The Canadian Sportsman
Dave & Dave
Back To Dave & DaveFebruary 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.
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February 24, 2010
3:29 PM
3:29 PM
This is what's great about Canada. You can get virtual liposuction and it doesn't cost you a penny. In the USA one needs health insurance even when one wants simply to doctor a photograph.
With that said, said photo is a truly great shot from the past, BUTT hindsight is 20/20 -- at least in the case of this hind.
DDM
With that said, said photo is a truly great shot from the past, BUTT hindsight is 20/20 -- at least in the case of this hind.
DDM
~ David Mattia
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