“I tried to be as lenient as possible when handing out penalties but you had to be tough sometimes. It was not an easy job.”

A few years ago the Dunn family was a powerful stable in Thoroughbred racing – 1, 1A, 1B and 1C. It was an entry that would make even Richard Mandella proud.

It consisted of Wilson, a top steward in the Northwest and breeder of the great George Royal; Wally, one of the premier trainers in Southern California; a starter on the Prairie circuit; and Don, a well respected official in Vancouver.

Born in 1992, Don followed his brothers to the track when their father became a racehorse owner in the early ‘30s. His first official job was working on the starting gate crew in 1939. The gate had been invented by Vancouver resident Clay Puett and had been unveiled in Calgary earlier that year.

He was recruited from the track in 1943 to join the Royal Canadian Air Force and obtained his teacher’s degree from the university of B.C. He taught periodically while working as a patrol judge and eventually doubled as secretary and as a steward, working under presiding stewards Art Dingman, Earl Lewis, and brother Wilson. He also worked three years at Portland Meadows when the Randall family managed the Oregon track.

Even as a teacher his first love was the track. “When the weather started getting good I would be out on the school grounds at recess and lunch hour and I would start thinking about how nice it would be to be at the track,” re recalled from his home in White Rock.

When he retired in 1986 he has served 35 years as a racing secretary and steward and almost half a century in total.

He was always considered to be fair in dealing with horsemen and jockeys. “I tried to be as lenient as possible when handing out penalties but you had to be tough sometimes. It was not an easy job.”

Bill Goodwin, who recently retired after 17 years as a steward, said “Dunn set an example for other officials to follow both on and off the track. He was an absolute gentleman. He treated everyone the same from hot walkers to grooms to millionaire owners. He was quite a man.”