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You might think in the middle of winter, it would be hard to come up with 24 pages of material for a horse racing paper and you’d be wrong. In this issue, we have full coverage of both the O’Brien Awards for harness racing and the Sovereign Awards for the thoroughbreds. Down The Stretch had five nominations and went home with nothing. The editor, about as much a photographer as he is a slam-dunk finalist, had his Chantal in a flag picture nominated as best picture, but it was Michael Burns winning for his shot, Reflection of Talent. Sadly, Burns died just nine days after scoring his seventh Sovereign Award. His daughter, Patricia and son, Michael were especially helpful in providing me with wonderful images that comprise a two-page spread in the middle; a telling document of the work of a great photographer. Interesting that my e-mails to Michael the younger found him in Vancouver documenting the games as he has done many times before. Kind of Joannie Rochette experience for Michael, just days after losing his father.“He was our best friend,” was how Michael summed up his dad.

Perry Lefko has immersed himself in the heart of controversy for this issue. Lefko has a story on the troubled Bulletbroof Stable, whose owners have all kinds of legal grief, not the least of which is having all their horses deemed ineligible to race in Ontario. And Lefko also writes about jockey Simon Husbands suing the Ontario Racing Commission and three stewards for the temporary one-year suspension he was hit with last fall. The stewards punished Husbands after a ride on Bugs Boy, in which, according to the stewards, the jockey did not persevere. Husbands appealed the penalty and the suspension was overturned, but according to his document, the suggestion that he ‘stiffed’ his horse has resulted in a significant dropoff in interest from trainers for his services.

The big horse racing news this month is that the two champion ladies – Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta are scheduled to race against each other for the first time. It’s the Apple Blossom Stakes on April 9 and Oaklawn Park has put up $5 million to attract the two wonderful thoroughbreds.  Zenyatta has concentrated on beating her opposition on the synthetic tracks of California, but did win this race in 2008 as a four year-old. Rachel Alexandra has won twice at Oaklawn – she took the Martha Washington Stakes by 8 lengths here last February and in April, 2009, she stomped her rivals by almost nine lengths in the Grade II Fantasy Stakes. Rachel likes to go to the lead and dare the rest of the field to catch her. That’s what she did in the Woodward Stakes last summer at Saratoga when she became the first three year-old filly to beat older males in a Grade I race. Zenyatta likes to camp at the back of the pack for the early running and then make an eye-catching late run. This strategy has worked to perfection; Zenyatta is 14 for 14 in her career, including her spectacular victory in last fall’s Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita. I don’t need to say much more. This race at Oaklawn at a mile and an eighth will be great.

Also in the next issue of Down The Stretch – a twisted look at the three men who lead in the drivers standings at Woodbine, how Gardiner Farms has a strong lineup of stallions, especially for those who understand just how lucrative Ontario Sires Stakes can be, some hilarious quotes from the awards banquets,  two full pages of Canadians winning races in the States, Eugene Melnyk as Owner of the Month, another unique take on the status of horse racing by Bob Carson and another full page of Oddities and Entities.

Which is to say, even in the dead of winter, there is more than enough stuff happening in horse racing to fill our paper

We were saddened to hear of the death of multiple award winning photographer Michael Burns, who passed away on Sunday, February 8th at the age of 84. I was aware that Burns was not faring well after speaking with his son Michael a few weeks before the Sovereign Awards. Both of the Burns, Sr. and Jr. had been nominated in the Outstanding Photograph category and I had asked son Michael to provide me with the nominated pictures to run in the January issue of Down The Stretch.

The elder’s submission was a typically stunning shot of a horse and rider reflected perfectly in a small pond underneath. It was titled Reflection of Talent. Michael Burns Jr, sent the picture to me with the comment that his father was too ill to attend the Sovereigns. On the night of the awards, it was announced that Michael Burns Sr. was indeed the winner of his 7th Sovereign, and do not presume it was a sympathy vote for a guy in bad health. The pictures are submitted anonymously to the voters, who have no idea who actually took them.

I am particularly indebted to anyone named Michael Burns. For two years, I have had unlimited access to all Burns horse racing photography at no cost to my paper.  The  low level shot of Emma Jayne Wilson winning the 2007 Queen’s Plate with Mike Fox is one of an endless series of brilliant images provided to racing fans by Burns..

Burns, though was much more than just a racing picture taker. Along with 60 years as official photographer at Woodbine, Burns also covered hockey games at Maple Leaf Gardens, snapped car racing at Mosport and at Indy and Formula One races in Canada and was the official photographer of the Canadian Curling Association since 1958.

Burns is the only camera guy to win three Eclipse Awards for best thoroughbred images in North America and he has some 30,000 pictures from 30 different sports donated to Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Burns is survived by Helen, his wife of 59 and children Mary-Ellen, Patricia and Michael.

Have to imagine a finish line picture of Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta captured  by Michael Burns would be a winner. The two great lady horses just might meet at Oaklawn racetrack in the Gr 1Apple Blossom Stakes on April 3. The track is prepared to jack the purse up to $5 million  if both Rachel and Zenyatta run and they have offered to extend the distance of the race from a mile and a 16th to a mile and an eighth. That’s significant, because at 8 1/2 furlongs, Rachel would have a huge edge because of her front-running prowess; Zenyatta simply wouldn’t have enough acreage to pull off another of her dramatic last to first rallies.

Even at nine full furlongs, this would still seem to favour Rachel Alexandra, if her form in the Woodward Stakes holds up. In that race, she was  on the gun all the way with all the colts taking their best shots  and she still prevailed.

Both mares went undefeated in 2009,  but they have never met, although it gets much more intriguing. Each has run once at Oaklawn. Zenyatta won the Apple Blossom in 2008 and wasn’t at all compromised by the shorter distance. Let go as the second favourite at 9-5 (Frank Stronach’s Ginger Punch was 2-5), Zenyatta was second last for the first six furlongs, about eight lengths off the early pace set by Ginger Punch, but when Mike Smith pressed the button, Zenyatta changed gears, and in the space of maybe a 16th of a mile, passed four rivals, and pulled away to win by four and a half in 1:42.64.  For comparison purposes, the mile in this race went in 1:36:59 and we can assume Zenyatta was leading at that point.

Rachel Alexandra won at Oaklawn on February 15 last year in the Martha Washington Stakes at a mile on the dirt. With Calvin Borel steering, Rachel stalked the pace set by Affirmed Truth,  assumed the lead before the stretch and hit the wire best by eight lengths in 1:36:40…or about a length faster than Zenyatta’s mile in the Apple Blossom. Different times, different race-lengths, different fields, but it does indicate that Rachel Alexandra might have the upper hand if the two meet…Oaklawn’s surface is original dirt.

And we’re watching the early returns in the race for harness driving glory at Woodbine. Jody Jamieson took a much needed month off after his record 796 win year. After capturing the Dan patch Award as leading driver in North America, Jamieson was one vote away from the unanimous winner of the O’Brien as Outstanding Driver in 2009. Jamieson has returned to the driving wars and already has ten wins at Woodbine, though that puts him 12th, a fair distance behind Randy Waples who has surged to the top in Jamieson’s absence. Waples has posted 45 wins in 244 starts. mark MacDonald is second with 37 wins and Sylvain Filion is third with 33 wins.  Jamieson is back steering with his stereo-typical obsession. he had five winners the other night at Flamboro and though he’s only been driving since the first week of February, he already has 15 wins in 51 races at the Dundas, Ontario track.

So it might be fun watching Jamieson try and overcome the huge advantage he gave his fellow drivers by taking January off. There is a very good chance JJ will be the leading driver in Canada next December.

I did the daily double, so to speak of the horse racing awards on the weekend - The Sovereigns on Friday and the O’Briens on Saturday. The Sovereigns broke dramatically with tradition by holding their blingfest at the Ultra nightclub in a far less formal environment than we’d been used to. Though the room might have been a break from tradition, a lot of old school people were honoured for their work. Roger Attfield won his 7th trophy as trainer of the year and when the undefeated Hollinger (4 for 4)   won as top two year-old colt, it was the 43rd horse trained by Attfield to get a St. Simon bronze cast trophy. The top jockey of the year was Patrick Husbands, also a 7 time winner and of all the categories, Husbands got 185 first place votes, more than any other entity.

Down The Stretch, Canada’s most informative and entertaining horse racing newspaper went home empty (except for the hors d’ouvres we were able to grab). We had three candidates for best newspaper story, but Perry Lefko, Keith McCalmont and Eleanor Yeoman LeBlanc were beaten out by Curtis Stock. Lefko lost in the Best feature story category to Bruce Walker and I had no chance to win for best picture, so it was hardly shocking that my shot of Chantal in the Canadian flag lost to Michael Burns Sr. and his dazzling Reflection of Talent which you can see in the January issue of Down The Stretch.

Eye of the Leopard was a handy winner as outstanding Two year-old, even though he failed to win after his gusty Queen’s Plate victory. The elated trainer, Mark Frostad pointed out that it took an awful lot out of the son of Eye of the Sphynx to go from a maiden win to Plate Trial win to Queen’s Plate win in a matter of a few weeks.

I didn’t see Reade Baker Friday night, but it would be interesting to get his input on the voting for three year old filly. With 304 votes cast, there are 27 million possible outcomes, so it was quite remarkable that both Baker’s filly Biofuel and Negligee each attracted 135 votes making this the first dead heat in Sovereign voting. Adding much more irony to the mix is the fact that it was Negligee in the stretch of the Juvenile Fillies race at the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita that dealt Biofuel a much more violent bodycheck than anything we’ve seen so far this season from the Leafs. So here’s a question - if Negligee doesn’t barrel into Biofuel and Biofuel wins that race or finishes second, would the votes have been different? My opinion - yes.

Champs Elysees went home with a pair of trophies…as Champion Male Turf Horse and as Horse of the Year..Champs Elysees had four races at Woodbine in 2009, topped by his spectacular surge to victory in the Grade 1 $2million Pattison Canadian International.

Perhaps the classiest move of the night went unnoticed. In the O’Brien Awards program, driver Rick Zeron, nominated for the O’Brien Award of Horsemanship, purchased a full page ad congratulating the other Nominee, Per Henrikson. When Henrickson won, he gave the night’s best line when he said,

“I’ve never been nominated for anything before, except may idiot of the year by one of my ex-wives!”

Kind of set the tone for the relaxed entertaining night that the O’Briens are.

Now I have to figure out how Down The Stretch, which has 7 Sovereign nominations, can score its first nomination  for an O’Brien a year from now.

The most frequent visitor to the podium at the Sovereigns was Eugene Melnyk and who wouldn’t want to be him today. His Ottawa Senators have won a franchise best 9 straight games and he cashed four Sovereigns on Friday..Melnyk was honoured as Outstanding Owner, Outstanding breeder and he also accepted on behalf of Milwaukee Appeal, the Champion Three year-old filly and Marchfield who was named Champion Older Male. Melnyk doesn’t know it yet, but he will also be Down The Stretch’s thoroughbred owner of the month for February, an honor he will most certainly place higher than anything that preceded it..

So I barely had time to recover from that before it was time to doll myself up again for the O’Briens at the Meadowvale Hotel.  Woodbien race caller Ken Middleton was joined by racing analyst Dawn Lupul in the hosting category and my bet is, this will be 1 and 1A for a few years to come. Middleton, as usual, ran things with his drole, understated wit and Lupul was a riot, practically fearless with a steady barrage of hilarious one liners that had the crowd smiling all night…

No big surprise that Muscle Hill was named the Horse of the Year. Unlike Zenyatta, a perfect year did the trick for Muscle Hill who was near unanimous in the three year-old trotter category.

Trainer Casie Coleman won as top trainer and also took an O’Brien on behalf of her brilliant pacer Sportswriter who was judged the best two year-old. It’s Coleman’s third O’Brien as best trainer and she hasn’t even hit 30 yet..

Jody Jamieson - and how could this have gone any other way - was named Canada’s driver of the year. Jamieson established a Canadian record of 787 wins and recently was named the United States Trotting Association’s driver of the year. 

It was plenty good enough that Middleton and Lupul kept the O’Briens lively  and that the food was great and the company stimulating, but I had an appropriate distraction. The horse I own a share in , Son of Paige was racing in the 6th at Woodbine and since he had won the week ebfore, I was quite anxious about the outcome. I actually asked Woodbine President Nick Eaves if he could get race results on his Blackberry and he actually tried ( hey, what good is a Horse racing Executive if he can’t get you race results). Turns out, the race hadn’t gone yet, but as they were announcing the Two year-old pacing filly of the year ( Poof She’s Gone), I dialed horse player results and nearly erupted in my seat when the disemboweled voice advised me that the winner of race number six was #7. Son of Paif went off at 7-1 and ( as I determined from the replay later that night), took mario baillargeon to the lead from the outside and didn’t let anyone by, winning in 1:55.4. Son of Paige won over $22,000 in January alone and I will be standing by my mailbox for the next week waiting for my cut!.

Son of Paige was not on the slate, but Well Said, the highest money making three year oold pacer, was the easy winner in his division. I was sitting with Richard Young, the owner of Put On A Show who was up against Fancy Filly for best two year-old pacing filly. Young, who lives in florida was agonizing before the announcement because his filly had had a sensational season, winning her first 7 starts, then losing to Fancy Filly in the Breeders Crown final - a race in which Put On A Show came second from the nine-hole. Young conceded that because Fancy Filly had nmore wins, more money and a faster mile (1:51.1) that won would probably win and when Fancy Filly’s name was called, Richard Young was the owner of a horse that had won $976,498 in her initial season, but had to settle for runner-up.