Psst! Kate’s Princess should win race 4 at Assiniboia Downs on May 31st, the first day of the Winnipeg track’s 65th season.
So says the mare’s trainer, 84-year-old Gary Danelson, whom CEO Darren Dunn describes as “the godfather of Assiniboia Downs trainers.” Hey, if you can’t put faith in the godfather, where are you going to place your faith? Training since1959, the year after the Downs opened, does any conditioner have more expert knowledge of what it takes to win on opening day?
Kate’s Princess, racing in a $10,000 allowance optional claiming race for fillies and mares, is one of three horses in the diminished barn of the horseman widely known as “the gentleman from Montana” who cheated the Grim Reaper a few years ago by proving his doctors wrong and then survived a month of COVID (“I have clots on my lungs but I feel fine”). As you might expect, he’s the all-time leading trainer at Assiniboia Downs with more than 1,220 wins and longs to reach 1,250 “but I can’t see myself getting there.”
What was that? Isn’t this the same trainer who, in 1990 (take note of the year) was quoted as saying in the track’s media guide: “I’m at an age I’m winding down but I’ll continue to try hard and hope for the best.”
That was 32 years ago. Which would make Danelson the longest winding-down trainer in the country. In history? His comment in 1990 was understandable given his unusually low (for him) 14 per cent win rate the previous year and his failure to reach the winner’s circle in all eight stakes races he entered.
So what happened after his winding-down comment? His career exploded. Thirteen years after that comment he had his best year ever, winning 55 races out of 189 starts for a vaunted 29 per cent win rate and he had the leading trainer title all to himself. Sure, he had been leading trainer twice before, but he had to share the honour with trainers he tied with.
Of course, his three-horse stable now isn’t likely to accumulate a lot of wins in a 50-day meet, but then again, if his predicted win pans out tomorrow, he’ll begin to chip away. His other two charges are Goldeneyed, a 4-year-old son of Goldencents and Soul Obsession, a 7-year-old Elusive Warning gelding (16-4-3-2). He regrets COVID came along to keep him away from the track for two years. “Otherwise, I had a chance at getting to 1,250,” he said. In the year before COVID he was on a roll, amassing 21 victories.
Still, who cannot be happy to see the gentleman trainer return? CEO Dunn not only refers to him as the “godfather of trainers” but also “the D. Wayne Lucas of Assiniboia Downs. Been there, seen that, done that.” (Hall of Famer Lucas won many major races and awards.) Danelson has earned a lot of respect from other trainers through the decades, Dunn said, and, perhaps unknown to many, “he’s shown great patience with young trainers starting out.” One of those was Martin Drexler, who was fourth in the trainer standings at Woodbine last year.
Danelson’s main claim to fame has been as “the great fixer-upper.” He has specialized in improving horses with various ailments. The most famous of those was Smart Figure who, under Danelson’s wing in 1998, escalated from a $5,000 claimer to a stakes wonder, winning the Agassiz, the R. J. Speers and the biggest stakes race for the best horses on the grounds, the Gold Cup Stakes..
The location of Danelson’s farm in Scobey, Montana, has been an advantage. Just 20 kilometres south of the Saskatchewan border, the winters are, well, cold. Which was perfect for his purposes. “I’d go to a fall sale and pick up horses with bowed tendons and turn them out for the winter. The cold would help heal their tendons, the horses would run around in the 1½ mile field and come spring they’d be dead fit for racing.” Which is why he has usually been quick off the mark at each new meet.
Bonnie McCrory, his partner since 1999, has been a valued sidekick for his activities, kicking in help where needed, and is the co-owner of the horses.
Ironically, the most significant horse in such a long training life was his very first horse, an ornery sort named Coherence “who tried to bite and kick you.” Without Coherence, Danelson might be mentioned today in a law journal, not in a Thoroughbred news outlet. “While going to college to become a lawyer, I bought Coherence for $400 [his father, Henry, was a trainer, too] and was going to sell him for $600 but no one would buy him. So I raced him and he just kept winning. There was hardly any place he didn’t win. That ended my college days.” In fact, Coherence won 22 races over four years. “I’ve never had a horse close to that again,” he said.
His first visit to a winner’s circle, and that was with Coherence, came as a kind of birthday present to himself in the year that Canadian singer Paul Anka’s Lonely Boy topped the Billboard charts and General Motors unveiled a radically re-designed Chevy with “gull wings.” It was August 29, 1959, the day after Danelson’s 22nd birthday and the year after Assiniboia Downs had been “born.”
An important mentor back then, he said, was Kaz Nichols, a horseman at the now-defunct Longacres race track in Washington. “He taught me such things as train enough but not too hard and that each horse in an individual. He taught me most of what I know.” It wasn’t long before Danelson was chalking up win percentages in the high twenties. He logged 27 per cent wins in 1966, 1969, 1976 and 1978.
He won multiple stakes, too, and still fondly holds his 1966 victory with Cosmic Tip in the R. J. Speers stakes as something special. The colourized black-and-white win photo is still his favourite, he said, “because my father is in the picture.”
How often do you hear about Montana-bred horses? Danelson’s River Lord (by Eastern Lord out of Across the River) had an amazing 96-race career (15-16-18) that included graded stakes races in Chicago and winning the River Park Stakes at ASD in 1984. During that decade he was also making waves at ASD with another Eastern Lord offspring, Electric Fever, a Manitoba-bred female who would win the Manitoba Matron and a handful of other stakes.
Other Danelson-isms:
His proudest moment: “My Smart Figure (the $5,000 claimer he groomed into stardom) beating the great Smoky Cinder by a nose in the Gold Cup Stakes in 1998 even though Smart Figure was carrying two more pounds.” The following year he took over the training and co-ownership of Smoky Cinder and the gelding went on to win six stakes while endearing himself to race fans.
Does he bet? “I did sometimes in the past. I once won enough to buy a Buick. I think it was in the 1970s. But I also remember losing $1,500.”
His favourite race track: “All and all, Assiniboia Downs is the best place to race. I like the people here, it’s the closest place and I have a lot of friends.” And, he noted, there isn’t the kind of thievery he experienced at a Chicago track where a stable radio he had playing for his horses was ripped off. “You couldn’t leave anything around. Pitchforks, whatever.”
A character trait he is proud of: “I’m a very honest man.”
Comment on changing times: “There aren’t as many characters as there used to be.”
The nicest horse he ever trained: Pen Pal, a gray mare he raced in the early 1960s. “After doing chores, I would take her out of the stall and let her eat grass. She was by far my kindest horse.”
How much does luck count in this business? “Twenty to 30 per cent.”
Danelson’s body might not be as willing as it once was ‒ he walks with a cane ‒ but the steely resolve of a competitor is still there. You can hear it in his voice. “I beat the great Smoky Cinder by a nose even though my horse [Smart Figure] was carrying two more pounds.” Grrr.
Which, of course, is what race players like to hear ‒ grit and determination from the guy who’s training the animals they’re betting on. And who doesn’t think the elder statesman will have a youthful flashback when his Kate’s Princess lines up in the starting gate for race 4 tomorrow night at Assiniboia Downs? You’re never too old for another winner’s circle photo. Grrr.
