Former Alberta jockey Perry Winters couldn’t believe it when he got a phone call from Catherine Day Phillips informing him that he had made it into the exclusive Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

“I just about peed my pants,” said Winters of the call from the Ontario based trainer and new Chair of the CHRHF Thoroughbred Election Committee.

“I was that excited. I certainly didn’t expect it. I was completeIy amazed.

“I couldn’t believe it. I still have trouble believing it.”

He shouldn’t.

After all, Camrose-born Winters is clearly one of the best jockeys to ever ride in Alberta.

He won 2,984 races - second most by any Alberta-born jockey behind only Gary Boulanger, who is also in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

(If you’re wondering legendary Johnny Longden, who grew up in Taber, Alberta, and won 6,032 races was born in England.)

Winters was also Alberta’s leading jockey seven times.

Riding for 33 years from 1980 to 2012, Winters’ mounts earned $22 million.

He won over 100 stakes races capturing virtually every Alberta stakes race including Edmonton’s Canadian Derby in 1993 with Rod Cone-trained Cozzy Grey and Calgary’s Alberta Derby twice - with Cozzy Grey and then the following year with Don Schnell-trained Cool Pacific, who was sent off at 25-1.

He had a career winning percentage of 15 per cent.

“Horses just ran for him,” said longtime agent Kenny Gilkyson.

“He had a real good clock in his head and he used to love getting a jump on his rivals which worked real good on a bull ring,” said Gilkyson, who had Winters book at the end of Winters’ career.

“And he seldom got into trouble.

“The first year I had him he was Alberta’s leading jockey.”

The best horse Winters rode was multiple champion Chilcoton Blaze, who was trained and owned by Kenny’s dad, Don.

Chilcoton Blaze won 31 of his 83 races including 11 in a row in 1987.

With Winters aboard, Chilcoton Blaze won the Major Presto; Thanksgiving, Western Express, Sturgeon River, Teeworth, Speed to Spare, Westerner, Klondike, Journal and Continental stakes in 1987 alone.

Unbelievable.

“Chilcoton Blaze was a hard horse to train in the mornings,” recalled Winters. "But he was perfect when he ran. He would relax and when I asked him to run he would take off. He would circle the field and win going away.”

Winters won 158 races that year; 17 were in stakes races: Holy Mac n Nolley; (the Stampede Futurity and Futurity Prep); Bo Rouge (Alberta Oaks and Northlands Oaks); Northern Avalanche (the Alberta Premiers Princess Margaret and the Westerner Canada Handicap (Abberoo).

But that wasn’t even Winters’ best season. In 1991, Winters won 241 races - second best in the country - with his mounts earning $1,249,568 while winning at a 20 per-cent clip.

That year Winters won 12 stakes races: three with Tabola Gin (the Madamoiselle, Valleyview and Elmbrook); two with Kool Discovery (the Ky Quill and Ky Alta); two with Pleasure n Hope (the Lilac and M.R. Jenkins); two with Precious Mistake (The Stampede Futurity and Birdcatcher) as well as the Sonoma (Some Right Nice); Teeworth Plate (Artic Danger) and Mount Royal (Briardette Star).

Also unbelievable.

Winters, who grew up Granum in Southern, Alberta before moving to Calgary, never thought about being a jockey. It was a complete fluke.

“I was finished high school and didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. I wasn’t very good in school,” said Winters, who is as personable as he was talented.

“Frank Duce, whose daughters Joy and Jerri were world famous trick riders, lived across the back alley in Calgary and he kept telling me that with my size I should be a jockey.

“I didn’t know anything about being a jockey or even anything about horse racing.

“I rode a couple of saddle horses. But I had never been on a race horse.

“But I was fearless. In the mornings if a horse bucked me off I get right back on.

‘And I was always good at sports. I played basketball in junior high school where we won a couple of championships. I was the smallest guy on the team but I was the best,” he said without it sounding at all like bragging.

“I was also a good baseball player. I was just a good all-around athlete.

“I guess I was just a natural.”

It soon became evident that Winters was also a natural jockey.

“Frank introduced me to trainer Ken Buxton and Kenny introduced me to William Leech, who was the best quarter horse trainer in Alberta and remains so today,” said Winters, who was always light, could eat whatever he wanted and never gain an ounce.

It was Leech, who taught Winters how to ride when Winters was 18.

Getting his start riding in the ‘bush meets’ at places like Grande Prairie, Cochrane, Medicine Hat and Drumheller, Winters became friends with the King of the Bush Meets Elige Bourne, as well as as Jim Roebuck, another top quarter horse jockey.

“Jim was 27; I was 18. He took me under his wing. He taught me a lot,” said Winters, who today lives in Calgary in the same house he bought in 1992.

“We used to travel across Alberta in a little trailer.”

In 1980, Winters continued his progression and started riding thoroughbreds. Starting in Lethbridge, for the next two years he rode in Tuscon, Arizona and later at Turf Paradise in Phoenix. In the fall of 1982 he rode in Saskatchewan at Saskatoon’s Marquis Downs.

It wasn’t until 1984 that Winters started riding in Alberta in the province’s “A’ circuit. There he really began to flourish. In just his second full season in Alberta - 1986 - he won 139 races. He would win over 100 races each of the next 10 years.

And he would win in bunches.

On August 10, 1989 he won the first six races at Northlands Park in Edmonton. That same year - over a seven-race span - he won six of those too. The previous year saw him win five races on the card including the Continental with Chilcoton Blaze.

Always accommodating, Winters said he always dreamt of getting into the Hall of Fame.

“I’m happy with the career I had. I’m quite pleased with myself. I never expected to get into Hall of Fame but I guess my credentials spoke for themselves.

“I won almost 3,000 races while riding against a lot really good jockeys like Ron Hansen, Don Seymour, Ron Carrasco and Rick Hedge. All the good ones. It’s an honour just to be mentioned in the same sentence as them.

“I won every stakes race in Alberta. Chilcoton Blaze, Cozzy Grey, Just Jeff, Staraway.. I got on some really nice horses.

“I rode in over 10,000 races.

“But now I’m paying for it.

“There are some days I can hardly walk but I still get out and play golf with my son, Trey.

“I broke my arm. I broke a toe. I cracked some ribs but fortunately nothing serious.

“They called me the Rubber Man. I crashed a lot but I always bounced back.

“I’m paying for it now.

“My hips and my back are getting to me. My knees go snap, crackle and pop. And I have severe vertebrae damage.

“The sport has taken its toll on my body.”

On May 20 Winters is getting a a full, right hip replacement. In August surgeons are doing the same thing with his left hip.

But Winters says the second surgery better not come early in August.

“My official introduction into the Hall of Fame is August 6 in Toronto.

“There’s no way I’m missing that. This is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

“I had an amazing career. I have to thank all of the trainers that stuck with me when I was first starting out.

“I got along with everybody. I did well for the little guys and gradually worked my way up.

“I couldn’t be happier.”

STOCK REPORT - This past Thursday at the Sovereign Awards in Toronto, Dresden Row, co-owned by Albertan Keith Jones, was named Canada’s Champion Three-Year-Old Male of 2024. Dresden Row had three wins, two seconds and a third in six starts. One of his wins came in the Grade 3 Durham Cup. Another came in the Grade 3 Ontario Derby.

Alberta sensation Big Hug, owned by Edmonton’s Lori and Martin Neyka's Empire Equestrian was a finalist for Aged Mare of the Year.

Thoroughbred racing returns to Century Mile on Friday May 2.

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Author: The Turcottes: The Remarkable Story of a Horse Racing Dynasty and a proud member of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.