West Coast Greats Move East By Greg Blanchard
As racing gets ready to shift back to Mohawk for the exciting and lucrative summer meet, you can expect to see many familiar faces back up near the top of the standings. Names like Jamieson, Waples and Baillargeon will be prominent as always but some newcomers appeared poised for big seasons.
As other jurisdictions across the country struggle, many top horseman have made their way to Ontario in order to try and make a living amongst the nation’s very best. This group includes an influx of big name Western Canadian conditioners over the last two years.
Guys like Bill Davis, Travis Umphrey and Gord Remmen dominated British Columbia and Alberta racing for the better part of the last decade but all three are considered small fish on the ultra competitive Ontario circuit.
Umphrey just completed his first full season in the province and sent out 28 winners from his stable with just shy of $500,000 in earnings to his credit. The numbers are not outstanding by his standards but, all things considered, it was a decent first season for the transplanted horseman.
“It started slow the first four or five months but it picked up as the year went along,” he explains. “The biggest adjustment was the change in tracks and scenery. Just figuring out where the horses belonged was a big thing. Our horses came here with quite a bit of money on their cards and they were in pretty tough here initially.”
The Umphrey stable received a major boost last season with the addition of Blended Whiskey. The Rambaran gelding was purchased privately by Terry Hamilton of Lethbridge, Alberta at the end of his two-year-old campaign and went on to win 10 races while banking just shy of $200,000 for Umphrey and company this past year.
His goal for the operation in 2010 is to reach $1 million in purse winnings and his roster was bolstered once again with the addition of pacing mare A Ps Money Maker who won a Fillies and Mares Open event at Woodbine on January 22. The following week, she suffered a leg injury when she put her hind leg through a window in her stall but is expected to make a full recovery.
Like Umphrey, Remmen found the transition from racing in Alberta to Ontario to be a difficult one initially. But, he too has added some new faces to the barn while picking up momentum he hopes will carry over into this season.
“So far, I’d have to say I’m very happy with the move,” says Remmen. “I’d be pretty depressed if I was sitting back at home and not racing. Definitely the competition is a lot tougher here and the year-round racing is a big difference too. Here you get a chance to rest your horses when you want and not when the schedule dictates. I find that I have to rest my horses a couple of times a year and that’s a good thing.”
Remmen’s newest addition is Sixdaysontheroad, a four-year-old pacer who won his first three starts at Woodbine in January, including a 1:50.4 victory over former OSS stars Stonebridge Terror and The Mohegan Pan.
The veteran conditioner also had the privilege of campaigning world champion Shark Gesture for his brother Ray when he was sent to Mohawk to compete in the $685,000 Canadian Pacing Derby in early September. The result was a 1:48.1 career-best performance for the pacer who is expected to race again this season in pursuit of the $2 million mark in career earnings.
Even Bill Davis, who garnered the nickname ‘Dominator’ during his many years of topping the standings in British Columbia, took a while to get his bearings after relocating to Ontario.
“Things weren’t great at the start,” he admits. “It took the horses a while to acclimatize. It’s quite a step up in competition coming here and some horses can handle it while others can’t. We lost most of the horses we came with but we’ve been able to claim some new ones and we will continue to battle away.”
“When I got here, I got hurt and haven’t been able to drive regularly. That’s been a big adjustment to me because I like driving my horses so I can see how they’re steering and what not. Using the other guys, you don’t get the same feedback as if you were sitting up behind them yourself.”
Davis, who has well over 5,000 wins as a driver, is closing in on 3,000 training wins and says that will be a major motivator for his stable this season.
All three gentlemen are off to strong starts this season on the WEG circuit and look as though they will be major players throughout the summer season at Mohawk.
