"They're at the Post" ... with me in the saddle ... come along for the ride?

He was also a Tarzan in
"Tarzan Goes to India"

When I was a kid, like many kids, I wanted a pony.  The fact that I grew up in downtown Toronto and was the last of ten children didn’t dissuade me.

I was a huge fan of Roy & Trigger and Gene & Champion but my idol was The Range Rider.

He was TV’s best cowboy of the 1950s played by a former Hollywood stunt man named Jock Mahoney. His horsemanship and trick riding on the show just couldn’t be beaten.

Note … Today, according to Mahoney’s step-daughter, Oscar-winning actor, Sally Field, Jocko was responsible for the abuse with her that would put him in prison in today’s #MeToo generation.

By the time I became a teenager I still hadn’t got my pony but I found the next best thing - the riding academy. That’s what they called horses-for-hire businesses that offered hourly rentals or trail rides.

I graduated from the trail rides pretty quickly and fancied myself as a skilled horseman. I was so sure of my equine skills, I set my sights on one-day getting aboard a thoroughbred racehorse. In reality, I realized that was about as likely as owning a pony in downtown Toronto.

Time moved on. I got married and moved to the suburbs and my dream of riding a racehorse was put out to pasture.

Then I met my new neighbour next door. He worked at Woodbine race track -- the Yankee Stadium of race tracks in Canada.

Over a backyard beer one afternoon I described my racehorse dream. After a few more beers he said, “I can make that happen”. That afternoon he made some calls. No turning back now. He made a call to a trainer-friend and explained my once-in-a-lifetime dream.

The trainer agreed and offered to put me on his 3-year old gelding.

That caught me a little off guard. I didn't know about a gelding.

I assumed that geldings were angry horses. You know ... because they're geldings.

The trainer confirmed that he would let me take it for a lap around the track and I could also invite a half-dozen friends to watch me break-my-maiden. Wow! If only every once-in-a-lifetime dream was this easy. They even agreed that I could go out of the gate with the door flying open just like a real race. I was very pumped.

Greatest Jockey in the World

Sandy Hawley

Then I met Sandy Hawley at a party.   Sandy is one of the leading jockeys in the world with 6450 career wins - to say nothing of his 2nd

and 3rd place finishes.  He is in both the US and Canadian Horse Racing Halls of Fame - he won the Queen’s Plate four times.

I told him that I was set to ride a 3-year old gelding during morning work out at Woodbine in a week’s time. He looked at me strangely and when he realized I was serious, he started to laugh.

I don’t mean ha, ha laughing -- his beer actually started to come out of his nose. When he finally stopped I told him that I would also have a chance to use the starting gate -- that’s when he went into convulsions.

I could see he was still laughing but there was no sound coming out.

When he finally started breathing again, he told me I could not ride a racehorse and I most definitely couldn’t use the starting gate.

I was crushed.

First, he explained that sitting on a thoroughbred  is similar to sitting in a Ferrari with the engine idling - “the power under you is hard to describe”.

He asked what I was going to do when I wanted to stop as the horse reaches it’s cruising speed of 30 miles an hour.

I said, “I’ll pull on the reins and yell whoa!” That’s when he got angry with me.

He explained that the horse is trained to explode out of the starting gate and I would not be prepared to defend myself from the shock. “It’s like a rocket taking off”. He explained that some starts are so powerful, many jockeys have to twist the horse’s main around their free-hand just to survive the first 3 seconds of the ride.

Stopping?  Well, that was a whole other thing.

I was crushed. The invites to my 5 am debut were already sent out. In fact, so many family and friends wanted to be a part of it I had to ask for additional passes.

What started out as a dream was truly going to be a nightmare with me in the starring role. My previous confidence in my riding ability was shattered.

What happened next could only be described as pure racing luck. I got a call from the trainer. He apologized, but my ride had developed bronchitis and would not be able to race for a while. He offered to call me when the horse was better so we could re-schedule my ride.

I thanked him but told him “I’m moving to Germany and won‘t be back for 10 or 15 years".

I figured that by that time, "my" horse would be grazing on some tall, sweet grass and long-forgotten our date at Woodbine.