Among all the stakes races on a cold and windy Saturday, October 8 at Woodbine, Hall of Fame trainer MIKE KEOGH saddled his last horse for a race. Keogh sent out Wedgewood in the Grade 2 Nearctic Stakes for the estate of Gustav Schickedanz, the last horse to race for the famed stable.
Wedgewood finished sixth while American invader Cazadero and jockey Patrick Husbands roared past the field to win the $255,500 Nearctic at 6 furlongs on the turf. Trained by Brendan Walsh for Marc Detampel of Chicago, Cazadero was making just his second start on the grass and reeled in heavily-favoured Bound for Nowhere and Ontario-bred Grade 1 winner Silent Poet for a 2 1/2 length win in 1:09.11.
Friends and colleagues joined Keogh in the walking ring pre-race and in the Woodbine Club post-race to celebrate the trainer’s retirement. As the private trainer for Schickedanz since 1993, Keogh trained champion Langfuhr, a multiple Grade 1 winner in the U.S. and prepared Wando to win the 2003 Canadian Triple Crown. He trained the winners of 60 stakes races and 341 winners from 2,794 starters, and his horses collected more than $22 million in purses.
Keogh, 65, has been battling cancer for a couple of years and elected to retire from training, rather than set up another stable as a public trainer for another owner.
“I just don’t have the energy anymore,” said Keogh, who came to Canada in 1977 from Epsom, England. “All the radiation and chemotherapy during those years takes a lot out of you.”
Keogh, a former jockey in his home country, began his Canadian career working for Jerry Meyer and John Tammaro. For the latter, Keogh galloped champion Deputy Minister, among others. He joined the Roger Attfield stable in the late 1980s when Attfield took over as private trainer for the massive Kinghaven Farms. Keogh exercised and traveled with champions such as Carotene, With Approval and his favourite, Play the King.
Keogh went out on his own when Schickedanz offered him the job as his private trainer. When Schickedanz passed away in 2019, his breeding stock was dispersed. Keogh trained the last remaining racehorses over the past three years. Each horse was then retired to LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation.
Keogh and his wife, Lou, who live in Bolton, look forward to traveling and have rented a cottage this winter in Aiken, South Carolina, where Keogh trained the Schickedanz horses in the off-season for years.
Photos from October 8:
Mike and his long-time mentor, dual Hall of Famer Roger Attfield.
HBPA Ontario president Sue Leslie congratulates Keogh on his retirement just before the Nearctic Stakes.
Mike and Play the King.
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