The Sunday (Jan. 17) edition of COSA TV focused on racing as it was and is amid the COVID-19 pandemic while also taking time to look back at some of the stars of the year that nonetheless came and went.
Hosts Greg Blanchard and Mark McKelvie were first joined by Bill O'Donnell, a Hall of Fame driver who now serves as president of the Central Ontario Standardbred Association (COSA). O'Donnell talked of the current state of racing in Ontario as the province entered a forced hiatus in late December with a return to racing not yet in sight. Among the provisions attempting to be secured as a result of the shutdown, O'Donnell said, is relief money from the OLG for some purses lost by the owners.
"I think we’ve got December pretty much figured out—similar to last spring, we missed a week of racing. So the horse had missed a start, so that’ll be 300 dollars per horse," O'Donnell said. "Any horse that had a charted line in the last 60 days, November and December. Tomorrow we’ve got another meeting in the morning. I think we’re just about there. We’re just awaiting approval from the government, and that’s the final one; everybody’s signed off on it. Once they sign off on it, we’ll be ready to send out some cheques to people."
Behind the scenes, O'Donnell has been working with a task force from Ontario Racing to organize and lobby for the horse racing industry. The task force, which also aided in the return to racing in late spring 2020, has actively worked to communicate with the provincial government in an attempt to aid the racing industry while racing is suspended.
“It's Jonathan Zammit, Jack Hayes, Sarrah Young, myself, Ian Fleming, Bill McLinchey," O'Donnell said of the task force. "What we’ve been doing was, first, you had to get the official numbers together—the money stays at OLG and gets moved over on the tenth of every month. Obviously we have the December money, we don’t have the January money. That’s what we’re trying to get approval for to get, and move that over to [Ontario Racing] and they can start sending out the money for them. We’ve met three or four times, and I know Jim Lawson has been trying to get in touch with everybody that you need to and so is Jack Hayes at O.R.
“We’ve sent letters and asked [for them] to allow us to open up," O'Donnell also said. "Right now you don’t get much response, they’re pretty busy I guess too. Premier Ford said he’s listening to his health people and following their lead. And any number people have contacted me that have sent letters, [the government] sends back kind of a phone letter just to answer everybody. That’s one thing about government—they will answer you, but they won’t meet with you. Not at this point, but at most times they will."
Trainer Mark Steacy then joined the show to talk about his family's current operation and recount memories from some of his barn's biggest stars. Steacy, who cut his own path into the industry after being first introduced by his father, has since laid the family barn under the name of his son Shawn since "He’s making the last-minute calls all the time," as Mark said. His other son Clarke helps with Mark on the one part of the operation in Lansdowne, ON to mainly break in the yearlings and younger horses.
"Almost everything that goes to Guelph [Shawn] to race at Mohawk initially starts here in Lansdowne through Clarke," Mark Steacy said. "Once we get them developed enough, then they head up that way and finish off there and race at Mohawk, and hopefully [to] bigger and better things. It’s basically the same outfit; a family affair between Shawn, myself, Clarke, and then my wife does the bookwork and stuff. It takes us all to do it all."
Among the many stars to go through Steacy's barn, Sunshine Beach fought at the highest stage of the sport as a three-year-old in 2013 when butting heads with one Captaintreacherous. Blanchard, McKelvie and Steacy looked back to one of Sunshine Beach's biggest wins, which came in the Battle Of Brandywine when he beat Captaintreacherous by a head.
"That was a very exciting race; a very special win," Mark Steacy said. "But you know, probably the best race he ever went was in the Breeders Crown Final. The week before, in the elimination, he had the lead and a horse in the first turn lost a head number. So in the last turn, my horse hopped about four feet in the air overtop of it and got out of gear and finished second. Because of that, we drew the eight or nine hole in the final and parked the whole mile with no cover, and gave Captain[treacherous] all he was worth that night as well. I think we finished second; just beat."
Steacy said that Sunshine Beach powered through the end of his sophomore year despite dealing with bladder stones, which would cause the horse to pee blood often. He capped the season with a second in the Matron and a win in the Progress Pace before a four-year-old campaign which then sprung into a career as a stallion in Ontario.
“In fairness to him, I don’t think he caught the mares to maybe put him on a Grand Circuit level," Mark Steacy said of Sunshine Beach as a stallion. "His first year he bred a lot of cheaper mares, I would say. The crop got better the next few years, and his race results have been better the last few years as well. So I wouldn’t say he can’t do the Grand Circuit, but in Ontario there’s Bettors Delight and after that I think he’s as good as any."
The three also looked back at Majestic Son, another star to go through the Steacy stable but one, as Mark felt, was of another echelon to the others.
"Sunshine Beach and Hana Hanover were very nice horses, but Majestic Son was a special horse," Mark Steacy said. "Like he just had something that the real special horses have. Personally, I never know if my horses are going to be great horses until after they’ve had a few starts into them. He basically trained down nice, but I never knew that with him either until I got him at Georgian in the first or second start. He made a break, got interfered with; whip in the face in the last turn and made a break. Got way back in the last turn, [and] still came flying at the end—I think caught a fourth or a fifth. I came off the track, Shawn was grooming that night, and I said ‘Shawn, I think this guy’s pretty good.’"
Majestic Son towered over the racetrack the same generation as Glidemaster, who (in 2006) had been the last horse before Marion Marauder to win the Trotting Triple Crown. In a race rewind, Steacy and crew looked back to the finale of the pair's rivalry in the 2006 Breeders Crown at Woodbine, in which Majestic Son held off Glidemaster to win.
"This was late in the year, and he was getting a little sore-ish at this time, so I just wasn’t sure because he had the reputation on the odd time to make a break," Mark Steacy said. "So I was just hoping he was sound enough to stay at it and give it a good effort, and he was huge many times in this mile. He fought tooth and nail right to the wire.
"It was a lot of fun, actually. With Blair, in retention barns and stuff, out grassing our horses, we’d kind of tease back and forth. Glidemaster was an exceptional horse as well—he showed that when he won the Triple Crown in the U.S. Every time they faced each other, I think we beat him—like four and five times. That just shows how special Majestic Son was."
Steacy in his career has managed to claim several pieces of hardware, including numerous Johnson Cup titles in the Ontario Sires Stakes program. However, Steacy has some obvious races still on his list to win.
"I’d love to win the North America Cup—that’s right at home, basically," Steacy said. "Little Brown Jug’s always been a race I wouldn’t mind being in, but the race of races is the Hambletonian. So if I could just pick one, I would say some day I’d like to win that Hambletonian. I had the chance with Majestic Son, but unfortunately he wasn’t eligible. We did finish third with Harper Blue Chip one year, but it would be the Hambletonian if I could win any."
Another Ontario trainer, Rob Fellows, joined Blanchard and McKelvie and began talking of how his barn is handling the shutdown of racing as well as some of the repercussions which could soon emerge if racing does not return.
"It’s getting very boring," Fellows said of the shutdown. "Our days are the same as ever, but the nights are getting long. I’m catching up on a lot of Netflix stuff that I guess was made in 2015 and ’16, but the nights are boring.
"At first week shutting them all down back in Christmas time, we gave them about 10 days in the field and started back jogging the first of January," Fellows also said. "We’ve trained them a little bit last week, a little bit this week. We’re kind of on a holding pattern, really. We really don’t know what to do. I guess we’ll get more information tomorrow once our owners know if they’ll get some kind of funding, they’ll make a decision on whether they want to keep them here in Ontario and keep them training or if they want to send them away to race in the states. I don’t know, that’ll be up to the individual owners."
Despite the disruptions to racing, Fellows—who began his career working for trainers including Keith Waples, Norm McKnight Jr. and Tony Kerwood—managed to have a big year in 2020; his first million-dollar season since 2012. A large portion of that success is thanks to Warrawee Vital, a breakout glamour boy in the pacing division who had several interruptions leading up to his coming out.
"He raced late as a two-year-old and early in that stakes season in January," Fellows said. "So I shut him down, was going to have him ready obviously for the early stakes in May before the North America Cup. And then in March he got sore on me. Took a while to diagnose him and a while to treat him, and actually some of the races he won he would not have been in had they went in May and June when they were scheduled.
"We qualified him, we raced him once and went right into the North America Cup eliminations. He didn’t embarrass himself, but I would’ve loved to have a couple starts under his belt. As the season went on, he raced against those horses and held his own. We raced him through to the Breeders Crown, and he actually just came home tonight at about a quarter after six. He was down in Maryland for the last three months, turning out just maturing. It will be fun bringing him back for this year."
Warrawee Vital grabbed many eyes with a 1:48.2 victory in a Somebeachsomewhere division and cemented himself as a top colt with a 1:47.1 mile at Lexington in a division of the Bluegrass. Banking $238,928, Fellows is now readying the son of Captaintreacherous for a four-year-old season which will have him performing double duty.
"I’d like to get him ready for sometime in May," Fellows said. "What else do we have for four-year-olds? We have the race at Flamboro. It’s local, we’ll probably pay him into that. The one in Quebec, the Prix D’Ete, we may pay him [into that]. I think his forte is the bigger track—he’s fast, he can position himself well. I don’t want to over race him. Of course, I’d like to race him in the [Canadian] Pacing Derby, it's right here in my back yard. I’d like to go back to Lexington with him, I’d like to keep him in the Breeders Crown events. When you add them all up, they’re already too many starts. 10 or 12 starts would be nice.
"I’ve got a couple partners on him—obviously Blair Corbeil and Murray Cox. They have some broodmares and they want to breed them, so we thought we’d breed a few mares," Fellows also said. "Maybe 15 or 20 this year and we just put it out there. So far, we’ve had a lot of responses from people. But we’re going to be keeping him in training, so we’ll be able to collect him a couple times. I’ve never done this, I don’t really know what’s all going to be involved. I’m sure I’ll be over my head come springtime when I should be training something at Mohawk. I’ve talked to a few other people that’ve done it and they said some of the crazy horses will get wilder, and he’s not like that. I still want him to be manageable to jog and train and race, but we’re going to give it a shot this spring and see how it does."
Lastly, trainer Nancy Takter and driver Yannick Gingras joined Blanchard and McKelvie to talk about the stellar year they had in 2020. The night before, Nancy Takter was honoured in a virtual ceremony of the Dan Patch Awards for a total seven trophies including a unanimous vote for Trainer of the Year.
"Obviously that’s a really cool feeling," Nancy Takter said. "I guess it kind of means there was no doubt in it, so unanimous is always great I guess. But just the recognition, that people actually saw all the hard work me and me team put out, is very rewarding."
With help from Christian Lind managing the stable in Lexington—and Elfrida Soto and Nicklas Kirk Andersen handling the stable in New Jersey—Takter also had many thanks to give to Josert Fonseca, who took care of the stable during the month of stakes at Mohawk.
"I ended up telling Josert," Nancy Takter said, "maybe three or four days before the Hambletonian ‘Um, just so you know, you have to leave the day before the Hambletonian to go up to Canada to quarantine for two weeks so we can race Tall Dark Stranger in the North America Cup because you will be out of quarantine that Friday afternoon in order to put him in detention that night.’ And he never complained a minute about it and was like ‘Alright, that’s what we have to do.’ Hambletonian day down here is a big day, I think we had like 16 horses in that day. Josert worked hard all year, too. He wanted to see Sorella win the Hambo Oaks and the other horses—I mean ‘Stranger’ ended up winning the Cane Pace that day. So he missed that on that big day just to go up there and sit by himself for two weeks, so a big thanks to him. Everything ran smoothly; I can completely trust him with that."
The month of stakes at Mohawk also served as a highlight for Yannick Gingras, who only made the trek through the pandemic and across the border because of the great chance he had to win the North America Cup with Tall Dark Stranger.
"He was the number one reason, and most likely the only reason," Gingras said. "If it wasn’t for him, even though I had a good run in Canada, I wouldn’t have gone. The chance of winning the N.A. Cup was the reason I went to Canada, and I’m glad I did.
"I’ll be honest with you two, this is probably one of my favourite races ever," Gingras also said of the North America Cup. "I haven’t had much luck in that race, but I really didn’t have a good horse to drive either. Probably the best horse I drove before was A Rocknroll Dance. He had a great three-year-old season, but he wasn’t super sharp at that time. But it was my first million-dollar race. There were a lot things with that race that was nice to come and be able to win it."
Winning the North America Cup gave Gingras his first victory in a million-dollar race. In the winner's circle interview, the Quebec native choked up after Tall Dark Stranger rebuffed all challengers to take the Canadian classic in 1:48.2.
"It was definitely emotion, but there was so much at stake obviously," Gingras said. "Winning a million-dollar race for the horse for his value, for the two weeks that I had to be in Canada, for the kids being gone and knowing I wasn’t going to be able to see them for another four or five weeks. So it was all that. You’re trying to push it away and not think about it; you’re trying to focus on the moment, right? Like you just have to drive this race like it's another race. I think 99.9 percent of the time I do a good job at that—being able to forget all the other stuff that goes around it. But this one was hard, it really was."
Takter also spoke on her older mare stars Kissin In The Sand and Manchego. She spoke of the allergy obstacles the former faced when revving into her year-end spree of dominance over the pacing mare division while also talking of the latter and the decisions behind bringing the star trotting mare back to the track for another year.
"My original plan was to just try and race her in the Open at Dayton and see if she could get a race and kind of going again," Nancy Takter said of Kissin In The Sand following her qualifier at Lexington. "But Dexter said ‘no, she was really, really good.’ And I was like ‘Alright, maybe I’ll send her to Canada for the Milton.’ So I called Bud Hatfield and Marvin Katz and I said ‘I’m going to send Kissin into the Milton’ and they’re like ‘are you sure? Is this the right move to do? We don’t want to cheapen her at all.’ And I’m like ‘No, she’s ready. She’s ready to go again.’ So I called Jody [Jamieson] and asked if he could drive her. From that moment on she was just great. Maybe Jody woke her up, I don’t know. After that she was just super. She turned a new leaf and got to finish her career on top. Everybody know how special she is to me, so for her to finish that way is really just super rewarding.
"Obviously [Manchego] turning a new dimension kind of at the end of the season when we were able to race her more off the pace and have her pass horses," Nancy Takter said of what convinced her to bring Manchego back. "If she would have had to continue her career kind of always being everybody’s target, [it] would’ve been really tough to race another year. It’s very tough for horses to always have to do all the work in a race. So just being able to race her off the pace is going to be a huge, huge difference for her.
"And then Barry, who owns the majority of her, and the rest of the partners… you’re going to breed Manchego, you have very limited options with who you could breed her too," Takter also said. "Obviously you could breed her with Walner, who is most likely going to be a great stallion but it's unknown. And you have a great horse now, so why not race her? And 2020 was a weird year. Even though she raced great, a lot of the owners didn’t really get to appreciate how great she was with all the restrictions and not being able to go watch her race and stuff like that. So I think that everybody kind of wanted to experience that for another year, so hopefully she can deliver on that. She’s just coming back great, and she’s a great filly. She wouldn’t let us pull that left hind shoe in the winner’s circle when we were trying to retire her, so she only got three shoes pulled so I think she was telling us something too."
Because the outlook of the 2021 racing season remains uncertain in regards to international travel, Takter has a soft site set on where she looks to ready Manchego. If the opportunity arises for Manchego to fly across the Atlantic and compete in the Elitlopp, Takter has said she would not be opposed to taking it.
"Obviously the Elitlopp is a great honour to be able to go there and represent our country," Takter said. "It’s something I think that anybody would want to do. Even though I was born in Sweden, I’ve actually never been to the Elitlopp, which is kind of strange. Nobody ever believes that, but it’s at the wrong time of year for me to go. So I’ve always said ‘The only way I’m going to get there is if I have a horse to race in it.’ This year’s probably going to be a little bit of an odd year, so we’re going to have to see how things kind of pan out over the spring and how she’s training back and so forth and make a decision then. I would say we will maybe aim for it a little bit but we’ll have to see how all the puzzle pieces fall into place."
The 2021 racing season is also unusual for Nancy Takter because the year will see many of her three-year-olds make their way back to the track.
"I’m really excited too. It’s not often that I get to bring back horses at four," Takter said, "and I get to bring back No Lou Zing this year and Sorella and JK First Lady and Peaky Sneaky. Being able to bring those horses back at four and just see the maturity both physically and mentally on those horses I think is going to be really exciting for this year as well."
The full two-hour long edition of COSA TV can be found below: