handler to handler, for the remainder of his racing career. Dave possessed
a rare ability to deeply affect those around him. Perhaps it is tting, then, that Dave the Knave should change barns, enriching the lives of many along his journey. In September 2007, Dave
was claimed by trainer Sid Attard. He would spend his next seven starts under the close care of assistant trainer Jamie Attard, who described him as being “like a person.”
“It was like having your best friend there,” Attard said. “He was so big, but so gentle.”
Attard described how his uncle, hall of fame jockey Larry Attard, would bring his young grandchildren to visit Dave the Knave.
“He would never bite you or kick you. I didn’t come across a horse like him before, and haven’t come across another one since,” Attard said.
A nal change of hands and four more starts would wind down Dave the Knave’s racing career. All the while, Amanda Motz was working on her family’s wish to bring Dave home. Amanda made contacts with those involved with Dave the Knave, urging them to call her family
if Dave ever needed a home. In the late fall of 2008, on a rare day off the farm, Ron and Janet got the call: Dave was coming home.
Dave the Knave retired from racing in November 2008 with nine wins and 11 placings from 33 starts, four stakes wins and over $600,000 in earnings. Though his racing career is over, Dave’s heroic story continues today.
He is currently healing from a career-ending condylar fracture of his right hind fetlock, and has been on stall rest since his arrival at the Motz farm. While the long road to recovery continues, x-rays in late February showed Dave is healing.
“The vet is still happy with his progress. He’s healing well from the top [of the fetlock] down, the critical part right now is at the joint,” Janet said. “These things normally take six to eight months to heal.” Another set of x-rays is to be taken in six weeks, with the hope that hand- walking will follow soon after. A future career for Dave is still unclear, and will hinge largely on how he handles the rehabilitation process.
As for the Motzes, their story continues as well. With three mares due to foal this year, they are hoping lightning strikes again. Given their current track record, success wouldn’t come as a surprise.
“They’re so passionate about their horses, and they do such a good job raising them,” Attard said. “They really follow their horses, even after they sell them. It’s too bad there aren’t more people like them in the sport.”
For now Ron, Janet, Amanda and Jenelle are glad to have Dave home, and hope his happy ending will inspire others.
“Everyone loved this horse,” Janet said. “When Ron and I went to pick him up, the last assistant trainer said, ‘you know, when we claimed him, the groom left in tears’. There’s something about him. He just sucks you in.”
“He was due for retirement a while ago,” Ron added. “It’s too bad there isn’t a more formal system for retiring them. These are the ones that do the work, and they’re the ones that put their life on the line whenever they go to the track.”
The Game, March 2009 19
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News in Review
Jasmine Baggerman, a respected horsewoman and massage therapist, died on February 9. She was 49. Originally from Canada, Baggerman relocated to
Ocala ten years ago.
She quickly became an important part of the
Thoroughbred industry, working with prominent Florida and Kentucky Thoroughbred breeders at horse sales. She also was employed by Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. as an outrider during the two-year-old in training sales.
News in Review
Eddie Logan, the shoeshine attendant at Santa Anita Park since the track opened December 25, 1934, died on January 31, 2009 at the age of 98. Eddie, a former boxer and Negro League baseball player, was a beloved gure at the racetrack and was known for his wit, smile and work ethic.
2007 G1 Arlington Million Stakes winner, Jambalaya was expected to make his rst start since the race 18 months ago in the $150,000 G3 Canadian Turf Stakes in February at Gulfstream Park in Florida. However trainer Catherine Day-Phillips said he will not be running.
News in Review
“Unfortunately we’re forced to go by his schedule,” Day-Phillips said. “He’s just not coming together as quickly as I would have hoped.” The seven year old gelding was overcoming a deep bone bruise after the Million and was further hampered by a pulled muscle in his hind end at the beginning of last year.
Fort Erie - Continued from Pg. 17
“We’re breaking our two-year-olds now just as we’ve always done,” said Claudia Whalen. “But if the Fort
closes our only option would be to work at Woodbine, and how could we afford to buy a home there? We have 20 Canadian-breds out of our 25 horses and not all of them will run well on an arti cial surface. We need the Fort as a dirt track option, too.”
Beresford Lee is one trainer who is currently horseless: “My owners were reluctant to keep their horses over
the winter and felt it was too expensive to try them at Woodbine. If the Fort opens, I’ll buy one or two for myself.”
Gordon Mitchell emphasized “The government has taken almost two billion in taxes out of here. They’d look awfully bad of the track closes. But it won’t -- I know I’m right.”
And if the Fort Erie Race Track opens as usual on Kentucky Derby Saturday, May 2, one familiar four-legged Thoroughbred will likely see action that rst weekend. The Gonzalez’s Wholelottabourbon, Canada’s Sovereign Award- winning two-year-old champion of 2004, is in training at the Centre, along with seven other Gonzalez horses under the care of Linda Lippi.
Now seven years old, “Bourbon” will be sprinting competitively... until long-time leg problems rise to the surface once again. Said Lippi of the star-faced chestnut, who prefers the attention he gets on the backstretch to being grass- lled but lonely on the farm, “So far, so good.”
That about sums up the 2009 racing season at Fort Erie as of mid-February.
~ Harlan Abbey
But there are exceptions to every rule, and Dave was different. Quite the opposite from his siblings in character, Dave the Knave’s story reads like a fairy tale, or a classic hero’s homecoming.
A son of Whiskey Wisdom, Dave the Knave was born on May 20, 2002 at the Motz family farm. A large, lanky chestnut, Dave the Knave started stealing hearts early.
“He was so good natured around here,” Ron said. “The mare tended to produce horses that were challenging to handle. Then (Dave the Knave) came along and was just so good natured we gured he’d never make it as a racehorse. He didn’t have that instinct to kill.”
A near physical carbon copy of his dam, Dave the Knave quickly grew into a 16-hand yearling. Like Forever Grand, Dave the Knave was offered for sale at the 2003 Canadian-bred yearling sale, and purchased by Tiller and DiGiulio; this time the price was $25,000.
“When [Tiller and DiGiulio] bought Dave the Knave one of the names they tossed around was Half Grand, because they said even if he was half as good as his brother he’d make a good racehorse,” Janet said.
Instead he was named Dave the Knave, after his rst groom at the track. And he proved to be more than just half-grand.
“It was questionable with his size whether he was going to make it as a two-year-old runner,” Janet said. “That’s one thing Bob [Tiller] said: ‘I don’t think you’ll see him as a two year old.”
Dave had other plans. In his rst start in October 2004, he cruised to an early lead and never looked back, crushing maiden special weight opposition by six lengths. Thrust into stakes competition a month later, Dave bested the highly-regarded Out From Africa by a neck in the Sunny’s Halo. In his nal start of the year, Dave the Knave just missed to Enough is Enough in
an exciting renewal of the Kingarvie Stakes. His efforts landed him a position as one of the early favourites for the 2005 Queen’s Plate.
As fate would have it, a run at the Plate was not in the books for Dave. Like a number of Braverelle’s larger progeny, Dave the Knave developed muscle problems, delaying the start of his three-year-old campaign until May. He won his rst start of the year in allowance company, and returned to Woodbine’s in eld winner’s circle in September with a win in the Kenora Stakes. Over the next two years he would record four more wins, two of them in stakes races.
While Dave the Knave had developed a loyal fan base on the merits of his catchy name, ashy colouring and gritty racing style, he had always been a favourite in Tiller’s barn.
“There is something about this horse that is very special,” said Mary Gonzales, an exercise rider for Dave the Knave. “If you were having a bad day I think he could feel it from you. You could just give this horse a big hug around the neck, and it was like he appreciated it.
“I just loved that horse. You get into a relationship with these horses and they’re like your kids. It’s heartbreaking to have them go to another barn.”
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