When you think about it, it is the chance of a lifetime – to be able to come charging down the stretch on the world famous E.P. Taylor grass course. That’s what I got to do yesterday at Woodbine.

680News had entered a team in a corporate race to help race money for the United Way. We were in the last heat on a 7 race card of humans on the racetrack. The first race might have produced the most impressive finish. Woodbine President Nick Eaves destroyed a field of 14 when he ran a mile and a half on the turf course in under 11 minutes, winning by at least a furlong. Eaves is not anyone’s impression of a fat cat – he actually runs a few marathons a year and appears to have the muscle to fat ratio to rival most of the jockeys who compete at his racetrack.

We were treated to five more races involving teams from various companies, many from within the Woodbine complex. Each race allowed the competitors to burst from the starting gate. Our event was the 4 X 50 metre relay and we were one of a dozen teams in this race, including four jockeys – Emma-Jayne Wilson, Cory Frasier, Anthony Stevens and Eurico Rosa da Silva.  The 680News team was compriseed of myself, traffic (tres) belle Eva Fragiskotas and a couple of ringers; Keith McCalmont who writes for Down The Stretch and Leigh Ellis, a student in my College of Sports Media class. In a little pre-race event, we determined that Leigh and Keith were the fastest and Eva and I weren’t, so we decided to stack our speed by having Eva run the first leg, hand off to me, me to Keith then Keith to Leigh  and our strategy almost worked.

 Both Keith and Leigh made up a lot of ground. Leigh was pretty sure he had passed the #1 team, so we were quite disappointed ( and possibly litigious) when they posted team #1 as the third place team. Team 9 actually beat the jockeys for first.

   Inspite of our concerns, expressed in a forthright and dignified manner to the judges ( we came frigggin’ third, you blind idiots!), the results were unchanged.  When we calmed down and tore up all the tickets we bet on ourselves, we were consoled by free burgers, dogs and drinks and the fact that the very well conducted event raised several thousand dollars for the United Way.

and if you’re walking by your local park one night and see a couple of furtive bodies darting furiously back and forth, don’t worry…it’s just Eva and me practising for next year

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