Although
he has just be inducted into the B.C. Thoroughbred Racing Hall
of Fame, Harold Barroby feels he is getting a new start in his
training career.
His association with Canada West Ranches, which
thrived for more than 30 years, is winding down and he won’t
have horses in the numbers which have helped him make the leading
trainer at Hastings a record nine times, including last season.
“This year will be a fresh start for
me and for the entire industry,” says Barroby. By coincidence
Canada West decided to get out of the business at the time Woodbine
Entertainment group was coming in, giving renewed hope about
the future of the sport.
Barroby made his first whistle stop at Hastings
in 1969 when he saddled J.R. Edwards’ Sioux Cadet to upset
a quality field in the Winston Churchill Stakes. A year later
he joined forced with Canada West Ranches main owner Jimmy Shields
and in 1974 they decided to move from the Calgary/Edmonton circuit
to British Columbia.
Canada West quickly became a perennial leading
money-winning stable, producing at least one stakes winner per
year. In all they had 54 stakes winners and a total of 180 stakes
victories, eclipsing by far their closest rivals.
Shields, who died in 1996 at age 67, often
said there would be no Canada West Ranches if it weren’t
for Barroby’s expertise and Barroby says there would not
be a CWR if it weren’t for Love Your Host.
Love Your Host had won stakes at Hastings Park
for the powerful Frank McMahon stable and when trainer Vance
Longden dropped him into a $10,000 claimer one winter at Santa
Anita Harold was ready with a halter.
Love Your Host won 13 stakes and about $160,000
for Barroby and helped put CWR on solid financial footing.
There will still be some horses carrying the
familiar maple leaf emblem of Canada West as the stable winds
down, but there will no young stars coming from a breeding program
that produces such notables as Happy Trap, Jungle Mac, Title
Victory, King Alphonse, Bully for Butch and Shantastic.
They also had great success with horses they
claimed or bought privately. These included 13-time stakes winner
Pampas Host, an Ontario yearling purchase, Easter Search, who
won seven stakes after being claimed and Charlie Chalmers, who
won six after being purchased privately.
Harold sidesteps naming his favourite horse,
but the amazing little mare Delta Colleen, would have to be
at or near the top. The B.C.-bred daughter of Golden Reserve
who ran in the silks of Lousianna oilman John Franks came from
the clouds to win 18 stakes races, a record for Hastings Park.
Barroby was born at the family ranch at Ravenscrag,
Saskatchewan and followed brother Frank, older by one year,
to the track at Lethbridge. Frank became a rider and Harold
became a groom and very quickly a trainer. He moved to Alberta
and was leading trainer on that circuit in 1969 and 1970.
Barroby attributed some of his early success
to the fact that he personally galloped most of his stock, which
gave him first-hand knowledge of their ability. Now at 57 he
gets a leg up on lonely one or two a day.
One reason he spends less time on the ground
is because entering horses has become so demanding. “You
used to be able to enter a horse and expect him to get in. There
was no such thing as late extras. Now they hang up 16 or 17
races a day and you’ve got to be ready or you miss out.”
Barroby crystallizes his training philosophy
like this: “I get them fit and I run them. Jimmy Shields
used to say there’s only one thing worse than running
a bad race and that’s not running at all.”
As a consequence he is rarely among the high
percentage trainers, but he is always among the most successful.