It was just after 3 p.m. last August when Susan Winsor drove up to Alivia Kettleson’s farm in Thorsby – about 60 km south west of Edmonton. It was a miserable afternoon; rain was blowing sideways and the temperature gauge in the horse van shivered at just over 10 C. Water puddled everywhere.
Winsor and her husband, Doug, were there to take a look at a horse named Irish Gold – a retired thoroughbred with two white socks on his near side and a white snip on his deep-red forehead.
Nine years old, Irish Gold, a speedy stakes winner in his days at the track, won six of 28 races. Most of them were sizzling wire-to-wire wins. Like the September victory in 2018 when he wowed everyone in the Red Diamond Express when he went untouched and won by three lengths. Or the warm but cloudy June day in 2020 when he went to Winnipeg and won an allowance race leading at every call.