On April 8, the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame announced 14 new inductees into the Hall of Fame. The inductees included Trainer Dale Saunders, Dr. Maurice Stewart and Jockey Eva Ring. Dale passed away on September 14, 2024, at the age of 82 after a battle with cancer. Curtis Stock shares his Hall of Fame induction story.
“The final chapter in his book has been written,” said one of his long time owners and close friends Brian Bygrave.
“No one deserves it more. He has closure.
“Six weeks before he died, Dale was doing his thing with his horses. Horses were his life. Every single day he had one thing on his mind: horses.”
“It was so nice to get that phone call from the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame’s Catherine Day Phillips” said Saunders wife Barb. “I just wish Dale was still alive to accept it.
“I plan on going with our daughter Nicky and her two daughters Aurora and Maddy.”
Two other Albertans, Dr. Mo Stewart, and Legend Eva Ring were also inducted.
Described by another Hall of Fame inductee, Keith Clark, as a ‘tireless worker trying to improve Alberta racing (Dr. Stewart) is a respected veterinarian, successful breeder/owner and a relentless advocate for Alberta on the national scene.’
The Hall of Fame noted that Stewart “volunteered with with numerous industry organizations on boards, committees as a delegate and a leader in the industry to meetings, functions galas, conferences and seminars at the provincial, national and international level all for the betterment of the sport.
“It was great to be on the ballot and I was thrilled to get that call,” said Dr. Stewart, who was an Alberta equine veterinarian for 52 years and retired this past January.
“My career has been very good to me. It’s taken me around the world.
“It hasn’t been an easy ride especially when we used to race six days a week.
“I was very happy when I heard that Dale Saunders got in too.”
In a Hall Of Fame release Eva Ring was a “trailblazer who managed to overcome riding during a time in North American history when women were not permitted to to obtain a jockey license or ride in flat races alongside male jockeys.
“As a jockey throughout the Prairies of Western Canada during the 1930s and 1940s, Ring competed in both ‘powder puff’ events and races against male jockeys.
“In 1940, following the conclusion of her riding career, Ring obtained her trainer’s license from the Prairie Thoroughbred Breeders Racing Association making her among the first females to ride and train winning racehorses in Western Canada.”
This 50th Anniversary Class also recognized six thoroughbred, six standardbred and two Legend inductees.
A consumate horseman and a very modest humble and quiet individual, Saunders, better known as ‘The Colonel,’ was also unanimously awarded the E.P. Taylor award in 2022 for accomplishing outstanding individual achievements in Canadian thoroughbred racing and breeding.
He would always credit everyone but himself.
“Yup.” “Nope.” “Good horse,” would be his succinct words in painful interviews, who usually talked - if you can say that is talking - with his hands in his pockets.
“Lucky,” is another word Saunders, who was also named Horseperson of the Year at the Alberta Thoroughbred Awards in 2012, would use. Yup, sure he was lucky. Two thousand, one hundred and 77 times he got lucky.
He also got ‘lucky’ winning 16 Alberta Fall Classic races - a record that will be most difficult to equal.
Wild Crush and Bradys Tomboy each won three Classics.
Wild Legend won two of them. So did Blame it on the Night and Highland Leader.
Uncas Ruckus, Shady Remark, Hollywood Drama and Legend Fortynine also won on Classic Day.
Just like former New York Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson was known as Mr. October for his World Series exploits, Saunders was called Mr. September for his Fall Classic dominance.
Many of Saunders’ Fall Classic were off spring of Wild Creek, who was owned by Barb.
“My babies,” said Barb.
“Funny story. One year it was my birthday and I asked Dale what present did you get me,” she said. “Dale said ‘Nothing.’ “So I said ‘Ok, I’ll take Wild Creek.”
It was the best present she ever received - a horse Dale had bought for just $1,000.
Eight times Alberta’s leading trainer, Saunders is only the second trainer - fellow Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame member R.K. Red Smith is the other - to win more than 2,000 races while racing exclusively in Alberta.
Bygrave, who has some 300 hundred winner’s circle pictures with Saunders, would have 8-10 horses with the Colonel some years.
“Dale would “kick over the last stone to try and find a good horse,” said Bygrave. “He’d scour the bushes for horse and ideas how to train them.
“We went to sales everywhere. Kentucky. Florida. B.C. and of course Alberta,” said Bygrave, who had a lot of good horses trained by Saunders: L’il Ol Gal, who won 16 races, Shaniah, Bird of Pay, Dixie Chip and Timely Prize, who one year won nine races, to name a few.
“The first thing Dale did when he got to the barn in the morning was to check all of his horse’s legs to make sure nothing was wrong,” said Bygrave.
A magician with horses, Saunders could tell you every horse on the grounds just by looking at them from a distance.
“We would be standing by the track and I would ask him who such and such a horse was and the Colonel would tell me the name of the horse, the trainer and even the horse’s breeding,” said Bygrave, who got his first horse, Royal Rouser, with three friends in 1976 - a horse the quartet claimed for $2,500 and won its next start for $3,200.
“I thought this is a pretty easy game; we need to get more horses,” laughed Bygrave, who did just that owning over 120 horses with Saunders, who some years would have 50 horses, between his farm in Bowden and at the track, had many, many outstanding horses.
As well as winning those 2,177 races, Saunders horses amassed $17.4 million in earnings. Eight times he was Alberta’s leading trainer: 1983 (when he won a career high 88 races) 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1996, 1999 and 2013. In 2012 Saunders was also named Horseperson of the Year at the Alberta Thoroughbred Awards.
The victories came from many of the top thoroughbreds in Alberta horse racing history: Dark Hours, Shady Remark, Highland Leader, Fair March, Libby’s Love, Lil ‘ol Gal and Mandalero.
“I won a lot of races with a lot of very nice horses. But Dark Hours was probably the best horse I ever trained,” Saunders once said of a horse that was first or second in 26 of 34 starts.
In 1996 alone Dark Hours won six of eight races winning an allowance race, the M.R. Jenkins Memorial, Wild Rose, the Elmbrook, Madamoiselle and the City of Edmonton Distaff - the latter on the same day that Wild Creek, who arguably became Alberta’s best broodmare, won a division of the Bird of Pay.
Dark Hours was just as good in 1995 when she was first five times and second four times in just 10 starts. That year she won the Duchess of York, the B.C. Oaks, Sonoma, Rundle Heights, Mount Royal and an allowance race while finishing second in the Ballerina, Buttons and Bows, Junior Miss and Chariot Chaser.
Shady Remark and Highland Leader, who were both foaled in 1995, were also stellar. Shady Remark had 20 wins, 21 seconds and 15 thirds in 118 starts. He won $441,194. Highland Leader, just as consistent, won 26 races, finished second 24 times and third on 30 occasions. He won $459,091.
“It’s too bad that they both raced the same years,” Saunders continued. “They ran one-two in five or six races. Shady Remark would win one race and Highland Leader would be second. The next time Highland Leader would win and Shady Remark would be second.
“They both tried real hard; they never gave up. Shady Remark was a very versatile colt. He had good speed and could go short or long. He had a big heart; he didn’t have to be in front. Highland Leader was much the same.”
Libby’s Love had almost as talent as any of Saunders’ horses winning seven of 15 starts. She won the first six races of her life. She was pretty special.”
Then there were Bygraves’ Lil ‘ol Gal; Fair March, who won 26 times in 64 starts while finishing second 13 times and Mandalero, who won 10 of 23 starts.
“Lil ‘ol Gal tried hard every time. Fair March won a lot of races; I had him all of his life. He could be a funny horse off the track - he was hard to train - but he was no problem at all when he was running.”
Fittingly, Saunders last win - with a horse called Decoy - came the day before he passed away.
He bought Decoy, who also won three stakes, for just $1,000.
Nobody else saw anything special about Decoy, but, as usual, Saunders did.
“Horses were everything to him for virtually his entire life. Every day. Every month,” said Barb.
“The Colonel” was all business and was more than happy to help others. If another trainer, who was maybe just starting out, had a problem with a certain horse they would send him/her to Saunders, who used to run instead of walk at his farm.
“He’d run from one paddock to another,” said Barb. “Run from the house to the barn. Run from the barn to wherever else he was going.
“Go see Dale,” they all said.
It was like that year after year. Got a problem? Go ask Dale and the would rarely disappoint.
“If a horse of his wasn’t running well he would try everything,” said Bygrave. “Change the bit, change the bridle, change the saddle, change the jockey.
“Everything.”
Almost inevitably one or several of those changes would work.
So did the indoor Equicizer which Saunders owned to get his horses ready to run every spring.
Wildly successful, when Saunders had a horse in a race he was always a threat.
It was no surprise that Saunders got into horse racing.
His dad, Roy, was a mixed farmer, who also raised cattle and owned a couple of thoroughbreds.
“My dad and I didn’t have enough land or machinery for the two of us so I followed my dad’s cousin, Les Saunders,” Saunders once recalled.
Les raised Whistling Sea, the first horse from Western Canada to win The Queen’s Plate in 1965 for owner Paul Olivier.
“Then I worked for Neil Cressman, who was an owner and trainer, for five or six years.”
“In 1965 I went to Phoenix in 1965 with two horses and worked for Charlie Jasper. I worked for quite a few different guys and in 1969 I finally went on my own,” Saunders said in a decade-old interview in The Edmonton Journal.
Saunders, who always had a sharp eye for a good horses and did most of his damage at Yearling Sales and in claiming races - again spotting horses he figured he could improve.
With the Hall of Fame induction, Saunders will never be forgotten.
STOCK REPORT - Other thoroughbred Hall of Fame inductees were builder John Burness; photographer Michael Burns Jr. as Communicator; Jockey Richard Dos Ramos; Female Horse One for Rose and Male Horse Rahy’s Attorney.
In addition to Dr. Stewart, the other Standardbred Hall of Fame inductees were driver Mike Saftic; trainer Doug Arthur; Female Horse Put On A Show; Male horse Majestic Son; Veteran Horse or Person Western Dreamer and Legend William Henry Riddell.
Alberta legend Rod Hennessy was a finalist for Harness Trainer.
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Author: The Turcottes: The Remarkable Story of a Horse Racing Dynasty.
Hall of Fame inductee.