TOP WINNING BEYER SPEED FIGURES IN CANADA AUGUST 23-30
90 UNCLE BULL (turf)
89 LADIES SIGNATURE
89 THEREGOESJOJO (turf)
86 LAPOCHKA
83 WOODBRIDGE (turf)
83 BIG EXECUTIVE (turf)
83 TOLD IT ALL
83 STAY FANTASTIC (Hastings)
82 NEVAEH’S DREAM
81 MARJORIE’S DREAM
81 RECONFIGURE
80 CHART (turf)
Woodbine’s 2 big races of a shortened 2020 racing season, the Queen’s Plate and Woodbine Mile are coming up Sept 12 and 19 but a cool race going on right now is the battle for leading rider. JUSTIN STEIN has tied RAFAEL HERNANDEZ at 65 wins following a super couple of weeks.
In Alberta, Century Mile is a month out from its Canadian Derby and the track and the Alberta HBPA announced a purse increase beginning Sept. 4.
In Manitoba, ASSINIBOIA DOWNS has just seven racing dates left in its shortened 2020 season and news comes from scribe Ivan Bigg’s The Insider news is that the track’s leading trainer JERRY GOURNEAU is headed to Woodbine.
Gourneau has 63 wins at Assiniboia this year and is leading all Canada’s trainers – Mark Casse has 36 at Woodbine.
From The Insider:
So where will ASD’s winningest trainer head to after ASD’s race season ends on Tuesday, Sept. 15?
“Woodbine,” Jerry Gourneau said. “And maybe a few races at Century Mile (in Edmonton).” After that, he said he may take a holiday (much-deserved) during the winter before resuming racing again at Fonner Park in Nebraska before returning to the Downs.
Gourneau has 63 wins and needs 15 more in eight days of racing to tie the record of 78 wins set by trainer Tom Dodds in 1990. Dodds accomplished the feat in a lengthy 117 days of racing, not 50. Gourneau has a Master’s in Education and was a teacher and school administrator.
from Scott Taylor who wrote on ChrisD.ca:
Gourneau was born on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reserve, about 170 miles southwest of the International Peace Garden, Gourneau and his family would drive to Winnipeg to watch the horses run and then drive home on the same night – three hours both ways.
“My dad, Larry Gourneau Sr., got together with my older brothers, Dave and Bill, and they bought one horse,” Gourneau explained. “He was named Sima’s Award and we bought it from Assiniboia Downs in 1972 or ’73. My dad bought it to run on the bush tracks in Pheasanton, Towner and Rugby, N.D. Belcourt didn’t even have a track back then.
“The first good horse we ever owned was L.D. Ribot. My dad and my brother Dave purchased that horse here at the Downs for $1,100. He was a stone-cold winner. He’d win $15,000-$20,000 every year. We had him ‘till he was 11-years-old. When they bought that horse, I was 13 or 14 and I was working in the barn. Then, at 16, I started at Assiniboia Downs and I did everything.”
While going to school, Gourneau soaked up track life. He worked the barns, he groomed, he galloped horses and was even a jockey on the bush tracks. He’d come to Winnipeg after school ended and live in the No. 9 tack room. His first boss at the Downs was an old trainer named Burnell Rhone.
After college, he went on to university to get his Masters’ in Education. He worked his way through school by working for the family racing business, Gourneau Brothers Racing, and by hitting big bets at the Downs. In fact, he bet $100 on a horse called Crime Zone and won $2,750. It paid for more than a semester at school.
After graduating from university, he went on to become a schoolteacher and later, a school administrator. Meanwhile, he worked summers in the racing game. In 2009, he decided to go into the thoroughbred industry on a full-time basis and he has been a remarkable success. Now, one of the greatest Indigenous trainers in racing history he has a great chance to reclaim his 2018 trainers’ crown.
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