Page 36 - April 2005 The Game

36 The Game, April 2005 Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper Huntington Stud Farm Foals 2005
Gold Case colt out of Bellamissy. Foaled January 25, 2005. Owner Terra Farms Ltd.
Editor’s Note: Due to space restrictions this month -
our regular publishing of the Foal Reports will return next month
MIKE AND KEVIN HOFFMAN - CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28
Slew City Slew filly out of Native Geisha. Foaled Feb. 7, 2005. Owner Huntington Stud Farm.
Mare Producing Nice Foals
Seven-year-old mare, Casting Cinema, by Bounding Basque - Movie Casting, and her 2005 filly by Capt. Bogit. Casting Cinema is owned by Beryl Calabro and is scheduled to go to Dance to Destiny in 2005. The mare’s 2003
colt, named My Biscuit, is by Talking Man, and has already been nominated for the Canadian Triple Crown races. My Biscuit, is likely to make his debut as a two- year-old in 2005 under the guidance of Fort Erie trainer, Ralph Quaranta.
HALL OF FAME - CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27
Champion Silver Nithi and her Hennessy colt at Windhaven Farm. The colt is owned by Richard and JoEllen Shaw.
it sort of progressed from there.”
Kevin stayed in Saskatoon with his dad and began owning horses, while Mike moved to Rocky Mountain Turf Club, in Lethbridge, Alberta, with trainer Larry Dagg, to helped him for a season but ended up staying.
Mike says he had dreamed of being a trainer since his first visits to the track.
So naturally it didn’t take long before Mike acquired several horses to train including: a speedy horse named Leading Edge Three, who holds the track record for five and a half furlongs in 106.1 around two turns. The horse was one of Mike’s favourites; finish- ing second, three times in three stakes, by less than a length each time. Mike says with a laugh, “My Dad nagged me all year for not winning those stakes. Mike has trained both quarter horses, and thoroughbreds and says he likes the thoroughbreds because as he explained, “You stub your toe in the quarter horse races and you’ve lost the race.”
Mike doesn’t consider moving from trainer to assis- tant as a demotion. At the young age of 25 he states, “Everyone does things their own way, Jim, he has won the Queens Plate, and if he wants something done a certain way; then that is the way I’ll do it.”
Mike is happy to have an opportunity to learn from Jim, and hopes with some hard work he will be able to walk to the paddock in a suit.
Both Kevin and Mike find the transition to the East different. The small tracks of the west have a commu- nity feel to them that is not as evident here. Kevin says, “I swore I would never come East but here I am.” He now lives in Bolton with his wife and surprisingly likes Woodbine.
Mike says he is adjusting, and he will give it a try for a little while; he wouldn’t mind training here.
So maybe coming East is not such a bad thing, and it may actually be a good influence. Mike says, “it must be working; I haven’t cussed all day.”
BAREFOOT RACING CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22
The reduction in circulation also drops the temperature in the foot and impairs the metabolic process which stunts the corium and causes the tissues to die (necrosis) and decreases the horn quantity and quality. The nails used to attach the shoe further reduce the temperature of the hoof because they conduct the cold into the hoof. A healthy unshod hoof is warm while a normal shod hoof is cold.
The benefits of the unfettered foot have been well researched and documented and the only challenge that is left to be faced is the barrier of change and
there are some trainers and owners who are taking on that challenge by example.
English trainer Simon Earle has been running his horses without racing plates since the beginning of this year with much success. Gelding, Saucy Night, made racing history on January 3, 2005 when he became the first professionally trained barefoot horse to win a race under rules at Folkestone. Saucy Night was sold to Simon with an uninspiring record of zero for seven in which he never ran past another horse in a race, losing on average by 50 lengths per race.
Simon Earles’ barefoot horse race record to date is
5 wins and 3 seconds with nine different horses, all of which were racing on the turf and some over fences. Recently Dr. Tomas Teskey, a graduate of
Colorado State University, presented a lecture at the university entitled “The Unfettered Foot; A paradigm change for equine podiatry” which was the first group of veterinary students exposed to the research and the benefits of the barefoot horse.
Barefoot racing has made leaps and bounds since the beginning of this year and it will likely take a single racing jurisdiction to initiate the acceptance of this change.
"Look how close the photographer was, look at the number of people at the track."
But I've already got my eyes glued on a $5 admission ticket to the Kenilworth Park match race between the legendary Man O'War and Sir
Barton. It was
October 12th,
1920.
"That to me was
the biggest sports
event to take place
in Canada before
Secretariat raced
here in 1973," says
Cauz, "People
came here from all
over the world. The
biggest people in North America were at the race.
Man O'War won by 7 lengths as the overwhelming favourite. Cauz shows me the bookmakers' handwritten accounting. Incredibly there was $221,673 bet on that
single race.
Before I leave, Cauz
directs me to an original 1920s riders' scale and right beside it, a delight- ful Norman Rockwell print of jockey Eddie
Arcaro getting weighed while a grossly overweight clerk of the scale checks him out. The scale in the drawing is the same one that Cauz has rescued.
The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame is a veritable three-dimensional encyclopedia for anyone new to the sport. If you're someone who thinks they know it all, this Hall will surprise you with a fact
or picture you never knew existed.
And for Louis Cauz, the Hall of fame is still a work in progress. "I want to put up an image and biographical sketch of every-
one who has ever been inducted," insists Cauz, which means he has to work on close to 80 more panels.
By the way, if there's any detail, payoff, jockey, owner or colours that escape you from any race since 1900, Louis is the guy to talk to. You can e-mail him at LZC@woodbineentertain- ment.com.
Daring Photographer eludes Galloping Field