Page 35 - Canada Spring 2022

Free Thought after winning the Century Downs Classic at Century Downs.
THE BACKSIDE
WHEN YOU WERE 18, WHAT WAS IT THAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO TAKE THAT STEP AND GET YOUR TRAINER’S LICENSE?
“I just loved the horses. I just loved Quarter Horses and the speed of it. ... I find it very rewarding: watching, bringing a young horse along, watching them improve and win their first race. That’s what
got me started. When I was a kid there, I spent a summer with Guy and Jane Hopkins and worked with them and learned a lot. Then they moved on to Texas and they had pretty good success down there.”
YOU’VE CHOSEN TO KEEP YOUR OPERATION PRETTY SMALL. WHY?
“For a few years we were running 30 head of horses. Up here in Alberta where we’re mostly running, we’re pretty limited on the number of
horses you can run, right? And we were having a lot of trouble, too, with hiring people to help out and stuff. I figured, just better off to scale her back a little bit, you know? Now we can enjoy it a little more. If you’re
William’s daughter Haley and her husband Ricardo Moreno Andrade
down there at one of those bigger tracks or you’ve got 2-3 tracks pretty close together, you can run more horses. Up here, it’s pretty limited.”
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Coady Photography