Mr. Prime Minister may have been the fastest thing on four legs to ever come out of British Columbia. A product of long-established market breeder Marvin Hamilton, the bay gelding was sold as a yearling to B.C. Jockey Club co-president Jack Diamond who had campaigned Mr. Prime Minister’s sire Command Module.

He quickly demonstrated his talent by winning three stakes at Hastings Park as a two-year-old. Although he was upset in the Futurity by stable mate Market Surge his record was still sufficient to earn him the title of top juvenile colt of 1978 and the Appleby Trophy as the outstanding B.C.-bred.

But when he managed to win only two of five starts at three and failed to handle a distance Diamond sold him privately ($25,000 plus 10 percent of his first three winning purses) to Sardara Sengara not long after he had finished a weary also-ran in the mile and 3/8ths Ascot Sophomore.

Sengara’s ambition was to have a horse good enough to compete on the lucrative Southern California circuit and he thought Mr. Prime Minsiter might be competitive as a sprinter.

He wisely selected Buster Millerick to be his trainer. Millerick had gained his greatest fame training the speedball Native Diver to win three Hollywood Gold Cups and was known as someone who could get a lot of mileage from his charges.

When Mr. Prime Minster won his first race at Santa Anita, Millerick noticed that every time jockey Eddie Delahoussaye hit him with the whip he shortened his stride ever so slightly.

For his next start at Hollywood Park apprentice Pat Valenzuela was in the saddle with instructions from Millerick not to use the whip. With Valenzuela just waving his hand at him Mr. Prime Minster won the 6 and ½ furlong allowance in 1:14.1, just one tick off the track record.

Easterners swear that tracks in California run downhill because times are so fast. For the next few years Mr. Prime Minister’s speed ratings compared favourably with the best of them, mostly in six furlong stakes and allowance events where sub 1:09 clockings were required to hit the board.

He made 63 starts in California, winning 13 times and earning more than $400,000. When he was retired in 1984 as an 8-year-old Mr. Prime Minister’s overall record stood at 20 wins and 20 placings in 75 starts and earnings of $472,000, which was good enough for second place on the all-time list of B.C. money winners.

Two performances illustrate the quality of this outstanding B.C.-bred. In 1980, not long after arriving from Hastings Park, he won a six furlong allowance at Hollywood Park by three lengths in 1:07.3. That is the fastest a B.C.-bred has ever traveled.

As a 7-year-old, he captured the Grade III Los Angeles Handicap at Hollywood Park, one of only a handful of B.C.-breds to win a significant stake event in Southern California.

Sengara, who died in 1997, passed his love of horses onto his son Jeffrey and Mr. Prime Minister was the conduit.

The race Jeffrey remembers most fondly is the 1981 Longacres Mile where Mr. Prime Minister, a huge longshot, set blistering fractions and hung on gamely before being swallowed up by Trooper Seven and others few jumps from the wire. “It was an electrifying spectacle and it has stayed with me the rest of my life,” says Jeffrey, who improved on the familty tradition when his Budroyale won the 1999 renewal of the coveted Mile.