DESIGNS ON WINNING

SELLING RACING

(PHOTO of Eleftheria- Rebecca Mottin)

Woodbine should be aware that many of its horsepeople have done a lot to try and bring their sport to the public. One example was a backstretch tour and seminar last Saturday in which a bus load of mostly savvy racing fans and bettors were taken to the barn of trainer Kevin Attard who conditions privately for Knob Hill Stable.

Attard was personable and talkative, explaining many of the keys and strategies of training racehorses. He also tipped his hand about his idea's on first time starters - he wants his horses to win first time out.

And the fans got to meet ELEFTHERIA, a chestnut filly who has won 3 of her last 4 races and has been a real project for Attard because of her nervous tendencies.

With many people, like some who read this site, preferring to gripe about racing in Ontario and Woodbine, it's a nice change to embrace some of the super people who spend their lives getting these horses ready for us to cheer on and bet on.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT WOODBINE

No SCORE show tonight for Woodbine racing and the co-featured 2nd race, scheduled for turf could be moved to Polytrack.

In fact turf racing is in danger all week if the rain continues.

UNBRIDLED’S SONG should play a role in the 2nd race if it stays on turf. SANIBEL STAR, whose dam Hangin on a Star won the Breeders’ Stakes at 1 ½ miles on turf, should love the 1 3/8 mile distance.

PECTORALIS MAJOR, by the same sire, has been 2nd in her last 2 starts and 5 times overall but is another logical contender.

“LIVE STOCK”

ROBBIE KING JR. WINS 6 AT THE FORT

FORT ERIE, August 21…Jockey Robbie King Jr. solidified his hold as king of the Fort Erie riders with a record-tying six-win performance Tuesday afternoon.

King became just the fourth jockey in the track’s 110-year history to ride a half dozen winners in the same day. The feat was last accomplished by Gary Stahlbaum in 1977. Hall of Famer Sandy Hawley did it four times in the 1970s. Al Coy set the record in 1958.

“We were on live stock all day and we had a bit of luck too,” King said after climaxing his run with a 6 ¾ length win aboard Frezacon ($6.20) in the eighth race. The four-year-old gelding trained by Myckie Neubauer equalled a 39-year-old track record by speeding 6 ½ furlongs in 1:15 4/5.

The 43 year-old native of Ottawa won the day’s first three races aboard While the Catsaway ($3.70), A Real Good Man ($8.00) and The Preetzah ($4.40). He also won the sixth on Champagne Prospect ($6.70) and the seventh aboard Utmost Respect ($7.80).

He just missed his seventh winner when Kerry Fair came up a head short of catching Cielavia at the wire in the ninth race. King also finished third in the fifth race and was out of the money in the fourth and the tenth.

The Fort’s defending champion jockey now has 61 wins for the season, 11 wins ahead of Chad Beckon.

THURSDAY NIGHT IS HALL OF FAME NIGHT

NATALMA, L’ENJOLEUR HONOURED

Hall of Fame release:

Windfields Farm’s Natalma, the mare whose first offspring, Northern Dancer, was the catalyst in creating a global thoroughbred dynasty, and Bettors Delight, winner of the Little Brown Jug and one of Canada’s great pacing colts, have been elected into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame. They join four other horses in gaining recognition by electors of the Thoroughbred and Standardbred 16-member election committees and 12-person Veterans’ Committee. Queen’s Plate winners Jammed Lovely, L’Enjoleur and Canadian Champ, who was inducted by the Veterans’ Committee, were elected along with Cathedra, the champion racing filly and stakes-producing broodmare.

In the Builders’ category, Russ and Lois Bennett of Kelowna, B.C., the leading breeders for twenty years in British Columbia, and Jack McNiven of Killean Acres and Ingersoll, Ont., who headed one of the leading breeding operations in the country for over 40 years, were also elected along with jockey Chris Loseth of Vancouver. Loseth, who campaigned in British Columbia, Washington and northern California tracks, won 3,669 races, including eight one afternoon at Hastings Park. He won two Sovereign Awards as leading apprentice and later top jockey and was honored in 2001 with the Avelino Gomez Memorial Award at Woodbine. Some of Loseth’s major wins came on Sovereign Award winner Travelling Victor, who was bred by the Bennetts, winners of a breeders’ Sovereign Award in 1983. Travelling Victor made history in 1983 when he became the first Sovereign Award winner not raced in Ontario to win Horse of the Year honors.The Bennetts have produced over 50 stakes winners at their Flying Horse Farm near Westbank, B.C., and at one time stood stallions Dixieland Brass and Maudlin. The Bennetts have an interest in Mass Market, which stands at nearby Talbot Red Rock Farm.

Bred to Nearctic in 1960, the regally bred filly gave birth to the future winner of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Queen’s Plate. Northern Dancer went on to gain recognition as the preeminent sire of the 20th century. Owned by E.P. Taylor, Natalma, a daughter of Native Dancer, won three of six starts. At age two she won the Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga, N.Y., but was disqualified and placed third. Natalma is also the dam of five stakes winners, including Arctic Dancer, the dam of Eclipse Award and Horse of the Year champion La Prevoyante.

The only filly in a field of 14 starters in the 1967 Plate, Conn Smythe’s Jammed Lovely stunned the fans and handicappers with a neck victory over Pine Point. She was champion 2-year-old in Canada in 1966.

L’Enjoleur, the first horse to win back-to-back Horse of the Year honors, was owned by Jean-Louis Levesque. He was brilliant at two, winning the prestigious Laurel Futurity in track-record time at Pimlico, Md., the Cup and Saucer and Coronation Futurity. In 1975 he won the Plate and Prince of Wales along with the Manitoba and Quebec Derbies. The late Yonnie Starr, a member of the Hall of Fame, trained both Jammed Lovely and L’Enjoleur.

Winner of the first Plate run at the newly built Woodbine in 1956, Bill Beasley’s Canadian Champ won all the major races for 2-year-olds and swept the three races that today constitute Canada’s Triple Crown. He was Horse of the Year and retired as Canada’s richest race horse with 15 stakes in 20 wins. At stud he sired Triple Crown winner Canebora and 1966 Plate winner Titled Hero.

Induction ceremonies will be held on Thursday, August 23rd, at the Mississauga Convention Centre. Guest speaker at the gala dinner event will be former professional hockey goalie and comic Jim Ralph. He has been host of numerous hockey TV and radio shows and this past season provided color commentary for Toronto Maple Leafs on Talk 640 Radio.

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