Page 18 - Allen Gwinn: Horse Racing on the Ice

ISSUE : Issue 19

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1978/6/1

the ice this afternoon. Beat him 100 yards out of the length of the lake." Just what I had told him he'd do. Sid Burke and his son • they were great horsemen. They used to come down here af? ter racing. Burke, an elderly fellow, said to me, "Did you ever hear how Steve and Roddy MacKinnon came out the day they raced?" I said, "Yes. Steve wired to me." "Did he tell you he beat Roddy?" I said, "He said 100 yards." He said, "More like 125o" That's what he had it figured as • he didn't believe Steve said a word to her. He'd just sit there and hold the lines. She went along. I said to him, "You could never take the lead from Goldie. She was fast starting. Fast." "Came to a bad crack in the ice," he says. "And my mare seemed to be frightened of it, and Goldie went over it and I couldn't catch her a- gain." Burke said she took the lead and went away from her and kept going away from her all the way. Whitty could never get him on the ice again. One spring they figured they had a horse could beat Goldie. A Campbell fellow up in the Big Intervale had him. The mother came from Boston • she was a track mare, kind of old, but she had this foal--he was pretty good, travel fairly good, but made kind of showy and my mare didn't show at all. She'd just skim the ice. If there was an inch of snow you'd see where her feet were dragging in the snow. She'd travel so low you wouldn't think she was travelling as fast as she was. So, the day he and I raced • they had it going that I was going to get beat that day for sure. There were two or three who didn't. Joe Gwinn • Joseph • he'd get right mad anyone would mention Goldie was going to get beat. It was here, down below the islands, we were racing. The oyster bed. It was getting a little bad then coming on • it was the middle of March • it was opening up. The fellow had no chance at all of beating me. The first heat we ran, there was an? other horse driving with us. Well, the other horse wasn't so fast and Campbell could beat her as much as I could beat Campbell • so it wasn't a good race at all. But the first heat, my mare • the ice wasn't really solid. She slipped and one of her hind feet went from under her • threw her off her gait and she went on jumping. It took her a little while she came off it and Campbell passed me • pretty near as far as from here to the bam ahead of me before I got her flat? tened down. And she went up on to him and by him like he was running the other way. And went up perhaps half as far as from here to the bam ahead of him and I felt the sleigh slacken down. She figured, I'm all right now, and I didn't drive her any more. It was bad enough, the distance I had ahead of him, without forcing her and I might break her (break her gait). So I just let her go and when the other fellow came up, my mare came on. She was strong in the mouth and when she got going she wanted to keep going, so I didn't get her stopped for quite a ways • pretty well up to the island. Campbell's was going good but mine was going that much faster • that's where the distance was. For Dependable Service, welcome to Proprietor, Paul Boudreau 224-2200 Boudreau Shell Service on Rte. 19, at the entrance to Cheticamp All Make Car Repairs and Service We Sell and are the Service Depot for: MAZDA BRIGGS and STRATTON MTD PRODUCTS as well as PARTNER and the HUSQVARNA Chain Saws IJSi* The CBC in Cape Breton NATIONALLYREGIONALLYPROVINCIALLYLOCALLY CBITTELEVISION Channels 2,5,7,8,10,12, and 13 TO ZER CBI RADIO 1140on your Dial INFORMATION ENTERTAINMENTENLIGHTENMENT

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