Before retiring pacing mare Wish N Win to the breeding shed without much luck on the racetrack, small town standardbred owners Jim and Morag Watt opted to give her a shot on the trot. In no time at all, the couple was taken aback by the trotting talent of this double-gaited miss, who has now become their horse of a lifetime.
By Perry Lefko
A funny thing happened on the way to the breeding shed for the five-year-old pacing mare Wish N Win. She became hot to trot. Literally.
“Pretty funny isn’t it?” says Morag Watt, who owns Wish N Win while her husband, Jim, trains the horse. “It’s a long, involved story actually.”
So let’s start from the start. Jim Watt, who retired as a grade four school teacher almost two years ago, has been training horses for some 35 years and is stabled at Clinton Raceway. Morag is a high school secretary, who has been in the standardbred business for 22 years. Morag — or ‘Mo’ as she is known by everyone — is the chair of Clinton Raceway and a Standardbred Canada director.
Together they have raced predominantly on the southwestern Ontario B track circuit. Clinton, which has a population of just 3,200, is their base. The Watts are your prototypical small town horsepeople, who race more for the love of the sport than financial gain.
Wish N Win came into their lives through Bob Hamather, who lives near Clinton in Exeter, and is one of the most prominent breeder-owners in the business. Hamather, who has bred and owned in excess of 150 horses, including Staying Together, the 1993 Horse of the Year in Canada and the U.S., had a couple quality-bred yearling fillies that he wanted to give away because he didn’t like the way they stood in front. One of those fillies was Feisty Form, a full-sister to A Fiesty Affair, who won seven of 14 races as a two-year-old, set multiple track records and banked $319,196 in her career. Wish N Win was the other. The daughter of Intrepid Seelster is out of By Desire, the mare that produced Legal Litigator and Wholly Louy — both with earnings of over $700,000 to date.
Hamather’s daughter-in-law worked as the principal where Jim taught, and they also knew one another through the horse racing community in their area. Hamather phoned Jim early one morning just before he was leaving for school and asked him if he was interested in the two yearling fillies as potential broodmare prospects. Hamather explained the conformation issues and that he was willing to give them away for free. The two horsemen arranged to meet later that day.
It was one of those serendipitous moments and proof that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
“There’s these two gorgeous fillies running around in a field,” Jim recalls with unbridled enthusiasm. “They had some conformation issues that a fellow like Bob doesn’t want to deal with. His horses race at the top level and with these conformation problems he didn’t think they’d be able to race at that level. There’s no way we could tie into those bloodlines. Bob just gave us the opportunity of a lifetime with the intention we would use them as broodmares when their racing careers were finished. He was doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to tap into his bloodlines. It’s a favour we are really grateful for.”
“We were quite thrilled because [Hamather’s] breeding is usually above our price point,” Morag adds. “We were delighted that he was kind enough to make it feasible for us. We usually breed our own to race. We were just thrilled to be able to have horses with those bloodlines to use as broodmares.”
Feisty Form didn’t amount to much as a racehorse, winning one of 11 starts and earning $6,340. She was bred to Mach Three and produced a colt named Watt Took So Long in 2010. Wish N Win, who was named after a marketing program developed by General Motors (with which Hamather has had a dealership for 46 years), debuted as a two-year-old on December 5, 2008 and won at second asking. Aside from winning successive legs of a minor stakes race at Woodstock Raceway as a three-year-old, Wish N Win never rose above the condition ranks of the B tracks in and around London, Ontario.
On February 1, 2011, she placed seventh in a field of eight by 17 1/4 lengths in a fillies and mares race for non-winners of $2,000 in the last three starts. After 44 starts, in which she won five and earned $39,401 with a mark of 1:57.2f, Wish N Win was about to be retired to the breeding shed because Jim decided she had reached her class limit. First, however, he wanted to experiment training her as a trotter. He regularly gave the mare two days off after her races and turned her out into a field, in which she’d trot. On her first day back in training, the horse would be without hopples and she’d trot happily.
“She had a nice way of going,” Jim says. “Sometimes they won’t trot or pace when you’re jogging them — they’ll gallop — but she trotted perfectly.”
But Jim didn’t initially tell Morag of his plans to train her as a trotter, wanting to surprise her, and when she heard it she was taken aback. “That’s the first time I ever heard him suggest that with a horse, but he was just convinced she liked to trot,” Morag recalls. “A lot of [the horsemen at Clinton] said, ‘That’s great, Jim,’ and then turned around and had a little chuckle behind the scenes. Who would think she’d trot? We thought we’d train her down on the trot, and so what if she doesn’t make it? We were going to breed her in the spring anyway. She never ever made a break training down. She just loves to trot. Jim was convinced she could trot and he was right.”
Jim began training her to trot a leisurely mile of 2:50, then gradually increased the speed and she adapted well. “I wanted to do it properly,” he says. “I wanted to give her enough time to have her muscles memorize the trotting technique. She just absolutely loved it. Her whole disposition was different than on the pace.”
He then turned the reins over to one of his stable hands to drive her while he drove another horse and took the lead. At the head of the lane, Wish N Win was tipped out and exploded. “She just loved doing it, so we just kept bringing [the times] down,” says Jim, who trained the first trotter of his career only a year before, an older mare who didn’t have bad habits. That gave him the confidence to try the experiment with Wish N Win. He used little equipment on her other than race bandages on her hind legs and a heavier shoe up front. “It wasn’t as scary an experience as I thought it might have been,” he says. “I was a little bit scared of trotters originally because I knew they were so particular in the shoeing, but this girl’s just done it on her own.”
Jim called on Stuart Sowerby to drive her in a schooling race. Sowerby had moved from his native England to Ontario 10 years before and raced at many of the same B tracks as Jim. He had been driving many of Jim’s horses at Western Fair Raceway this past winter, although he had never gotten the call to drive Wish N Win during her days on the pace.
Sowerby had never driven a horse that had switched gaits as a racehorse. He was pleasantly surprised by how well she did, going in 2:05, including the back half in an even one minute. “She schooled great. She really surprised me,” Sowerby says. “When he told me about her at first I wasn’t expecting what she was, to be truthful, schooling her.”
On April 7, slightly more than two months after her last pacing race, Wish N Win was entered in a qualifier at Mohawk Racetrack. The field of 10 included the likes of Equity, a winner of more than $572,000, Stick Man Moe ($337,000+) and Joey Three Chins ($139,000+). Wish N Win started from post three and got away last. Sowerby didn’t extend her because it wasn’t necessary. She finished eighth in a time of 2:00.1, with her final quarter in a snappy :29.1. Sowerby gave her a slight tap at the end of the race to see if she had anything left and she took off in another gear. Sowerby came off the bike and gave Jim a thumbs-up.
“She didn’t have to do anything crazy fast,” Sowerby says. “It was just a matter of just going around and getting her qualifying. I was thinking if she went in 2:03 it would be pretty good for her and she went in two minutes. I was probably as shocked as Jim was after the qualifier. It’s a pretty big feat switching from being a pacer to a trotter. What she did in the qualifier was going to be good enough to win any maiden race that she was going to go in. She gave me a very good feeling in the qualifier.”
Jim called Morag with the news, but gave her three scenarios and asked her to guess the right one, something the couple often did as a game. The first scenario he offered was that Wish N Win started pacing early and finished the mile in 2:04. The second one was that she made a little bobble during the race, but got back on stride and finished in 2:03. The third was that she behaved perfectly and completed the mile in two minutes. Morag guessed the second scenario, so she was pleasantly surprised to learn the mare had done so well.
Because the Woodbine Entertainment Group circuit does not card maiden races for five-year-olds and up, Jim found a spot to race Wish N Win on the trot in a maiden race at Western Fair on April 15.
Eight horses were entered and the mare went postward as the heavy favourite at just under 6-5. Only twice in 44 career starts on the pace had she ever been sent off at lower odds. “We were a little bit surprised as well,” Morag says. “People had certainly seen her train down, but I don’t know if anybody would have seen anything that warranted that type of confidence.”
Wish N Win lived up to her name, getting to the front early and winning by an astonishing 8 1/2 lengths in a time of 2:01.4, with the final quarter in :29.4. “I was ecstatic that she didn’t make a mistake,” Morag says. “All I wanted her to do was get around the track twice. She is a very powerful mare, always has been, but she really amazed us that night.”
“This is a tough business and I have so much respect for all horses and all horsemen, and for me to have a horse that can win by eight lengths is just unheard of,” Jim says. “It happens so seldom that a horse can be that dominant.”
A week later at London, she raced for the second time as a trotter, this time going to the gate at 2-5 odds, facing better competition and starting from the seven-hole — a difficult position to begin on a half-mile track. But she did even better than the first time, this time winning by 11 lengths in 2:01.4, with a :29.3 final quarter. It was validation that the first race wasn’t a fluke. “She went by those horses in four strides off the gate,” Jim says. “There was no concern that they were leaving. Somebody said to me afterward that she leaves like a pacer. Usually, you’ve got to steady trotters and let them get to their speed. When that gate took off, she was just gone.”
On May 1 in her third start as a trotter and first at Clinton with her new gait, she was a 1-10 favourite and won by a whopping 21 1/4 lengths in 2:01.2. It was an historic race for Jim because the $2,500 the mare won pushed his career trainer earnings past the $1 million mark. And coming in front of friends and acquaintances at Clinton made it that much more special.
“There’s a lot of trotters at Woodbine that are trotting in 1:55 that couldn’t get over our track in 2:03 or 2:04,” Jim says. “It’s hard to explain. People have more confidence than you do. As she’s going, people say, ‘Go get your picture taken.’ Well, you’re not even at the half yet. And yet you’re waiting for something to happen negatively. You can’t believe it. Even at the head of the stretch, she’s up by 15 lengths, people will say, ‘Start heading down to the winner’s circle.’ But you wait until she’s 15 feet past the wire before you actually acknowledge and appreciate what happened. You’ve got to enjoy the moment. I tell my wife that all the time. It’s a special time.”
The closest thing the Watts had previous to this in terms of a horse that won going away was Larjon King Vicky, a 13-year-old mare now who won by 14 lengths at Hanover Raceway in her fourth lifetime start in June 2001. That season she won 13 of 22 races.
Hamather happened to be at Clinton for Wish N Win’s third trotting race and was surprised, but also indicated that he’s been in the horse business a long time and has seen many win by a lengthy margin.
Hamather did some research on the pedigree and discovered there is some trotting blood in the sixth generation with Victory Song. That combined with Wish N Win’s dam, who has produced some excellent pacers, may have contributed to the sudden change in ability. “I think it clicks,” Hamather reasons. “I believe breeding goes back a long way. How do you get a grey horse or a walleyed horse? A lot of times you can go back four and five and six generations. I had no reason to believe that this would be a trotter. I gave her away as basically a pacing horse and I commend Jim Watt. She was pretty well at her limit and he elected to try her as a trotter and I certainly look up to him for that. I’m happy for [the Watts]. That’s why I gave him the horses. I thought: here’s a chance to give somebody a couple mares and hopefully do them some good.”
Sowerby has another theory for the sudden success. “When she comes home in :30 seconds or :29 and change, them guys are coming home in :33, that’s why she’s actually coming away,” Sowerby says. “She’s not really speeding away from them. She’s still going the same speed as she set off. She’s far better than the class she was racing in. She’s on cruise control, whereas the rest of the guys are doing all they can to keep up. She knows how to race; she knows how to win. She’s not like a green maiden. She’s a racehorse. It’s a different gait, but she still knows how to race.”
Morag also believes the race experience is a factor. “Even though she’s a new trotter, she’s been behind the gate,” Morag says. “She has that competitiveness that they get after they’ve been racing. If somebody is up ahead of her on the track, she wants to be in front of them. But she certainly wouldn’t do that on the pace. She seems to be able to do it on the trot. I don’t know why.
“My husband always had tremendous confidence in this mare and I had considerably less confidence in her as a trotter for a number of reasons. First of all, her pedigree, secondly, she doesn’t even look like a trotter. She’s quite a blocky mare and I wouldn’t say she’s particularly long in the body or any of those things that you would look for in a trotter; the other thing is she would bear out when she paced. She had a chip removed from her ankle early on. We just attributed it to that. No one could find anything else so I wasn’t convinced she would stay straight and not interfere when she trotted, but I have to admit, my husband proved me wrong. What can I say?”
Wish N Win’s streak came to an end 10 days after her 21 length victory when she finished second by a length in a non-winners of $20,000 lifetime at Grand River Raceway. A week later, again at Grand River, Wish N Win broke stride early while starting from the rail, finishing second-last in the field of nine as the 3-5 favourite. Jim entered her in the same class a week later and she drew the nine-hole. He wanted her to relax so they could show she wasn’t just a flash in the pan. She had a tough trip when she lost cover midway through the race, but raced gamely to finish third, beaten only 1 3/4 lengths.
Wish N Win’s next start came 10 days later at Hanover Raceway. She drew the trailing eight-hole and was back 11 3/4 lengths after only a quarter mile. She braved a long first-over trip and would eventually prevail by one length, clocking the final quarter in :29.3 and establishing a mark of 2:00.1. “If I keep her in that class at Hanover, she should be really good. This class should give her some confidence,” Jim says. “She didn’t disappoint me at all. She just took a lifetime mark.”
Morag says Wish N Win will race until she tells her owners that she has had enough. In the meantime, the Watts will enjoy the moment. “This is a horse of a lifetime,” Jim says. “We’ve devoted our entire lives to this business. When we were 13 and 14, we dreamed of this. This is a chance of a lifetime. It’s just so nice to have a horse that people talk about and acknowledge and respect. Man, it’s just unbelievable when it happens to you.”