Hastings opens April 18th
 

I was amazed visiting Hastings today: they actually painted the place and it looks half decent!! When you lay off a good percentage of your staff I guess you are able to find more to use to spruce up the place.

I understand that the barns are almost full for opening day April 18th. We are having a get together for all the camera people next week and they tell me that I have a new, and THANKFULLY, much lighter weight camera for the paddock and winner's circle.

This is a pressers paradise that gets faster when it is wet. HINT: Don't play horses shipping in from Portland Meadows as in about 20 years only 3 have won in their next start. Beware the LATE horse that looks good as they will pass the field about the time the winner is eased up near the clubhouse turn the second time around. A fun track to play but VERY CHALKY.

Our leading apprentice last year (by win percentage), Natalie Sahota has taken her tack to Woodbine to ride for Terry Jordan. WATCH OUT FOR THIS GIRL as she has the gift, a bit raw still but she has that touch. The crowds there don't know that yet so let's see how she wows them on April 4th when thye open in Toronto.

Hastings Downs heads-up
 

hello Tim:

Thanks for sharing some of your insights on Hastings Park.

Tell us, please, as a photo finish guy, is the finish line camera there lined up exactly on the finish line or is it 'off'.

I have been told that not all racetracks have the camera exactly in sync with the finish line. No big deal but often times at the track, in races where 2-3 horses hit the wire together, fans are all over the place 'calling' the winner.

Is Hastings the old Exhibition Park, home grounds of the great Pole Position of the 1970s??

Good luck out there, wherever it is <s>...

The photo finish line is set up with "targets' aligned on the inner and outer rail. They are white with bright orange tops. EACH day before the races are run, a representative from the Canadian parimutuel Association comes up to my booth and has me do a test scan. IF the alignment is accurate, the digital scan will have EQUAL orange lines at the top and bottom margins of my scan. IF ther are not equal, I have to "tweek" it until he, the governmental overseer to the betting, is happy with it.

Pole Position went wire to wire in a quagmire under the TOP weight ever in the BC Derby winner at then Exhibition Park (the park was originally Hastings but under jack Diamond, it being on the grounds of the Pacific National Exposition, it was renamed Exhibition Park). I was there that day but did not bet the race although marveled at the result.

Funny thing, Herb Ollive, the Alberta rider who rode him that day, later became a steward. I used to see him all the time and once when we were alone in the elevator, I put out my hand and said "Congratulations on a great ride." he looked at me (since he had been retired at that time in 2007 over 15 years). He returned a quizzed look until I said: that was the great ride on Pole Position and UNTIL NOW, I never had the chance to tell you how much I appreciated the way you went to the front, controlled and slowed down the pace and lulled them all to sleep. He laughed out loud and said with a smile "thank you."

Sad thing is that he died suddenly over the Winter from a heart attack and he wasn't 55 years old. Nice fellow and a good steward. We all miss him.
http://communities.canada.com/edmont...hive/2008/11/1

"he became a jockey's agent. A very good one. And then he became a steward.

And then late last week he had a massive heart attack. And he died.

But there is one thing about Herb Ollive that I will never forget. It wasn't any of his rides, though there were plenty of great ones to choose from. It was his smile. It followed him wherever he went. It didn't matter if he was sore, tired, fed up, covered in mud... He was always smiling. That's the way I'll always remember him."

EXACTLY TRUE

Pole Position
 

I can't recall the particulars but it may very well have been soon after that gritty win you mentioned in the mud by Pole Position, but he shipped east and raced at Aqueduct in the very early days of the Inner Track/winter racing in New York.

He won a stake race also in gritty fashion and did I bet him, and the guy I was with got all p--off about that result, throwing his program to the ground and cussing up a storm.

Not knowing much, I did say to him: 'How couldn't you NOT bet Pole Position, he's from Canada so he must love this cold weather.

Needless to say, my friend did not appreciate my attempt at humor.

In Proud Truth's BC Classic, a colt (Regal Intention)who had last run at Hastings had the lead and appeared to have a great shot to win it all (but bowed a tendon) so the horse flesh form here is not that bad as old George Royal can attest.