The Canadian Sportsman
March 18, 2010
Photography is a psychological game; an art if you will. If something, anything, knocks the creative equilibrium wonky, start lowering your expectations for pretty pictures Mr. editor guy.
I have learned this through countless road trips with our photographers. They are tremendous guys, but creatively temperamental. Well, one of our photographers is. He shall remain nameless. Okay, it’s Dave Landry.
He is one hell of a photographer. We are blessed to have him, not just for his work, but because he’s the kind of guy you’d love to have as a neighbour, or a brother-in-law or your mechanic.
Just don’t mess with his photographic mojo.
I learned this the hard way in the summer of 2006 on one of those road trips to the Meadowlands my coworkers think is some glamorous boondoggle.
We begin at 4:30 a.m. as the shrill sound of an unfamiliar alarm clock pierces the murkiness of a strange hotel room on the outskirts of the Buffalo Airport. A crummy bagel on the go, shuttle buses, oh-so-cheery airline employees, the crush of herded cattle that is the mile-long security check line. And all of this before dawn.
Oh, the glamour.
In a desperate need to fire up the central nervous system, I grab a couple of large coffees on our dash to our gate. Landry is lugging about 36 bags of photographic equipment too sensitive to check, so I agree to carry his java. And then, as we rush onto the smallish plane with narrow aisles, my first brilliant idea for the day hits me like the lightning bolt I wish had struck me dead: to avoid slamming the computer bag slung over my shoulder off the heads of my fellow passengers, why not carry my bag in one hand and stack the coffee cups in the other?
Fun fact #1: Did you know airplane carpets are extra-absorbent? Neither did I until I spilled both full, oil-drum sized coffees down the aisle and partly onto some guy’s pants. That will teach him to push aside passengers traveling with the elderly or small children in order to rush onto the plane at the first boarding call.
Still, not even scalding strangers is going to wreck this day. We are on assignment for adventure.
It is a gorgeous, hot summer morning in not-so-gorgeous Newark, NJ as we slide into a sweet rental ride — it was a Tempo, I think — and head for the Jersey shore. I throw some reggae on the iPod. It’s Friday. I’m not in the office. We’re heading for the ocean. The tunes are cranking. Life is good... Then Landry mentions he hasn’t been feeling well. Says he’s having sort of an “out-of-body experience or something.”
Uh oh.
We have come to the marina in Belmar, NJ to tag along with driver Ron Pierce, avid outdoorsman, as he attempts to spear fish while scuba diving.
One word of advice from Pierce before we leave the dock: if you want to keep anything dry, put it in one of these two storage compartments right here, he says, pointing to the holds at the bow of the boat.
This is what we in the writing game call ominous foreshadowing.
Perhaps Landry is having an out of body experience as Pierce says this. Landry looks like he heard the driver — he nods slightly, as he pans the scene for photographic gold — but experience tells me he sometimes zones out when you’re speaking to him... all in the name of art, I say. You can hardly argue with the man’s track record. He’s a multi-award-winning photographer, I remind myself. He knows what he’s doing. So, I decide to kick back.
Besides, Landry has a waterproof backpack protecting a second camera and some other gear in it.
Pierce nudges the throttle and we head out. It is positively blissful. Landry and I are like two dogs on a car ride. Heads out the window, tongues hanging out, drool flying as we take in the seaside mansions. Sure, sure, Landry’s not taking any photos, but that would be nit-picking.
Before we know it, we’re booming along the Jersey shore at 50 mph heading to a spot where Pierce wants to dive. We get there, anchor, Pierce tugs on his wet suit and Landry fires off some shots as the driver vanishes beneath the surface brandishing his spear gun. Killer stuff to be sure, but not as killer as what came next.
Landry was rolling as he made preparations for the money shot — the one he can see in his mind’s eye of Pierce returning to the surface with a pile of fish. It’s a cover shot to be sure, he says, as he struts to the bow to retrieve his other camera and a different lens from the... live fish hold.
From deep inside him, in a place we don’t speak about after dark or in front of small children, he feels the power of a torturous wail. No sound comes out, but it’s right there on his face like Edvard Munch’s famous impressionist painting Scream. I feel his pain.
There, floating in about 10 inches of sea water, is Landry’s backpack containing equipment that’s worth more than my car.
Starting to hyperventilate and sweat profusely, Landry says he tried to put his gear in one of the two waterproof compartments, but they were full of huge bottles of Gatorade. Instead he tucked his bag inside the next closest compartment. We didn’t see him do it. At the time, the fish hold was dry. Somewhere along the way, Pierce flipped a switch to fill it with sea water.
“But it’s waterproof, right?” I say, helpfully, as he yanks his dripping backpack out of the well. This is called damage control.
Turns out his backpack is, indeed, waterproof... if he hadn’t left the zipper open about a millimeter.
Then depression set in.
Fun fact #2: Expensive, high-tech camera equipment and corrosive salt water do not mix.
At this point, Landry hasn’t even realized we’re talking about salt water here. I decide to keep that little nugget of good news to myself for now. At least he has insurance. And there’s more good news: Landry still had one of his cameras around his neck — and we left his biggest lens in the car — so not all was lost. Oddly, he wasn’t interested in hearing the bright side of his worst nightmare as he dropped to his knees on the deck and desperately tipped the water out of his camera gear and backpack, as he looked for any sign of life from a camera that was now smoking slightly.
Fun fact #3: keeping your head down while anchored on bobbing seas is a surefire way to get sea sickness.
The fact that Pierce quickly returned to the surface empty-handed — a couple of recent storms have led to low visibility below — was immaterial, really.
The bigger issue was how we were going to get a depressed, moaning, sea sick photographer safely back to shore.
Turns out the best thing that happened all day, to that point, is the fact Landry didn’t hurl. Though, he did turn a delightful shade of Shrek green.
Then things became positively surreal, which, to be honest, was a strong bet with Pierce. But let’s save that for next time.
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February 24, 2010
To be blunt, Jimmy Takter owes us his ass.
Ten years ago, Takter and his fabulous mare Moni Maker ruled the trotting world. In the late-summer of 2000, Moni Maker’s career began to wind down. Retirement plans began to take shape for a special event at The Red Mile in which the great mare would be ridden by jockey Julie Krone in an attempt to break the trotting under saddle world record.
But, before that, Moni Maker would make one last start in the sulky in the $500,000 Trot Mondial at Hippodrome de Montreal with her Canadian-born driver Wally Hennessey on board.
September 9, 2000 was a glorious day in Montreal. Blue skies and movie sunshine bathed old Blue Bonnets in the kindest light. Moni Maker did not disappoint, storming to a dominant victory — her 67th and last — to fatten her career bankroll well past $5.5 million. She trotted off as the richest standardbred in history (until Varenne became just a smidge richer a few years later).
How, exactly, could The Canadian Sportsman capture the momentous moment for history? Photographer Dave Landry certainly knew, judging from the sudden glint in his eye. As Moni Maker left the winner’s circle, Landry began to dash off down the track just in time to pop off two frames of a memorable scene. Caretaker Roman Kogalin raised a bent arm in celebration just as Hennessey put his arm, gently, around Takter's shoulders.
The photo said it all.
There was only one problem: in the frame showing the most emotion, the one where Kogalin is frozen mid-arm pump, Takter's stride, for some reason I still don’t understand, made the trainer’s ass look inexplicably HUGE. This was a problem considering Takter was and still is anything but a big guy. He may, in fact, be too thin.
The funny thing was, Landry separately noticed Takter’s gigantic caboose in the shot, too. Which I’m sure leaves you, the reader, with some questions. But believe me, it’s not customary for either of us to be checking out other guy’s butts in photos or otherwise, but (a) this thing was J-Lo prominent and (b) it just goes to show you how damn conscientious we are here at The Sportsman. We really do try to present people in the most positive light, when possible.
After Landry and I got the awkward guy thing out of the way about why both of us had noticed the... uh.... protrusion.... in the first place, we knew we had to act to save Takter’s ass.
Luckily, there was a gap between Kogalin and where Hennessey had his arm around Takter. So, through the magic of Photoshop, out went Hennessey and jiggle-butt Jimmy from the first frame and in came Hennessey and normal-butt Jimmy from the second. Rest assured, we did not call in a derriére double. That baby’s all Takter.
The mash-up made for an incredible cover shot for our Sept. 20, 2000 edition and that photo, despite the tinkering, is still a favourite — as is Moni Maker. The altered photo (above) hangs on my office wall.
Call it doing the right thing, though Landry was torn up about it at the time. We virtually never alter photographs. Landry sees it as a betrayal of his craft.
To this day, 10 years later, Landry and I will run into other photographers at racetracks who commend him for that photograph and often ask why he didn’t win awards for it. Simple: Dave Landry purposely didn’t enter it in any photo contests because it didn’t appear exactly as shot.
In some ways, of course, he was covering his ass.
November 12, 2009
It was already past the witching hour when the secret ladder was found hidden behind an ordinary closet door. This could not wait until morning.
Muscling open the hatch, Dave Landry and I clambered out onto the roof and into a ghostly night.
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A full moon hung above one of the two chimneys standing sentry on opposite ends of the long, wooden catwalk; the glow diminished by the haze of a warm summer evening.
We were not alone.
E.P. Taylor’s spirit was palpable on the roof of his former Maryland mansion as we plunked ourselves down on the planks, backs against the wobbly white railing.
A handful of fireflies popped in and out like tiny fireworks accompanied by a soft chorus of crickets. Nearby, horses shrouded by darkness, announced their presence with occasional snorts and nickers.
We sat in silence for nearly two hours and filled our ears, immersing ourselves in the magic of a farm at night. And not just any farm. The old Windfields Farm, now known as Winbak.
Thoroughbreds have given way to standardbreds, but this farm has been home to numerous champions — from the incomparable Northern Dancer to harness stars such as Muscle Hill, Rainbow Blue and Bettors Delight.
But it is E.P. Taylor’s former mansion which exudes the most history, particularly for a pair of Canadian boys who appreciate the profound impact he had on horse racing in our country. Built in the 1960s by the same people who constructed Taylor’s Lyford Cay estate in the Bahamas, the current owners have preserved the home much in the manner in which one imagines it was when Taylor haunted the roof with coffee and binoculars, watching his horses train on a nearby turf track.
That track is gone now, though the dirt track remains. In those days, this farm was Taylor’s private training facility and, it is said, his favourite vista came from this rooftop perch.
It is also said, the man who built the modern Woodbine Racetrack is rolling over in his grave now that harness racing has invaded his beloved plant. What then, would he make of his Maryland farm overrun with standardbreds? Or, for that matter, the main entrance road new owner Joe Thomson cheekily named Standardbred Way.
Noreen Taylor, believes her late father-in-law would have approved. “He was, above all, a realist,” she said. “This was wonderful horse country. It’s marvelous that it continues to be wonderful horse country, whatever the breed is there.”
Landry has mixed emotions about all this. He seems slightly maudlin about the passage of time as it pertains to this farm, yet is delighted Winbak has not discarded its thoroughbred roots; ones in which he happily entangles himself now. Landry spent his childhood tagging along with his father and brother — jockey Rob Landry — to Woodbine. There is no more iconic racing figure in Dave’s life than E.P. Taylor.
When the pull of sleep yanks us, grudgingly, from the roof at last, Landry stuffs his hands in his pockets, bows his head slightly and sheepishly asks if he can sleep in Taylor’s old master bedroom, the one festooned with floral patterns. The draw isn’t the pretty sheets. He wants to wrap himself in the warmth of history’s blanket for one night.
It is a slightly strange request, but how could you deny the man that? E.P. Taylor slept there.
“Whatever,” I said with a shrug. “Knock yourself out.”
It is only the next morning, over coffee with Winbak staff, that Landry learns Taylor rarely, if ever, used the master bedroom. Instead, he preferred to bunk in the more masculine guest bedroom next door; the one with the closet containing the secret ladder.
The room where I had the accidental pleasure of sleeping.
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