For the first time in two years, the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame will have an in-person ceremony to honour inductees to the Hall from 2020 and 2021. The CHRHF intends to hold a live Induction Gala to recognize the Classes of 2020 and 2021 on Wednesday, August 3, 2022. Additional details regarding the event will be made available in the coming weeks and months.
As with so many other organizations over the past two years, the CHRHF has had to adapt to the ever-changing world, especially with being able to formally induct the Inductees named during the time most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
With a total of 16 inductees from 2020 and 2021 still to receive their full induction, it has been agreed to delay and modify the timing and number of inductees to be added to the CHRHF as part of the Class of 2022.
The deadline for CHRHF 2022 nominations is August 26, 2022, after this year’s induction gala recognizing the classes of 2020 and 2021. The CHRHF Class of 2022, consisting of a total of eight inductees (four from Standardbred categories and four from Thoroughbred categories) will be announced October 19, 2022. Nomination forms are available on the CHRHF website and can either be completed online or downloaded and submitted by mail or email.
The 16 Thoroughbred and Standardbred inductees who will be honoured on Aug. 3 include the 2021 class:
VICTORIA (VICKI PAPPAS) in the Thoroughbred Builder category.
Throughout a career spanning over 40 years, Pappas has been engaged in various elements of the Canadian Thoroughbred industry, starting first as a groom, then also as a trainer, owner and breeder. In 2006, Edenwold, bred by Pappas along with her husband Bill Diamant and long-time friend Gail Wood, won the Queen’s Plate.
As the face of the Woodbine Sales Company, Vicki was involved in all aspects of the sale. As one of the first on-camera hosts for Woodbine’s expanded simulcast show, Vicki handicapped races on air. And as Woodbine’s stakes coordinator, Vicki worked tirelessly to encourage some of the world’s top horsepeople and horses to make the trip to Woodbine for major races.
Vicki may, however, be best known as the passionately dedicated and hands-on chairperson of LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society. Under Vicki’s leadership, what began as a few people looking for ways to ensure Thoroughbred racehorses have a dignified and happy retirement has grown into a registered charity, recognized as one of the continent’s most respected horse retirement and adoption organizations, and is also the first industry-funded adoption program in Canada.
HEART TO HEART: Bred by Darrell Bauder’s Alberta-based Red Hawk Ranch and foaled in Ontario, the 2021 Thoroughbred Male Horse Inductee Heart to Heart was a $25,000 purchase by Lethbridge, Alberta’s Terry Hamilton at the CTHS yearling sale in 2012. That investment proved lucrative with the horse earning over $2 million (US) in a high-profile seven-year racing career which included 15 wins and nearly $50,000 per start in 41 starts.
NOT TOO SHY: Bred and owned by Conn Smythe (CHRHF Class of 1977) and trained by D. P. (Donnie) Walker, 2021 Thoroughbred Veteran Inductee Not Too Shy won just two races in her initial year of racing (1968) but in the next three years, she would establish herself as one of the top stakes-winning fillies of her era.
The 2020 class: SUE LESLIE has dedicated the better part of her life to the sport of horseracing — breeding, owning and training Thoroughbred horses in Ontario for almost 40 years. Positions she has held, both past and current, include President/Chair of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protection Society of Ontario, President/Chair of Ontario Horse Racing Industry Alliance, Director on the Avelino Gomez Memorial Foundation, Director of LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society, as well as being a member of the Jockey Club of Canada and Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society.
GARY BOULANGER began his riding career in 1987, spending his early years at tracks in the U.S. and earning leading jockey status at Longacres Racetrack (1989, 1990, 1991) and Calder Race Course (1994, 1995). In 2000 Boulanger returned to Canada, riding primarily at Woodbine, where he would frequently get the call to ride for Hall of Fame trainer Mark Frostad. In 2001, the top money-winning year of his career, he rode Sam-Son Farm’s Hall of Fame filly Dancethruthedawn to wins in the Canadian Oaks and The Queen’s Plate Stakes. In 2005 Boulanger suffered what could have been a career-ending injury in a racing accident at Gulfstream Park. His return to the track came in 2013 when he began to pick up rides for Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse.
MIKE KEOGH is a two-time Queen’s Plate winning trainer, first with Woodcarver in 1999 and then with Triple Crown champion Wando in 2003. During that Triple Crown winning season, Keogh was also training stablemate Mobil who would earn a Sovereign Award at age four. Hall of Fame horse Langfuhr, also trained by Keogh, won three G1 Stakes and received the Sovereign in 1996 as Champion Sprinter. As an assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield from 1986-1993, Keogh worked with a long list of Hall of Fame inductees including Alywow, Peteski, Carotene, Izvestia and With Approval.
TEPIN accumulated a record of 13-5-1, including nine Grade 1/Group 1 wins or placings in three countries – Canada, England and the U.S. In 2015 she won the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) against the boys. The following year, In what would be her final year of racing, she travelled to England winning the prestigious Group One Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot. Her final career win came in the 2016 Woodbine Mile (G1) when she put an exclamation mark on her career with a half-length win, again over the boys.
PLAY THE KING was conditioned throughout his four-year race career by Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield for breeder/owner Kinghaven Farms of King City, Ontario. In 29 starts, he made 19 trips to the winners’ circle and earned just shy of $1 million. Play the King’s stakes success began at age four with a win in the Toboggan Handicap (G3) at Aqueduct, and was followed by wins in the Jacques Cartier, Vigil Handicap and the Toronto Budweiser Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Woodbine, as well as wins in the Highlander Handicap, the Suffolk Sprint in Boston (G3) and finally the Nearctic Stakes (G3), to earn him the 1987 Sovereign Award for Champion Older Male Horse and Champion Sprinter. The following year the dark bay had his most noted outing in the Breeders Cup Sprint (G1) at Churchill Downs. A strong 49-1 second-place finish contributed to him being presented Sovereign Awards as Champion Sprinter, Older Horse and Horse of the Year in 1988.
Representing Standardbreds in the Class of 2020 are Driver Paul MacDonell, Trainer Ben Wallace, Female Horse Amour Angus, Male Horse McWicked and Veteran Horse Rambling Willie.
(with files from CT staff)
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