It was one of those things that stimulates strong opinions on both sides of the issue. Yesterday, the Ontario Racing Commission ruled that jockey Simon Husbands does not have to suffer a one-year suspension for a ride on Bug’s Boy last fall at Woodbine. This is far more complicated than the accusation that Husbands held his horse back. Some believed he was doing this so that his brother Patrick would win the riding title. On the day in question, multiple Sovereign Award winner Patrick Husbands was in a dead heat in the jockeys’ race with Jim McAleney. But if there was even the slightest truth to the idea of Simon pulling Bug’s Boy back to help his brother, it was shattered at the ORC hearing into his appeal. Principally it was revealed that the Husbands brothers don’t exactly share the love; for the most part they’re estranged. Also, considering how Simon struggles to gain a few wins a year compared to the millions of dollars that Patrick earns for his owners, it’s almost ridiculous to think that the former would cost himself a good paycheck to favour the latter.

But perhaps the strongest evidence of Simon’s innocence came from Jim McAleney. Testifying essentially as evidence of Simon’s honest nature, McAleney told the ORC he didn’t believe it was in his fellow jockey’s make up to stiff a horse. This carried great weight, because if Simon had actually conspired to help his brother deny Jimmy Mac the title,   McAleney certainly would have been reluctant to come to the guy’s defence.

The backdrop to this story has a lot to do with what Husbands’ instructions were prior to the race. Trainer John LeBlanc testified that he told Husbands not to use the whip as previously, the horse reacted badly to that technique. So when Simon was seen apparently not whipping the tar out of the horse, he was just following his orders.

Of course, the fact that this decision was handed down yesterday cause me no small grief. We have just completed the file on the 19th issue of Down The Stretch, Canada’s most entertaining and informative horse racing newspaper and included was a feature story on the Husbands ORC hearing, but now we had to re-write the story so we wouldn’t be redundant for the next four weeks.

I can assure you, it is another dazzling issue of Down The Stretch . There’s a two page interview with Chantal Sutherland, replete with several pictures. It is practically impossible to take a bad shot of her; I know – I asked her to pose with a Canadian flag wrapped around her and at the moment the camera clicked, she gave the perfect look. As compatible as she is with a horse, so is she simpatico with the lens.

This month’s Down The Stretch also has a two page feature on Nick Eaves, the youngest man ever to be President of Woodbine. At 40, it seems, he’s still too young to be cynical and from everything I can determine about the guy is that he’s open to any suggestion that can carry this sport forward and make it better. That’s a good thing, because I have hundreds of suggestions.  Eaves is also a good photographic subject. He’s lean and handsome and has a good smile. I met him last week in the west end parking lot and walked him to the back-up starting gate at the end of the old harness paddock parking. It made a good shot and it can be seen in issue 19. 

Keith McCalmont has a page on his picks for the Kentucky Derby and we have a nice spread on opening day, two Perry and Mooch cartoons, a vintage column from Louis Cauz, some whimsical stuff from Bob Carson and more of that stuff that makes you go huh? on our very popular Oddities and Entities page.

By the way, is anyone out there paying attention to what Jody Jamieson is doing? This morning he’s the leading harness driver at Woodbine. He’s also the leading driver at Georgian Downs. And he’s in second, bearing down on the first at Flamboro. To my knowledge, no one has ever been the leading driver at two different tracks in the same year in Ontario, but definitely no one has ever led three tracks at one time. Making this more incredible is that at each of those three tracks, JJ has much the best winning percentage and the highest UDRS ( an incredibly convoluted mathematical formula that rates a driver’s ability to come first, second and third).  Needless to say, Jody Jamieson is the leading dash-winner for all of Canada. Standardbred Canada has an excellent website that makes it easy to see the leaders at all track ( www.standardbredcanada.com).

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