After celebrating his 25th birthday this past Saturday, Trot Insider has learned that Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame inductee and multiple award-winning trotter Glorys Comet has been humanely euthanized.
An emotional George Peters, who bred, owned, developed, campaigned and managed the son of Balanced Image throughout his multi-million-dollar career, noted that Glorys Comet was put down on Monday.
"I got a call after I talked to you on Friday from David [Lee, who was looking after the horse], he realized I'd be coming out and he said the old horse is going downhill so you better come out and make a decision. That really took me by surprise. Trust me, Dave did really well keeping him going as long as he did with the leg he had on him."
That leg was injured early in his four-year-old season in an accident at The Meadowlands, and required Peters to constantly treat Glorys Comet's front left knee throughout his aged career.
"We got out there on Saturday morning, my son, my grandson and I...he was laying down in the field. I called out to him and he popped right up but you could tell he was in too much pain. He drank his birthday beer and ate his bagels and bananas," noted Peters, who said he wasn't the only one to come by for birthday well wishes. Glorys Comet also had a visit from Doug Nash, who was responsible for managing and handling Glorys Comet's sire Balanced Image for many years at Glengate Farms.
"I had actually thought I was going to have to [put Glorys Comet down] last Fall. And then they were calling for a mild Winter, so we decided to go day-by-day. He was pretty good most of the Winter."
To say Monday's decision was bittersweet for Peters doesn't do justice to the fondness and emotional attachment the longtime horseman had for the prized pupil he developed. He was able to buy his dam, the well-bred Lou Macs Glory as a yearling only because she had a crooked leg. Had it not been for her less than perfect conformation, Peters figured she would have been a $70,000 yearling. Instead, he was able to get her for a fraction of that with the intention of turning her into a broodmare. Peters' intuition was spot on, as her first foal was Glorys Comet.
"I was crying and everything like that but then you feel a sense of relief that he's not suffering anymore," admitted Peters. "As hard as this was on me, I'm sure this was just as hard on Dave...the two of them (Glorys Comet and his brother Brylin Image) have been there for the last 12 years and he's like part of Dave's family too."
In typical self-deprecating fashion, Peters deflected away all praise on developing Glorys Comet into the Hall of Famer he became.
"Good trainers don't make good horses, good horses make good trainers," said Peters. "The horse is good, we don't make them that way...we just have to manage them and I think that was the best thing I did: the management. He sure taught me a lot about good horses."
With hindsight being 20/20, it's easy to look back on certain management decisions as being sound. One decision came in 1995 when Glorys Comet was invited to compete in the Elitlopp, an invitation that Peters declined for multiple reasons.
"It was at four that he was in an accident at The Meadowlands that hurt his knee, early in his four-year-old year. That was part of it. Another part of it was that you couldn't use Lasix over there, but the other thing was that Bill Wellwood said 'if you get invited to the Elitlopp, don't go, It's too hard on a four-year-old. They won't come out of it good'. And then what does he do? Accepted with [four-year-old] Armbro Marshall. And Marshall was never the same when he came back. It was exactly as Bill called it.
"Years later I said to him' what were you thinking?' and he said 'oh you know, George, politics...you get caught up in it and you try to please everybody and you just screw things up'."
The decision clearly seemed to be the right one for Peters and Co. With a number of talented trotters -- most of them sired by Balanced Image -- coming back to the track as aged horses in 1995, Glorys Comet forged to the front of the class. He assembled a stellar resume during his ten seasons of racing, knocking off all the best horses of his division. There were 56 races concluding with a winner's circle presentation and 53 of them were in sub-2:00 fashion. He was the first sub-1:54 Canadian-sired trotter, held track records at both Mohawk and Woodbine Racetracks, was the first Canadian-sired horse regardless of gait to earn more than $2 million and retired as the richest Canadian-sired horse in harness racing history.
His seasons in 1997 and 1998 were honoured in both Canada and the U.S. He won the O'Brien Award as Older Trotter in back-to-back seasons and the Dan Patch Award as Older Trotter in 1998, the best year of his career at age seven. In 31 starts, racing every month of the year, Glorys Comet won 13 races and finished in the top three 24 times. The biggest win of the year, and his career, came that September at Mohawk Racetrack in the 1-3/8 mile Trotting Classic final.
His major victories also included the Simcoe (1994), Maple Leaf Trot (1995), Horsemen’s Series Trot (later renamed the Glorys Comet in his honour), Titan Cup, Cutler Memorial (1998) as well as many Ontario Sires Stakes events and multiple Opens and Free-For-All trots. He also handed 1998 Horse of the Year Moni Maker her only defeat on North American soil in their elimination for the 1998 Nat Ray.
He was retired to Brylin Stables’ farm in Erin in 2002 before moving to a turnout facility operated by outside Ayr, Ont. a few years later. Peters most fondly recalls that win in the 1998 Trotting Classic.
"The Classic was undoubtedly one of them, I still get goosebumps when I watch it. Winning 56 races, there are a lot to choose from...I remember one, he had the 10 hole at Woodbine. I had raced his sister Brylin Glory in Windsor the night before in a stakes race and my truck broke down on the way back so we were stuck on the side of the road for about eight hours. I got back, had to unload her, borrow another truck and trailer, load him up and head to Woodbine for Lasix. I think I made it by about 65 seconds or something like that. I was speeding through a thunderstorm...everybody else was pulling off to the side of the road.
"He was laid-back, but he could tie up...he had a tie-up problem and I think most of it was from the accident at The Meadowlands. Everytime I went to The Meadowlands after that, he'd tie up," noted Peters. "So we got there, Paul MacDonell drove him and he pulled away on them. If you watch all his races and see how many times he came first up...He had so many good, tough races."
Tough races require a tough horse that always tries, one key attribute that Peters picks as crucial to the longtime success and lasting legacy of Glorys Comet.
"I'm proud of everything he did and I have no regrets. I wouldn't have done it a bit different."
Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the connections of Glorys Comet.
George Peters and his grandson Jack flank Glorys Comet this past Saturday