The Canadian Sportsman
October 29, 2010
Today, In Quotes, we feature a good-natured winner’s circle exchange between famously-impatient owner Bob Key (above, holding trophy, left) and trainer Trond Smedshammer (far left) after Break The Bank K won the Breeders Crown for sophomore trotting colts:
“The horse was always good. Even when people started losing confidence in him, I said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with the horse.’ Luckily, we didn’t lose confidence, Bob didn’t lose confidence in me and he stayed with me, because for awhile there it was a close call,” Smedshammer said of Key’s impatience.
“I tell you what, he’s really one of the top trainers in the world,” Key said of Smedshammer. “You couldn’t make a move otherwise. He’s proven himself time and again.”
So, Bob, now that Break The Bank K is a Breeders Crown and world champion (on a five-eighths), how close were you to taking the horse away from Smedshammer?
“Not close,” Key said.
Smedshammer chuckled. “Bob, come on. You can be honest,” the trainer said, scoffing a little, his eyes narrowing.
“I tell you what, I felt that he was going to come through. Let me tell you what, I knew he prides himself on being the best. That’s the best thing you can have in a trainer. He has to want to be the best, any sport, any time. That’s what Trond has. So, that’s why I backed him,” Key said.
“It’s tough being a trainer when you’re doing the best you can and the horse is not performing. The owner wants the horse to perform. We don’t go back. We don’t have a long relationship. It wouldn’t have been unreasonable for him to move the horse,” Smedshammer said.
“It would have been pretty stupid if I would have, right?” Key said with a deep belly laugh that came complete with a playful slap on Smedshammer’s back.
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August 13, 2010
“I think the question we have to ask ourselves is, is there any hope at all of the industry, on its own, bringing about this transformation, and I haven’t heard anybody say that they think that is a likely outcome. So that might be the first hard acknowledgment that this industry has to make, ‘We can’t do it on our own.’
“If there is one thing that needs to come out of any of this it is a resolve on the part of the different sectors of the industry to actually do something different. We have already talked about what doing the same looks like, and we have seen year over year, at least in terms of handle, certainly in terms of WEG handle, what that looks like. We, for one, can’t withstand many more years of 10 and 11 per cent year-over-year declines on our live pool.”
— Nick Eaves (above), president and CEO of the Woodbine Entertainment Group (WEG) in the 11th in a daily series of quotes pulled from our Round Table Discussion entitled 15 Essential Ideas for Saving Racing. Dave Briggs’ Last Call Online column about the Round Table is available here. The entire Round Table Discussion booklet is available to download as a pdf by following this link and clicking on the “Now Available” item in the bottom left corner of the page.
August 12, 2010
“The only thing that allowed the North American automobile industry to respond to the crisis it was in was, in fact, hitting rock bottom, going broke. And the only thing that allowed the American automobile industry to restructure was the government saying, 'You are broke and you are going out of business, except that we are going to intervene to keep you in business. To keep you in business, we are going to demand that you do various things, including shutting down capacity in a very significant way, shutting off product lines, changing your Board of Directors, changing the leaders of your companies, in some cases.'”
— Clay Horner (above), partner Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, LLP, horse owner and vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Woodbine Entertainment Group (WEG) in the 10th in a daily series of quotes pulled from our Round Table Discussion entitled 15 Essential Ideas for Saving Racing. Dave Briggs’ Last Call Online column about the Round Table is available here. The entire Round Table Discussion booklet is available to download as a pdf by following this link and clicking on the “Now Available” item in the bottom left corner of the page.
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