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 Barb Side, 78, poses with her horse, No Hesitation, at Northlands Park on Friday. No Hesitation is the favourite for today’s Canadian Derby. |
Barb Side is a 78-year-old mother of six and grandmother of 18 from Grande Prairie.
Fourteen years ago, she bought her first race horse, Irish Dream Girl, for $800 to run at Evergreen Park in Grande Prairie.
“The day he showed up, the jockey who was supposed to ride her, Holly Crichton, became a paraplegic,” said Side of the 1996 racing accident that left Crichton completely paralyzed from the chest down.
“Then, in her first time on the track, Irish Dream Girl didn’t make the turn and ran straight into a fence.
“The jockey came from quarter horses. I have no idea if it was the horse or the jockey. But that’s what happened.
“The horse ended up with chips in its knee.
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“Then, coming off the operation, Irish Dream Girl stepped in a hole and broke a leg.”
Calamities
You’d think that combination of calamities would result in a first-timer to the sport giving up and taking up something some might suggest more appropriate for a woman of Side’s age.
But Side didn’t quit. She bought another race horse.
Jockey Crichton didn’t quit, either. She became an accomplished artist.
“If you had good sense, you wouldn’t. But when you’re horse crazy — and I’ve been horse crazy since I was a little girl — you don’t have good sense,” said Side, the sole owner of No Hesitation, the local horse favoured against seven imports in a field of 10 to win today’s Canadian Derby.
The story of how Side became owner of the 2-1 morning-line favourite that has dominated the three-year-old scene here this year, winning four straight races, including the Western Canada Handicap, Ky Alta and Count Latham, as well as an allowance to top $100,000 in earnings going into the $300,000 Derby, is — give or take $30,000 — priceless.
She bought him at a yearling sale in California a year ago January. But not in the normal way.
“The minute I saw him, I liked him,” Side said of the grey, which has left hoof prints on a few hearts here already this year.
“I bid, then someone else bid, then I bid and he bid and eventually they took him down. We didn’t reach the reserve.
“That was the only one I wanted!
“Someone told me to go back to the agent. I went back three times. I just persisted. He just looked like a race horse.
“Finally, George Krikorian, the famous horse owner, got tired of the agent calling, I guess, and asked what I’d give him. I said $30,000. He said OK.”
Along with Salt Flat Speed, also undefeated in Edmonton this year with four wins in a row (an older horse which has been such a hit with the crowds that Northlands decided to do a bobblehead, which will be given away on the closing weekend in October), it’s been quite a year for Side.
Salt Flat Speed, claimed for just $7,500 last year, is an equally engaging Western Canadian racing story.
When he won the $50,000 Don Fleming Handicap, named after the legendary local racing and curling writer, that made it five in a row and nine of his last 12.
Salt Flat Speed is owned by Al and Barb Side and trainer Jim Meyaard.
Energy
“He’s won over $100,000 as well,” said the five-foot-one wisp of a woman who seems to have more energy than her horses.
“Jim’s really good. He’s from the Peace River area and he even shoes his own horses,” she said of the trainer who is also saddling 4-1 morning line Professor Pollard for the richest horse race west of Woodbine.
But No Hesitation she owns on her own. And she named him on her own, too.
“The reason I named him No Hesitation is that I had no hesitation. He was the horse I wanted — and he hasn’t let me down.”
This is a special Canadian Derby card with the Speed To Spare and the City of Edmonton Distaff on a 13-race program that features a record 126 thoroughbreds.
Along with husband Al, Side also has horses in those $75,000 stakes races — Alywyn, a 6-to-1 morning line selection in the Distaff, and 3-1 Andiotis in the Speed To Spare.
But Derby Day will be about one race and one horse for Barb.
“It’s going to be fun. There are a lot of good horses in this race. It’s going to be exciting.
“This is the day. For anybody who races these calibre of horses, this is the ultimate we have here.”
And if it means a little attention for a little old lady, she laughs, why not?
“It’s not a bad age or bad time of life to have a little attention.”
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca