Danelson's Omaha Warrior is HBPA's Top 2-Year-Old Colt/Gelding for 2025 (Jason Halstead / Assiniboia Photo) By Track Historian Bob Gates You might wonder why a three-year-old gelding with four career starts somehow rates a historical blog story, and that’s a fair...
Some of the K5 awards on display at the K-Tel head office trophy case 2013 (Bob Gates photo) By Track Historian Bob Gates It’s hard to believe that K5’s Philip Kives has been gone for ten years. The memory of April 27, 2016, remains strong. In the late afternoon,...
Original Manitoba Derby Trophy 1884 - 1934 (Speers Family) By Track Historian Bob Gates “Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.”- Rose Kennedy The 2026 season is now underway and isn’t it grand to have the ponies back in town. For more than 100 years,...
Throughout his life after racing, Seattle Slew was tended to by his attentive groom Tom Wade. (Barbara D. Livingston) By G.S. Thompson Looking back over my 50-year career in horse racing from water-bucket carrier to groom to trainer to writer, I’ve met some pretty...
The old man daydreams while staring at the empty paddock (Jason Halstead/Assiniboia Photo) By Track Historian Bob Gates “September days have the warmth of summer in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings a prophetic breath of autumn.” - Rowland E....
By Track Historian Bob Gates Joseph Samuel Perlman spent the better part of 50 years in horse racing. Yet his name is another that is relatively unknown to most of us, and friends that is just WRONG. Perlman spent most of his life as a voice of authority on all things...
Polo Park circa 1950 (ASD archives) By Track Historian Bob Gates Good morning! It’s early on a Saturday and I find myself in my usual spot, sitting at our dining room table. As I prepare to write this week’s blog story, I stare out the patio doors, alone in my...
By Track Historian Bob Gates … at least that’s what they say, and who exactly are “they?” Even AI – Overview wasn’t much help. “There isn’t a single person credited with originally saying "records are made to be broken" it’s a common sentiment that various athletes...
R.W. Mathes (Assiniboia Downs) By Track Historian Bob Gates “Bud” Mathes was an Alberta horseman with ties to the early days of racing in Winnipeg. As tends to be the case with our history blog, the name of our honouree may not be familiar to all of us. After all,...
Hazel Bochinski - November 24 1942 - October 21, 2021 (Bochinski Family) By Track Historian Bob Gates Whether she was teaching young minds at Shaughnessy Park or Lord Nelson Schools, or training race horses at Assiniboia Downs, Hazel was a natural. She was able to...