Richard Grubb: Magic Carpet Ride

 

I like to dream, yes, yes,

Right between the sound machine

On a cloud of sound I drift in the night

Any place it goes is right

Goes far, flies near

To the stars away from here.

• “Magic Carpet Ride – Steppenwolf, 1968

 

Sportswriters of the day looked at young jockey Richard Grubb and thought him “angelic” but in reality a teen prodigy who rode like a “sorcerer” or a “bandit.”

He dominated the riding scene at Woodbine Racetrack in 1967 and  explosively pushed perennial star Avelino Gomez into the rearview mirror. In a flash, he went from earning $65 a week as an exercise rider to at least $100,000 in his first year, matching strides with NHL players like Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe. Inflation taken into account, $100,000 back then is worth $934,000 today. Average price of a house in Toronto was $25,000 in 1967. Grubb was one of Canada’s best-paid athletes at the time.

“I had to grow up too soon,” Grubb said at one point. “I was just out of Grade 10, just a kid, when all of a sudden I was a sports celebrity making big money with tugs and pulls on my life that I had never known existed.”

“In small ways I regret being thrust into manhood so soon,” he said in an interview at age 24. “Already I feel I’ve had the ups and downs of a full lifetime.”

Watching Grubb at work was like observing “a choirboy belting back Scotch,” said one writer.  An “infant prodigy” and also an “infant terrible”– “ ruthless and fearless.” He won half of the stakes races at Woodbine and Fort Erie that season.

That heady beginning was only the start of a life of adventure: as the regular rider of Horse of the Year Viceregal, first son of Northern Dancer, owning trotters with his brother and friend Robin Platts (they broke even, a success!), riding in South Africa against the world’s best, while wearing the Canadian flag, touring world sites, meeting celebrities, going on safari, attending music concerts (Steppenwolf being one of them) , playing the Harlem Globetrotters, (imagine), judging a fashion show, flying to a racecourse in England on a helicopter with one of the Royal Family’s private pilots, getting a first-hand look at Kelso and Spectacular Bid, scoring chats with Steve Cauthen and Lester Piggott (a rarity). The world has been his oyster.

He rode six horses that made it into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame: Overskate, Norcliffe, South Ocean, Cool Mood, La Prevoyante and Not Too Shy.

He also is the only jockey in history to have ridden horses that crossed the finish line first in the Queen’s Plate (Royal Chocolate in 1973) , the Kentucky Derby (Dancer’s Image in 1968, later disqualified) and the Melbourne Cup in Australia (Beldale Ball in 1980)

He retired from riding in 1989 and served as a steward for 24 years. He officiated at the Breeders’ Cup at Woodbine in 1996, the highlight of his officiating career.

The story all started in 1948, when Grubb was born in Kitchener, Ont. The family moved a bit, first to Stoney Creek for three or four years, then to St. Catherines, Ont. Grubb and his brothers, Carl and Paul, got caught up in hockey and sports.

Grubb’s father, Gordon, worked at the Ford Motor Company in Buffalo. He used to commute every day from St. Catherines.

Eventually the Grubbs bought a farm in Ridgeway. 20 acres to start with. Then in 1958, a farm across the road went up for sale. The Grubbs bought it. It already had a house on it, so they moved into it.

That move was a gift to young Grubb. He calls it the best six years of his life. He enjoyed growing up on a farm. “It was so enlightening,” he said. “I learned so much.’

The family’s mainstay was raising purebred Hereford cattle, but they also raised their own crops, chickens, pigs, everything. Grubb had pet rabbits and dogs and cats. They even raised a deer.

The deer got caught in a fence. Grubb’s brother captured him and they raised him.

They were on the farm from 1958 to 1964. The boys had a couple of ponies, and they broke them to ride themselves. “They were kind of on the rough side,” Grubb admitted.

They had a mind of their own, as ponies do “They would drop their heads and dump you,” Grubb said. The Grubb boys used to ride these pones all through the countryside. They’d go miles away and they rode them bareback. They never had saddles at least not until years later.

IT was perfect training to become a jockey. He just didn’t know it then.

They all became very adept at riding bare back. “You had to be, because we would go two or three miles from home,” Grubb said.  Kids and ponies could go anywhere back in those days. But if they dropped their heads and dumped them, they had to walk two miles back home.

“So you learned to stay on.”

Oldest in the family was Carl, two years older than Richard. Paul was two years younger than Richard. And there was sister, Paula, who came along years later.

One day, totally out of the blue, Grubb’s father said: “Let’s go see the horses,” Fort Erie racetrack was just down the road, and the young Grubb knew nothing about it. It may as well have been in Iqaluit.

Grubb’s father, Gordon had many talents. He worked three jobs for his family. He grew up on the farm as a youngster, but joined the navy and served during World War II.

He was an electrician at the Ford Motor Company in Buffalo. He ran his own electrical business and he ran the farm. Kristine, Grubb’s mother was a homemaker.

“When I look back on it, I don’t know how he did it,” Grubb said. But he directed his kids to do chores before they went to school through the week before they caught the school bus and on the weekend. And there was haying season, so brother Carl, being the oldest, “got the brunt of it, thank god,” Grubb said.

And then Gordon took them to the racetrack. “We had no idea.

Go to see horses?

“We said: ‘Well, they’re out in the field,’” Grubb said.

Said Gordon: “No, jump in the car.”

When they arrived at Fort Erie, Grubb saw a wonderland of delights. “It was like another planet,” he said. “The colour, The speed. I had no idea this world existed and it was just three miles down the road.”

Grubb bugged his father to take him back two or three more times that summer, during Fort Erie’s summer met.

By the fall, Grubb had made up his mind “right then and there that was where I wanted to be, part of the business somehow.”

Sadly, the wellspring of Grubb’s future, his father, died in 1967, the year Grubb burst onto the scene. As an electrician, he was called in to do repairs when some kids vandalized a skylight in one of the Fort Erie schools. But when his drill jammed, he lost his balance and fell, suffering a fatal cerebral hemorrhage

At the time Grubb had been serving a suspension, and was at Cavalaris’s barn at Woodbine, holding a horse in ice before the horse was to race.

Grubb was paged to the race office. His mother had called to tell him what had happened. Then he went to the frontside to tell O’Sullivan about it – he worked in the mutuels.

But Woodbine publicity chief Trent Frayne overheard  the conversation, and arranged for the Ontario Jockey Cllub’s private plane to fly Grubb to the airfield in Fort Erie.

Grubb’s father’s condition was so serous, he was transported to a hospital in Buffalo. Grubb and his mother were at his bedside when he passed away. His father did not get to witness the life adventures of his adventurous son.

The summer after his father introduced him to horse racing,  Grubb got a job walking hots for trainer Mike Long. It wasn’t going to make him rich: $15 a WEEK. As it happened, Long had a successful summer meet there. He trained for some impressive owners, like Viscount Hardinge. Grubb recalls sitting in the stands at the end of the meet, watching one of the stable’s horses, Canadel, win the Prince of Wales stakes. Gomez rode him. It was a rainy day with deep turf, a tough slog.

At the time, Grubb never imagined that three years later, he would win that race himself. “Never crossed my mind,” he said.  He won it with a top Jean-Louis Llevesque colt, Rouletabille.

The next year, when Grubb turned 16, he was set to follow his dream. His summer baseball friend, Brian Werry, had migrated to Toronto to work for Lou Cavalaris, and Grubb followed. Besides, while Long offered only $15 to walk hots, Cavalaris paid $35.

“Bottom line wins out,” Grubb said. Although he was to learn years later that Long “was a bit tight,” he didn’t care at the time. He just wanted to work at the track.

Cavalaris was tough. Robin Platts arrived a month later and the two of them joke that Cavalaris threw around compliments ‘like manhole covers.”

Years later, when Grubb was a steward at Fort Erie, the track had a legends’ day at one point. Cavalaris was there. So was Sandy Hawley. Grubb went down between races, just to say hello and Cavalaris actually uttered him a compliment.

This was like front-page news. “I’m watching you,” he said to Grubb. “I am quite impressed.”

“What?” Grubb thought to himself. He told Platts later and his friend said: “What? Are you kidding?”

A year or two later, when Grubb was about to lose his apprentice bug, Cavalaris did indeed sing his praises about why losing a weight advantage would not be a great handicap for the young rider.

“He’s intelligent and he has a lot of desire,” said the trainer. “And there’s something else that is important, too. He’s making a lot of money and he’s gained a lot of fame. But it has never gone to his head and I don’t think it ever will.”

Grubb and Platts had started their careers almost in step. “We are dear friends, but it’s a tough situation,” Grubb said. “You are competitive and you work in the same outfit.”

And Cavalaris was tough with both of them.  “We were always trying to please him,” Grubb said. “And it just didn’t seem to work.”

One day, Grubb rode three horses that won for Cavalaris and sauntered back to the barn, thinking Cavalaris would be in a good mood, and he would be pleased with him for what he had accomplished that day.

But as he approached, Cavalaris said: “Hey, that horse you rode in the first race for some other trainer should have won. What were you doing on him?”

Both Grubb and Platts were just kids at the time. “He kept us grounded,” Grubb said. “I went from making $35 as a hotwalker and that graduated to exercising and went to $65 a week. And a number of months later, I went from $65 a week and I’m making $1,000 a week”

“It’s a big adjustment. People that don’t know you and would never talk to you, everybody wants to do you a favour. ‘What can I do for you?”

When Grubb came to the races in Toronto,  the sport had more prestige and gravitas in people’s minds. “It seemed like everybody wanted to be part of the races. If they weren’t, they wanted to know somebody that was,” Grubb said.

Back in 1967, Grubb remembers meeting the last Maple Leaf team to win the Stanley Cup in their dressing room. “They were more interested in me than I was in them,” Grubb said. “It was quite surprising. A lot of them bet on the ponies. Some of the worked at the track in the summer. Bob Nevin was around the track. I was making more money than most of them. I think I was probably making $50,000 that year and they were working two jobs. It was different back then.”

But Big Lou stood in the way of Grubb ever getting high on himself. Still the trainer was fair.  “He was always fair,” Grubb said. “And there were no short cuts. When I was a kid, there were two ways to do it: the Cavalaris way or the wrong way.”

“I would never have gotten as far as I did without his support,” Grubb said. “Good god, he was a life changer. There’s no doubt. He was like a father figure to both of us. We really looked up to him. Tough, tough, tough, but fair. If you got a compliment, you wrote it down.”

Grubb recalls the last race at Fort Erie one day, and he was riding in a two-turn race. He saved ground all the way and then on the last turn, he had to take out and go around horses. Then a hole opened up on the rail.  So Grubb took his  horse back to get into it. but he finished second or third.

“Lou came down and he wasn’t happy,” Grubb said. He took his hat off and he threw it on the ground. He said: “What were you doing at the head of the lane? What were you doing?”

(Over the years, it was a common thing to see Cavalaris throw his cap on the ground and stomp on it.)

Thundered Cavalaris: “You get back and you shower, and when you get done showering, you get back to the barn, and you walk this horse.”

It was a humbling thing for a rider to double as a hotwalker. This was in 1966, his first year as a jockey.

In 1967, Grubb’s banner year, he remembers late in the season, he and Gomez were fighting for leading rider hours. Grubb can’t remember if he was ahead of Gomez, but Grubb was handed a suspension. And Cavalaris’s statement about this? Grubb would have to go back to the barn and hold horses in an ice tub.

At a time when Grubb was leading rider in the country, Cavalaris made him go over to the frontside with a horse that had been standing in ice water in the bucket. Grubb had to take the bucket, carry it over with the horse and take the cold water bandages off in the paddock.

“Valets are coming out and everybody is looking, thinking: “what the? He’s the leading rider in the country and he’s taking cold water bandages off?’

“You didn’t get too big a head, I’ll tell you,” Grubb said. “They were all doing a double take.”

But one didn’t question Cavalaris. He was the boss. “He was a great horseman, really,” Grubb said. “He’d be down on his knees with his suit on. And he’d look after each one. I was so fortunate to come up through him. So blessed.

“We loved the guy. I can’t say enough good things about him.”

“Cheese and crackers,” Cavalaris would say, when perturbed. It was his brand of profanity. And he had words of wisdom to impart: Don’t ever count on anything in racing until the official sign on the total board says you’ve won.”

“What is past, is past. Nothing you can do about it. The important time is now and tomorrow.”

And this: “Time sort of eases whatever bad happens to you.” (Spoken by a man who had lost Cool Reception after the horse fractured his leg while finishing second in the 1967 Belmont Stakes.

Said Jim Bannon, who worked for Cavalaris as a groom: Cavalaris was a man of great detail.

“He demanded detail. Everybody paid attention to detail with Lou,” Bannon said. “When Lou got mad, he’d fume. He’d take his hat off and stomp on it.

“He never really called anybody by their real names. It was ‘young man,’ or ‘young lady. Around women, he never swore.

“He was a good family guy. And he had a nice group of friends with him and trained for some really nice people like Geroge Gardiner and John Smallman.”

Cavalaris was the leading trainer in North America by wins in 1966 and had a barn full of top horses, just as Grubb got his license. Grubb couldn’t have landed in a better spot to start his career.

Cavalaris had two crack apprentices under his wing: Grubb and Robin Platts, who started a month after Grubb. “They were never really on the same trajectory,” Bannon said. “Richard was a more polished rider [from all his bareback escapades] and Robin was really only learning how to ride.

“They were eligible to start riding at the same time, but Lou purposely held Robin back for a year and let Richard debut first and get his apprentice going before he brought Robin along.”

Grubb started working at the track when he was 16, and starting riding when he was 17 in 1966.

Grubb remembers the day that Platts walked down the shed row for the first time. He had showed up at the track, dressed by an unknowing father, who planted a Stetson on his head and gave him pickle-stabber, pointy cowboy boots. As if he was going to live large in a western movie.

“Take him down and get him a license, down to the race office,” Cavalaris told Grubb. Grubb, so new himself, wasn’t even familiar with the race office. The only time he had been there was to get his own license.”

So down the shedrow they walked together, Grubb a small-town farm boy, Platts from the east end of Toronto. A city guy.

“And he’s got these pointy shoes on,” Grubb said. “I was kind of walking ahead of him, because this guy is kind of embarrassing me with his shoes.”

But they worked together and became “dear, dear, dear friends over the years,” Grubb said. They are still friends, 61 years later. When Platts was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 1997, Grubb presented him. When Grubb was finally inducted a couple of years ago, Platts presented him, reversing their roles, as they always had. They have always been there for each other.

Bannon figured Grubb had a more traditional off-the-pace style preference, while Platts liked to stalk. ‘

Cavalaris knew Grubb was more ready to start and he thought Robin would benefit from more time.

Grubb learned a lot from Cavalaris’ top exercise rider Eddie O’Sullivan. Platts was helped along by Janet Bedford and her husband Peter Bedforrd.

Ronnie Robertson, an official, was also one of the stables’ morning riders. Cavalaris had a string of very good exercise riders.

Grubb and Platts had to have contracts in those days to ride. Ward Pittfield was a major owner, who owned Grubb’s contract. “Lou went to bat for them and made sure they got paid,” Bannon said. “There were tough labour laws in those days for the riders.”

The contract meant you got to ride the horses owned by the contract holder, but not necessarily be paid the full amount that a full fledged jockey would get.

Grubb won his first race on a $9,000 claimer  owned by Pittfield, aptly name No Kidding in 1966 at Woodbine. He was still green when he lucked onto this first mount, a longshot and a live horse. “After a terrifying ride, we were first by a nose at the wire,” Grubb said. He was already batting 1.000 and off to a fast start. He was 16.

Early the following spring Grubb cemented his meteoric rise when he won seven races on an eight-race card  at Woodbine on May 16, 1967. It was a North American record, set by a fledgling, new to the game. He couldn’t have bought a better ad in all the newspapers in the country.

And yet there, he was, looking like a choir boy. (In fact as a youngster Grubb had been an altar boy, dressed in black and white vestments, able to recite Latin responses meant to be made to a priest, but  without necessarily knowing what they meant. He still remembers them but can’t remember where he left his car keys.)

So imagine, Grubb as a young stripling of a rider – wildly successful – the way a journalist did back in the day: “Blond hair, clear pale complexion, finally etched features with a touch of mischief in the eyes, belying an angelic composition.”

Grubb still has two racing programs from that prodigious day – a bit of an archivist , He equaled a mark set by John Heckman in 1956 and John Sylverster in 1930.

Grubb hadn’t been scheduled to ride the first race. “And the horse in the second race was 3 to 5,” he said. “She would have had to break a leg to lose. And she did win.”

Before the day started, a mount came up in the first race. Andy Smithers trained the horse, making his first start of the year. It was a cheap horse, but Smithers asked his agent if Grubb would ride the horse.

“What do you think,” the agent said to Grubb.

“At that point in time, if the saddle fit, I’d ride him,” Grubb said.

But the horse broke down and never ran again. Looking back, Grubb wished he hadn’t taken the mount. Then the wins starting rolling in for the rest of the day.

Almost 60 years later, there are people who still bring up Grubb’s magical seven-win day. About two or three years ago, Grubb went for a wintry walk in the snow in Ridgeway and met a man smoking a cigarette.

Grubb had a parka on and his toque pulled over his face to keep out the wind.

Said the man: “Hey! I know who you are! You rode seven winners!”

Grubb was astonished. In his winter garb, he joked that even he didn’t know who he was. The man had just been taking a smoke break from a bar.  Grubb had no idea that those seven wins would spring up decades later.

The strangest thing about the seven wins was that the smallest price was paid by his winner in the last race: $7.40  He hadn’t been riding favorites. They paid prices like $9.30, $10, $8, $20, $11.

Grubb’s success was almost too quick. A bug boy gets a 10-poiund weight allowance, but after winning five races, the allowance drops to five pounds for the next year or 40 wins. Grubb lost his 10-poiund weight allowance because he won his first five races in only about 15 starts.

Remember how angelic Grubb looked when he started riding? Right after his seven-win day, he was given a 10-day suspension for a riding infraction. (Grubb said that when he started a suspension the next day, he had all that time to look for winner No. 8 in a row.)

He quite probably was not only Canada’s top jockey that season, but also its most suspended.

Grubb got 50 days of suspension the year he was leading rider in a 190-day racing season.. Five suspensions at 10 days a piece. They way they hand out suspension these days, it would be 15 days at most. If not for those suspensions, his win total for the season would have been even higher.  Even so, he became the youngest Canadian jock to win the rider’s title.

Those 10-day suspensions were brutal, and automatic. In all, he served 70 days as an apprentice. “I had a whole season of days in my first year and a half to two years,” Grubb admitted.

The penalties indicate the ferocity of his competitiveness.

Why so many? “I don’t believe I was careless,” Grubb said. “But you are young and you’re trying hard. And they [stewards] were a lot stricter then. And what they say goes. There were no appeals. None of that stuff.

Now a jockey might get three days, and on appeal, drop it to one day. Or none.

“I believe in the appeal system, but I believe the appeal should be valid,” Grubb said. “Some of these appeals are ridiculous.”

And he’s been on both sides of the fence.

Said a trainer he respects, John Russell: “He’s a fierce competitor and I don’t think it’s all for money. Primarily, he wants to win for winning’s sake. He rides like a desperate person.”

And ambitious? Grubb told reporters back when he was 18 years old that he wanted to head to greener pastures south of the border eventually. “I must be honest,” he said at the time. “The purses are bigger and there would also be a feeling of accomplishment.”

“I’d hate leaving Lou. He made me. It was not so much just putting me on his horses, but taking a personal interest in my life. Right now, I could afford a car, but he doesn’t want me to have one. He thinks I’ve got enough on my mind.”

Grubb wanted to ride the Queen’s Plate when he was an apprentice in 1967, – but he got days.

He believes that he could have won the Oaks five times with any luck.

In his first season when he had the bug, Grubb was to ride Solometeor for Windfields Farm  – he had ridden her in the prep – but then he got days. Windfields brought in Bill Boland from the United States and she won by five lengths.

He also lost South Ocean to Sandy Hawley – because he had suspensions.

He did end up winning the Oaks twice, but he could have won it three or four more times.” He said. “Circumstances make you win, make you lose sometimes.”

A gift? Grubb got to ride an exceptional colt, Dancer’s Image, three times as a 2-year-old. “He was just in his own league here,” Grubb said. “The only time I got beat on him was in New York in the Remsen. He shipped in.

“He was in Maryland because he was a Maryland-bred. And he took the van to New York for the Remsen and the van broke down part of the way. So he got stuck on the road, and shipped in that morning.

“The horse that beat him was the Derby favourite that winter [Verbatim, Elmendorf Farm) Then he went to Maryland and I went to Florida. So we never got to hook up again.”

The Dancer’s Image story was bigger than a racetrack tale.

Jim Bannon, who groomed Dancer’s Image, went to Chicago with him as a 2-year-old and travelled with him. It was centennial year in Canada, and Dancer’s Image was Canada’s top 2-year-old, having won the Clarendon Stakes. As a 3-year-old, Bannon went with him to Florida, to get him ready for the U.S. Triple Crown journey.

 

Then in April, Martin Luther King was assassinated. There were riots everywhere. Cavalaris sent all of his young people back home to Canada, including Bannon, for safety.

When Dancer’s Image went back to Maryland to win the Governor’s Cup, owner Peter Fuller, a native of Boston, gave the winning purse to Loretta King, Martin Luther King’s widow.

“And that started the witch hunt,” Bannon said.

Bannon has a hunch that Fuller’s gesture created Dancer’s Image’s problems in the Kentucky Derby. He crossed the wire first, but was disqualified for having phenylbutazone in his system. Fuller appealed. The court case went on for years, to no avail.

“Churchill Downs is right on the Mason-Dixon line which separates north from south,” Bannon said. “People from the south hated that [Fuller} did that {gave winnings to Martin Luther King’s widow.]

“Obviously the civil rights people adored it. When the riots were on in Boston, where Peter Fuller owned his Cadillac dealership, his was the only one that wasn’t burned to the ground.”

Bannon described Dancer’s Image as a top-heavy grey colt with a huge shoulder and bulbous front ankles that always needed work. The veterinarian at Churchill Downs claimed Dancer’s Image was lame. Cavalaris maintained that he was never lame. Cavalaris had suspicions about what happened.

While in Florida, Grubb had an eyeful. Walking into the jockey’s room at beautiful Hialeah Park was like a stroll into Disneyland. “Hialeah was the best meet in America in those days,” Grubb said. “You had to be a Widener or a Phipps to get stalls. The place was gorgeous.  You walked into the jock’s room and it was like walking into the Hall of Fame. And if they weren’t in the Hall of Fame, they were on their way.

“They were still young riders when I started,” Grubb said. “They were just a year or two years ahead of me. Angel Cordero and Jorge Velasquez. They were all just kids. “

At Gulfstream, he saw Eddie Maple, and Craig Perret.  Once, Grubb doubled dated with Perret. They took dates to see Diana Ross and the Supremes.

(An avid concert-goer, Grubb found his way backstage at several concerts. He got to meet one of his all-time favourites  Marvin Gaye at Maple Leaf Gardens. Gaye and Cookie Gilchrist – who played in both the American Football League and Canadian one, and was a 10-time all-star Canadian with a Grey Cup win under his belt – were very close friends.

“Cookie got Marvin to headline a fund raiser,” Grubb said. “I spoke to Cookie on the phone several times before meeting him. Took some pix: Cookie, Marvin, Senator Jack Kamp (former Buffalo Bills quarterback) and Grubb.””

He also met another of his favourites, Earth Wind & Fire backstage.)

The fun continued. That winter, at Tropical Park, Grubb was to ride in a two-turn race with a run from the starting gate into the clubhouse turn. The track had been prepared and harrowed from the previous race.

Meanwhile an alligator had slithered onto the track from one of the infield lakes. He had crawled onto the main track midway of the clubhouse turn. His body was sprawled from the inside rail outsider.

“The horses rounding the first turn had to manoeuver  over and around the gator. I know because I rode the race, had an inside post and jumped over the gator.

“As we hit the backstretch, all of us riders looked at each other and started talking.”

“Holy f…! Did that really happen?”

By the time the race was over, “the felon had crawled to the middle of the racetrack,” Grubb said. “Jacinto Vasquez moved his mount to within 20 feet of the suspect to have a clear look.

“The gator snapped at him and his mount. He took off like he was breaking from the starting gate.”

Back home, Grubb was tackling what was to be the most powerful jockey’s room in Canada: Avelino Gomez was an undisputed champ for years. Then along came Grubb, Platts, Brian Swatuck, Hugo Ditfach was always a factor, Jim Kelly, Lloyd Duffy, John LeBlanc, and Sandy Hawley. Gary Stahlbaum came into the picture a little later.

But always there was the shadow of Gomez (Gomey) to endure. Grubb blasted through that shadow, prompting Gomez to finally admit that the youngster, 28 years younger than he, was “the new king.” This had been at a time when Gomez still had a chance to overtake Grubb. He was already abdicating.

Cuban-born Gomez, known as “El Perfect.” had been the leading jockey in North America in 1968,  when he won 318 races with a win percentage of 32 per cent. He won every major stakes race in Canada, and eventually was the first man to ride four Queen’s Plate winners.  He was always emotional, in your face, and controversial and always covetous of other jockey’s mounts. A six-time Canadian champ, Gomez won more stakes races than almost all of the other riders put together. In 1965, he won more than half of the stakes races on the Ontario circuit.

Then in 1968, when Gomez started to step back because of weight issues, the stories began to roll in: “Richard Grubb has taken over where Avelino Gomez has left off,” read one.

“Somebody had to take over from Gomez,” said Grubb. “It may as well be me.”

“Grubb is the new Gomez,” said another. Fans were beginning to talk about Grubb the way they talked about Gomez, the piece said.  “He’s better than Gomez ever was,” said one fan.

An agent who was also a horseplayer mentioned that fans never get smart: Grubb had already won two races on the day, both paying good prices and the horses had a chance.

“You should never let a good rider on a live horse go off at a price,” he said. With that, he went to the windows and bet against Grubb. Mistake. Grubb came from off the pace and won the race with one of his favourite horses, Muzledick. The payoff was $17.70.

(Muzledick was Grubb’s all-time favourite. He won about 15 races on him, all allowance and stakes races,.

(“Being American bred he had to leave Ontario often so he could race,” Grubb said. “He won stakes in about five U.S. states. No matter what port we landed in, he always showed up.

(“Talented and courageous. He won on the lead and coming from last. Best gate horse I ever rode. Not the fastest out of there, but he would always position himself to break clean and quick, unattended. He would square himself and his feet like clockwork, eyes fixated on the doors of the starting gate. He won from six furlongs to a mile and 3/16^th.)

 

At that point of the season, there had been only five stakes races contested and Grubb had won all of them. For the previous couple of seasons, Gomez had won half of the stakes in Ontario.

Another story: “Grubb is now the riding king. Gomez knew it all along.”

Gomez, said Grubb years later, was just “the most colourful athlete. Mohammed Ali was the other.

“And then what made him even more engaging was his broken English. That made it even more fun.”

Gomez was a jockey that very much kept to himself, and didn’t mix with the others. In later years, he mellowed. It was easier to get close to him. When Gomez was killed in a racing accident during the 1980 Canadian Oaks, Grubb was a pallbearer at his funeral.

“I was sick after that race,” said Grubb of the Oaks. “I knew something was really wrong. I’ve seen a lot of spills. “

After a while, those stories stopped. Grubb won 230 races to clinch the crown in 1967, the youngest jockey at age 18 to do so in Canada. He was also the leading stakes winning jockey.  Not since Avelino Gomez set a record of 36 stakes wins in 73 stakes races in 1966, has a jockey so completely dominated the added money events.

Grubb’s first stakes win was with Gilmore, but his first major stakes race at home was the Dominion Day Stakes that he won with Stevie B Good. The purse was $25,000 and in those days, it was a lot of money. In that race, Grubb defeated his boss, Cavalaris, by a head. Cavalaris had Victoria Era in the race. Bye and Near and He’s A Smoothie were also in that race.

It was a big deal for Grubb because a lot of people at the time were hesitant to ride him because of Lou, saying: “He’s not going to try against his boss.’ That stuff. It didn’t matter to me who I rode against. If you rode me, I’d try to win for you. The other way, I’d try to beat you.”

Stevie B Good ran one more time, at Fort Erie against a very good field. And he broke the track record, defeating Bye and Near. But he broke down after that. In all Grubb got to ride him twice, in the Dominion Day and the Connaught Cup.  The victory with Gilmore was for trainer Roy Johnston and owner Max Bell. And he had defeated his boss again.

Weight issues always hovered over Grubb, who stood 5-foot-6, taller than many jockeys.

“Early on in racing, I expected to have four to five years at the most before growing out of the job,” Grubb said once.  Eventually, he gained more confidence once his growth upward had ended.

Grubb also kept a scrapbook, thinking he wouldn’t be around as a jockey that long. His career stretched longer than he expected: 22 years. The scrapbooks multiplied.

In fact, he couldn’t wait another year to become an apprentice. As it was, he said he spent the entire season before his debut trying to keep his wight in check.

And then came year-end honours. Sportswriters and broadcasters voted Chatham pitcher Fergie Jenkins Canadian athlete of the year in 1967. He won a two-way battle with Bobbie Hull. But 18-year-old Grubb was third in the voting and actually had two first-place votes. Grubb defeated Stan Mikita and Russ Jackson. That same year, Grubb was second to Jenkins as Ontario’s athlete of the year, ahead of Hull and rookie Bobby Orr.

At the end of the 1967 season Cavalaris packed Grubb off to New York, and then Florida with the idea to keep the jock trim and slim.

“I think they thought if I stopped, I was going to get too big,” Grubb said. “And I think they probably thought at the time that I wasn’t going to last too long because of the weight. So they kept me going. If I had stopped, I might not have got back because of the weight. It was a huge issue with me.”

Grubb rode at 107 when he was an apprentice. That meant he had to weigh 103 pounds.

“Back then, if you did 110, as a bug, they would tell you to get a new job.,” Grubb said,

He was so underweight that if he went out and had a meal, he could gain six to seven pounds.

In New York Grubb scored his last win as an apprentice rider with a horse aptly named I’ve Arrived at Aqueduct on Dec. 8, 1967.

“Appropriate? Yes?” Cavalaris said to Grubb.

 

The next day as a journeyman for the first time, Grubb continued his ways, winning two races at Aqueduct. It was a big deal to make that leap after losing the bug. Not everybody can flourish. It was a big deal for a Canadian rider to ply his trade in the United States. It was less common at the time than now.

Grubb’s second full season of riding in 1968 was a very good year, too. And good things were still to come. In Florida, trainer Del Carroll went looking for a lightweight jockey to ride his 25 to 1 longshot Gentleman James in the $126,000 Gulfstream Park Handicap. And ironically, he found Grubb, who at the time could make 110 pounds.  His weight fit Caroll “to a T,” he said. Jorge Velasquez had ridden the colt in his only other start, a fifth, under 113 pounds.

Grubb, now 19, won the thing. “I never made the cover of Rolling Stone,” he said, thinking about it later. “But I did make the cover of the Blood Horse.”

The Gulfstream Park Handicap was the richest race Grubb had ever contested. It was an $8,600 bonanza landing into his pocket. The largest previous purse he had won was the $25,000 Dominion Day Handicap back home.

“I can’t explain how I feel.  I just can’t hardly believe it sir,” said the polite kid to a reporter.  Handshakes happened all around.

The favourite, Favorable Turn, broke down during the race. Grubb could see that not all was well with the horse and saw him bear out going into the backstretch. Grubb had planned to lie back and make a move late, but after seeing Favorable Turn, he made his move early and tried to get in the clear.

The second choice in the race was Canadian He’s A Smoothie, ridden by Braulio Baeza, but he she didn’t seem interested that day and finished fourth. Grubb got to the front leaving the quarter pole, was a length in front at the eighth pole and sailed home. To this point, this was the most important race of his young career.

There was little time to celebrate, however. The next morning, when Grubb arrived at the jockey’s room at Gulfstream Park. U.S. immigration officials were waiting for him.

“I guess they read the paper,” Grubb said. “Canadian jockey wins this big race.”

They focused on the word “Canadian.”

“Where are your papers?” they asked Grubb.

At the time, the United States was fighting in Viet Nam and they were conscripting anybody they could find.

They told Grubb: “We’ll give you three months. You either take your papers out here or you leave.”

That told Grubb that his permission to ride in the United States also made him eligible for the draft.  They didn’t say so at the time, Grubb said, “So if I were to take out my papers to be a US citizen, I could be eligible for the draft.”

They took Grubb right out of the jock’s room, hauled him downtown to headquarters in Miani. “You either want to stay or you want to go,” they said.

So Grubb left tout de suite.

Back home he went to the safety of Canada.

During the 1968 season, Grubb won 30 stakes races, placing him second to Jorge Velazquez in North America. He won the seven of the first eight stakes races in Ontario.

In 1968, he also won five races one day at Fort Erie.

Grubb wrapped himself in success during the season of 1968, too. Some of it was because he got the Windfields Farm mount on Viceregal, a coppery chestnut from the first crop of Northern Dancer. Viceregal didn’t look anything like his sire, but Northern Dancer didn’t have to stamp his look on his progeny to become a dominant sire.

Viceregal had injured himself as a yearling and was confined to his stall for three months, as Windfields folk stood him in a pail of ice water and played a hose on his left fore ankle. The ankle healed, but scar tissue and calcium deposits left the ankle enlarged.

He was offered up for sale at E.P. Taylor’s pre-priced yearling sale at $50,000 but there were no takers – buyers were afraid of those ankles. The next year, Viceregal’s full brother, Vice Regent, was offered at $100,00 and there were also no takers because he had suspect ankles. But Vice Regent went on to become a dominant Canadian sire, leading the list for 13 years and siring horses such as Deputy Minister, Regal Embrace, Deceit Dancer, Ruling Angel, Bessarabian, Regal Classic and more. Viceregal was a disappointment at stud, and shipped off to France and then Japan.

But there was plenty of buzz about Viceregal before he even started. His dam, Victoria Regina, was a half-sister to Canadian Horse of the Year Victoria Park, who had finished third in the 1960 Kentucky Derby and second in the Preakness. In the 1960 Queen’s Plate, Victoria Park set a stakes record that stood for 40 years. (Gomez once said that Victoria Park was the best horse he had ever ridden.)

With Grubb aboard, Viceregal won easily in his debut at Woodbine. He had been the third Northern Dancer offspring to win at first asking. Jitterbug, a Greentree Stable filly, had almost equaled a track record in her debut and True North broke a track record in his first start at Santa Anita Racecourse.

Viceregal broke no track records in his first start, nor did he come close. He zipped seven furlongs in 1.00 and won by five lengths. The Woodbine track record at the time was 57 2/5. But Viceregal did what he had to do, showing a burst of speed. He had a tardy start.

Said Joe Thomas, the vice president of Windfields: “He never does anything sensational, but it’s the way he does it –  like a good horse. He doesn’t extend himself needlessly.

“He’s big and lazy and he won’t do any more than he has to.”

Viceregal did equal the track record of 1:04 2/5 for 5 ½ furlongs when he won the Victoria Stakes. He also won the Vandal, and the Colin Stakes.

He scored his fifth victory and his fourth stakes win when he won the Summer Stakes at a mile on the grass, although it was not one of his better races. It was his first race on the grass.

Grubb said Viceregal had a little trouble in the early stages before coming on to win by a length, defeating fast-closing Grey Whiz. Jumpin Joseph, who went on to the Queen’s Plate the next year, was third, a neck back.

“The grass was slippery and he wasn’t getting ahold of it on the backstretch,” Grubb said. “He came on a little better heading for the stretch, but I was disturbed for a while.”

Grubb hit the colt once in the stretch when Grey Whiz made his bold move.  Viceregal responded willingly and accelerated.

Thomas had told Grubb not to take any chances with the colt and to stay out of trouble on the outside. Viceregal was the heavy 1 to 4 favourite on a blistering 92 degree Fahrenheit  day.

Already the pulse of  fans at Woodbine was racing. Some thought they may have seen the 1969 Kentucky Derby winner.

Viceregal had already surpassed his sire’s record as a 2 year-old. Northern Dancer was defeated in the Vandal Stakes in his third start.

“The colt has never been extended,” Grubb said. “He only races as hard as he has to.”

The Clarendon Stakes was at seven furlongs and Viceregal was pitted against Peter Power, a striking grey colt that had won his two previous races easily, including the Yearling Sales Stakes.

Viceregal hadn’t run in five weeks. He had been on the sidelines with cracked heels.  Viceregal carried 122 pounds, Peter Power 117.

It was a battle royal.

Peter Power went to the lead and opened up two lengths and then he extended his lead to three lengths into the stretch.

But Viceregal moved from sixth to third around the final turn, felt the sting of Grubb’s whip, then gradually whittled into the lead. He caught and Passed Peter Power 70 yards from the wire. It was Viceregal’s sixth consecutive victory.

“He’s not shown anything near his full potential as yet,” Grubb said, who was winning his 25^th stakes for the season.

“He was getting a little tired after the layoff and I had to rush him quite a bit to keep that other horse in sight.”

The richest 2-year-old race of the year was the Coronation Futurity, at 1 1/8 miles and Viceregal left no doubt about his ability to run a distance. He won by 4 ¼ lengths after Grubb switched him into high gear around the final turn. He swept past Sharp-Eyed Quillo in the stretch and pulled away. Viceregal had been a 1 to 3 favourite, facing the longest test of his life.

Grubb was never worse than fifth in the race. Grey Whiz snatched second on the outside.

Viceregal “started to prick his ears and wanted to play” when he got to the front. “I shook him up a bit to keep his mind on his business,” Grubb said.

Viceregal was supposed to have gone to the Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga, but skipped it when he popped a curb in his left hind leg. Although his ankles were always a little suspect, there was no indication of that in the Coronation.

Viceregal had to face a soft turf course in the Cup and Saucer Stakes; Taylor hadn’t known how soggy it was until he trod across it to the winner’s circle. Had he known, he said he would have scratched the colt.

Viceregal won the Cup and Saucer, but injured himself doing it.

He won by a long neck ahead of that intrepid Grey Whiz in the toughest race of his career.

He injured his right front ankle as he swept between horses on the final turn of the 1 1/16^th mile race. The ankle was swollen the next morning. That race was to be his final start of the season, but the injury sealed the deal. Windfields might have considered starting him in the Champagne Stakes in New York, but all of those thoughts died with the injury.

‘It was a little too close for comfort,” said Thomas of the win margin.

Undefeated in eight starts and with earnings of $117.648 – most ever won in a single season by a thoroughbred in Canada at the time – Viceregal clinched Horse of the Year honours – as a 2-year-old.

Windfields launched Viceregal on the Kentucky Derby trail in early 1969. Into the Derby Trial he went. But Viceregal was defeated in his only start at three, injured. He finished third behind Ack Ack, a crack sprinter early in his career, but a dominant force as an aged horse going long, turf or dirt. He was US Horse of the Year in 1969. Brilliant horse.

Alas, that was the end of Viceregal’s career. Regrets, there were many. “If he had been sound, there’s no telling,” Grubb said. “He just never had a chance to know what kind of horse he could have been. He had troubles all the way along. [Trainer Pete McCann used to train him in the dark. No one ever saw him train.”)

E.P. Taylor had even stronger feelings about the pretty red colt. In print, he said he always thought Viceregal was the best horse he ever raised.

“And I think to myself: “Well, you raised Northern Dancer and Nijinsky. You forgot?’ That’s a pretty bold statement.” Grubb said.

Grubb has plenty of fond memories of E.P Taylor, who treated him well. Taylor once asked Grubb if he would come down to ride a few horses in the Unites States, particularly in New Jersey. “New Jersy had damned good racing and they were just a cut below New York at that time,” Grubb said.

“I said: ‘Sure,’” Grubb said. Who wouldn’t?

They travelled down to the Untied Tates on Taylor’s jet. One of the horses he was to ride was Northern Native, a horse Grubb rode to finish fifth in the 1969 Queen’s Plate. Northern Native won an allowance in New Jersey, at 15 to 1.

Grubb said they went down two or three times. “He was good about everything,” Grubb said. “One filly I had to ease up. She was so well-bred, Plate winners on both sides. And her form was really erratic. Win. Nowhere. Second. Nowhere. Third, Nowhere. He couldn’t figure it out.

“I had to ease her. She came up kind of sore. Now we know what’s wrong we’ll send her to the breeding shed. And he was not upset.”

Once they took a little sidetrip together to Chesapeake Bay, where his farm was in Maryland. He had brought Northern Dancer there from Canada to stand at stud. So together in that hallowed spot sat E.P. Taylor, Grubb and Northern Dancer. Just the three of them. Looking at each other. Basking in a blessed  breeze.

At the time, Northern Dancer had only one crop to the races. Already he was doing well, only a hint of what was to come. “But when you think back, holy geez, what people would have given a have the chance to be just the three of us. It was like an audience with the Pope,. Grubb said.”

In 1968, Grubb also had first call on horses owned by Jean Louis Levesque and so began a trusted friendship. It was Levesque who publicly celebrated Grubb’s Florida win with Gentleman James . Levesque sent Grubb a letter, saying that when he came back to Canada, “We’re going to do something special.”

Levesque threw a special night for Grubb at Blue Bonnets Racetrack in Montreal. And he asked: “Who do you want to come? Anybody. Family. Friends. Anybody.”

“He picked up the shot,” Grubb said. (Levesque owned Blue Bonnets) He named a race after Grubb. And he presented Grubb with a watch.

Levesque told him there were only two watches like this in the world. Levesque had one. Grubb had the other.

Grubb was only 19 years old. “People get a night thrown for you at the end of the line and your career is over if they do that at all,” Grubb said. “And here I was, and he was throwing a night for me.”

Levesque’s largesse didn’t end there.  Grubb was once on the lesser half of a Levesque entry in the 1982 Queen’s Plate. Jacinto Vazquez had ridden Le Danseur in Florida, and Levesque had promised him the mount. Grubb had no problem with that, although he had won the Plate Trial by five lengths with him. Grubb was aboard Le Grand Argentier in the 1982 Queen’s Plate, The entry was heavily favoured to win, but mostly on the merits of Le Danseur.

Levesque said to Grubb: “Did you make any arrangements with the other rider?”

Grubb said, “No, I didn’t ask. I’m riding a 20 to 1 shot. He’s riding a 3 to 5.”

So Levesque decided it, telling Grubb” “If either horse wins, you both get  10 per cent. ‘

“He was a gentleman,” Grubb said. “He was one of my favourite people.”

‘After Grubb won the seven races on a single card, Blue Bonnets flew Cavalaris and him to the Montreal track to do a press conference. It was Grubb’s first press conference. “They took us on a tour of Expo 67. We had basically everything, like royalty. No lineups.”

But for the press conference, “I was so nervous,” Grubb said. “It was pretty big news, winning seven in a row.”

Levesque was a Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was in the securities business and sat on the boards of many major companies, such as Air Canada, and Canadian National Railways. He had a private jet at his disposal. When Leveque planned his retirement, he put an emphasis on breeding and racing thoroughbreds. He was a powerhouse in business and horse racing  Canada. Not only is he in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, he is in the Canadian Business Hall of Fame.

In his first Plate, Grubb was probably slated to ride Cavalaris’ black colt, Arctic Blizzard, a three-quarter brother to Cool Reception. But Arctic Blizzard was plagued with sore ankles and never made it to the Plate. Instead, Grubb rode Levesque’s Rouletabille.

“He was an exceptional grass horse,” Grubb said. “He could have gone to the United States. He won three times at Fort Erie that summer.”

While he was at it, Rouletabille broke two track records, but after his win in the Prince of Wales, he broke down and never raced again. Grubb things he could have won the Queen’s Plate with him.

In the Plate that year, on the far turn, Grubb was moving up on the inside of a horse that was a longshot and wore a one-eyed linker because he had a habit of drifting out.  This horse was not made to run the mile and a quarter of the Queen’s Plate.

On the far turn, the longshot drifted out, “quite a ways” so Grubb moved Rouletabille up to fill the gap.

“I wasn’t sneaking through,” he said. “It was one of those things, trying to make your way.”

But the jockey on the outside, looked over and he “just cranked him around on top of me,” Grubb said. “And I had to take up and I finished third, beaten two to 2 ½ lengths.”

“It was just dirty pool and that happened many times,” Grubb said. “Professional jealousy. I was kind of the hot kid on the block and that’s everywhere in the business, professional jealousy, sport, entertainment is even worse.

“Why would you do that? You were dead. I wasn’t’ trying to sneak in or anything.  He went out. I took the spot. I had lots of room and he just cranked his horse back in.”

But he did win the Prince of Wales. And after he did, he stamped himself as Canada’s best 3-year-old. Rouletabille, a son of Nearctic, defeated Big Blunder by a neck.

Rouletabille moved onto the grass for the first time on July 4. He won the one-mile Hersey Stakes, smashing the track record by a full second when he ran the mile in 1:35 3/5.

Three weeks later he equaled the 1 1/16 mile record on grass in winning the International Handicap. Big Blunder was his victim there, too.

While winning the Prince of Wales, Rouletabille ran on a yielding turf course, running the 1 3/8 miles in 2:18 3/5, a second and 3/6 off the track record set by Will I Rule.

Grubb had four winners on that card, including the improved sprinter Muzleduck, who shaved 4/5 seconds off the 6 ½ furlong record, in the Challenge Stakes.

It is said that Gtubb’s ride aboard Rouletabille was “flawless.”

Grubb allowed the Levesque colt to settle into stride in fourth place as Tipton Slasher, No Parando and Northern Oil cut out the pace.

Midway on the backstretch, Big Blunder started his moved from fifth place, and Grubb sent his mount, too.

At this point, Big Blunder appeared to have Rouletabille boxed in behind the fading No Parando. Big Blunder sped on by as Grubb took up Rouletabille.

That was only a short setback. Once Grubb had Rouletabille in gear again, he caught Big Blunder. They fought it out for several hundred yards. Then Rouletabille pulled away to win.

Grubb also won the Queenston Stakes with Rouletabille early in the season.

Rouletabille gave Grubb his first Plate and that was the closest he ever got to winning. Actually, he finished second, riding 53 to 1 shot Near the High Sea, but it was the wrong year to win. A Levesque horse won that one in 1975. Grubb’s mount finished 5 ½ lengths back of a top colt.

Had Grubb been riding against some average Canadian-breds that year, he would have had a shot. But L’Enjoleur was not average. He raced in the United States. Not just a Canadian bred but a top notcher. He won the Laurel  Futurity in Maryland as a 2-year-lold.  “He was way above us,” Grubb said. “That was the only real chance I ever had.”

Grubb rode in 14 Queen’s Plates, with a second and a third. Twice he finished fifth in bulky fields. Five times he was sixth.

The biggest disappointment of his life to that point was riding Cavalaris’ French-raced Carteret to win the Niagara Stakes at Fort Erie – only to be disqualified and suspended. Many other riders stuck up for him, saying it just wasn’t right.

Carteret  was a very talented chestnut, bred in Great Britain, who had won some impressive races in the United States. He had won the Laurence Amour in Chicago in 1963, and the Hialeah Turf Cup in 1964.  He had come back from major injuries, a warrior.

One writer called the Niagara the brightest and darkest moment of the season. On one hand, there was the “luminous” performance of Goerge Gardiner’s 9-year-old Carteret, who humbled his foes.

On the other hand, Carteret was disqualified and placed last.

The disqualification didn’t account for Carteret’s obvious superiority in the 1 3/8 mile raced, and the fact that the victim of the foul, Conn Smythe’s Bye and Near was running out of steam when Carteret charged past him. And he probably wouldn’t have been a threat. Bye and Near finished sixth and was moved up to fifth on disqualification. The stewards initiated the inquiry.

All of it was complicated by the fact that Cavalaris trained the top three finishers. Would stewards take down one or two of them, or all three, as an entry?

They took only Carteret’s number down. There was a lot of debate on the rights or wrongs of it. He bothered a horse that was not going to finish in the top three.

“That was the biggest disappointment of my life,” said Grubb at the time. “There have not been too many of them. To win, you have to have the breaks and to get the breaks, you have to be lucky,. Much of what I have learned has been from my own mistakes.”

Alas, Cavalaris had been pointing Carteret to the Canadian  international championship on Oct. 31 for Gardiner. But he bowed a tendon the week before. Canadel, who had won the Niagara on disqualification was a good horse, but he couldn’t even warm up Carteret. “They weren’t even close,” Grubb said.

Afterwards, Grubb walked the horse slowly around the stable, cooling him out. Cavalaris bemoaned the number of good horses getting hurt: 1966 Queen’s Plate winner Titled Hero, Victorian Era, Dainty, Davie, now Carteret.

Grubb says now Carteret was one of his favourite horses. “They took the wrong horse down [in the Niagara],” Grubb said. The Niagara, along with the Prince of Wales, were the two most important stakes races at Fort Erie back then.

Grubb went with Carteret to Arlington Park  in the Lindheimer Handicap, which proved to be the horse’s last race. “Arlington was big, there weas great racing back then. Finished third and it was a helluva field. Horses behind me were Fort Marcy, who got in a lot of trouble that day.”

Grubb rode three that day, all for Cavalaris. The other two won: Shrine Game for John Smallman and What Country for Gardiner.

If Cavalaris had been an important mentor to Grubb, especially in his early years, British born trainer John Russell was close to his heart. Russell came to Canada in the early 1960s and trained for John Sifton from Winnipeg, and then after Sifton died of throat cancer, during the late 1960s, he trained for a conglomerate of the Willmot family, Colonel Chales Baker and Charles Burns. They hired him to train for them in Canada.

Russell, born in Lincolnshire, England, son of noted British trainer James Russell, left to attend Standford University in California in 1953, but never made it there. Instead, he sneaked into the backstretch at Tanforan Racetrack near San Franciso and began to gallop horses. He took out his trainer’s license in 1958.

In Canada, he trained Cool Mood to win the Canadian Oaks in 1969. After he left Canada he trained for Ogden Phills and Fred W. Hooper, two of the largest stables in the United States. He was known as the trainer of Precisionist, Track Robbery, three-time champion and U.S. Hall of Famer, Susan’s Girl, Majestic Light, Intrepid Hero, and others.

Grubb and Russell became great friends. And Russell took him on different carpet rides.

In the fall of 1969, when the racing season was over in Canada, Russell told Grubb: “I’m going to Europe. I can do some business [something for Willmot]. Why don’t you come along?”

Back then, European racing seemed so foreign to North Americans. In those days, the only time you saw the Europeans, was when they came to Laurel, Md, for the Washington D.C. International.

Grubb agreed to go. The trip opened his eyes.

When they headed overseas, the English season was finished, too, but some small tracks were running in October and November.

“We went racing a couple of days,” Grubb said. “We stayed overnight at Toby Balding’s yard. Toby had just that year won the Grand National Steeplechase with Highland Wedding for Charles Burns in Toronto.”

They stayed the night, did a few race meets and then went on to Paris, where they attended the Chantilly training centre. “It was just gorgeous,” Grubb said. “It was mouth watering. Beautiful. Horses training through the woods. It was just astounding.”

They had also some sidetrips, touristy moments. They visited the Tower of London and the Beatles’ Abbey Road Studio.

They stayed at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London and one day they bumped into and had a chat and “a bunch of laughs” with Audrey Hepburn.

They had planned to go down to the lobby to get something to eat, but when they walked into the elevator, “there was this petite, very attractive woman,” Grubb said. “She was with another woman a bit older.”

Grubb didn’t twig immediately to who she was, but immediately Russell started a conversation.

“By the time we got to the bottom floor in the lobby, we were kibitzing back and forth and joking.”

Russell and Grubb headed to the buffet. Hepburn was doing a photoshoot in the lobby.

They returned from England and went to California, Russell’s stomping ground. “He knew everybody out there,” Grubb said. “We had dinner and went out to a ranch and visited Elmer Bernstein.”

Elmer Bernstein? Bernstein was a composer and conductor  for five decades and composed some of the most memorable and recognizable movie themes  in Hollywood history.  He won an Oscar  for music from  “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” and had a bucketload of other awards on his mantle.

He composed music for “The Magnificent Seven,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “True Grit,” “Cape Fear,” and a host of comedic films such as “Animal House,” “Meatballs” ,” Airplane!” ”The Blues Brothers,” “Trading Places” ,”Ghostbusters”, and the “Three Amigos.”

Russell and Grubb went to a sound stage and watched a recording of a movie being scored with Quincy Jones conducting a full symphony orchestra.

They watched another production session, making backup vocals for a Ringo Starr recording.

“John travelled in the right circles,,” Grubb said. “He knew everybody out there.”

All of them were into racing in California. “They loved it,” he said. “It was big. All the movie stars were at the racetrack and John was a big name trainer. He was very well respected.”

When they returned to Canada, they hooked up with trainer Roy Johnson. Russell and Johnston were both pilots. So they flew to the Bahamas. “Tough winter,” Grubb said.

But when Grubb returned from his exotic travels, he jumped on the scales and got a shock. He had ballooned up to about 136 pounds. “I just thought, oh how am I ever going to get this off?” Grubb said.

It was time to get ready for training for the spring meeting. “It was the first time since I’d gone to the track that I had let myself go a bit,” Grubb said.

The first day he returned, he put on a rubber suit, and drove around in his car with the heater on. He followed that up by running up and down the stairs in the apartment where he had been staying. Just for good measure, he vacuumed the apartment.

“I was sweating like a pig, so I went in and showered. I came out, and weighed myself.”

For all that work, he had lost only about 2 ½ pounds.

“I just wanted to cry,” he said, “He thought his career, just started, was finished.

Somehow he got the weight off in time. He promised himself he would never let that happen again.

The weight off, Grubb went on to ride other notables in his early days: Mary of Scotland. Grubb was in a slump in his career when Cavalaris put him on Mary of Scotland, a daughter of Nearctic. . Sandy Hawley, looming as a tough riding contender, had a choice between Almoner, the 1970 Queen’s Plate winner Almoner, or Mary of Scotland. Almoner was going for the Triple Crown, so Hawley perhaps felt obligated to  ride Almoner.

Almoner had won the Prince of Wales Stakes, but Grubb got the best of both of them, winning the Breeders’ Stakes by 9 ¾ lengths with Mary of Scotland, a filly against colts. Almoner was second.

Mary of Scotland went on to win the Wonder Where for fillies on the turf, the Nettie, and the Canadian Maturity. She had been third in the Canadian Oaks. Gardiner Farm owned her.

Grubb also rode Briartic, a son of Nearctic known as a sprinter.  He as the only Canadian-bred to defeat Kenedy Road TWICE. As a 2-year-old Briartic won the Victoria Stakes, and placed second or third in an array of other top 2-yearold stakes. He won the Marine Stakes in 1971, was third in the Plate Trial, then took the sprint route, winning the Bold Venture at Fort Erie in 1972, the Highlander and the Challenge at Fort Erie, all sprint races.

Briartic was the sire of Son of Briartic, winner of the 1982 Queen’s Plate, a very versatile horse.

Crystal balls would help in horse racing, but Grubb didn’t have one. He had the chance to ride Dance Act, a son of Norrthern Dancer, as first call for the year. He had a choice between Dance Act and Almoner. Grubb picked ‘Almoner. Almoner never won another race. Dance Act was handicap horse of the year. “Dance Act had a lot of physical problems,” Grubb said. I didn’t know if he’d last the year.”

Grubb got to ride Hall of Famer Not Too Shy one year after her regular rider, Brian Swatuck retired for the season. She was one of the best race mares in Canada, champion older filly in the country in 1970 at age four. She had lost the Canadian Oaks to Cool Mood by a head as a 3-year-old.

Owner Conn Smythe asked Grubb to ride her on first call for the season, but with an interesting condition: “You don’t keep the mount if she races good for you,” Smythe said. “You keep the mount if she wins for you.”

“An Interesting comment,” Grubb thought. But he thought it was fair. If she doesn’t win for him, “it’s not doing any of us any good, right?”

Grubb kept the mount for the year.

Not Too Shy was a big filly by Nearctic, and she won 11 stakes races. Smythe ran her everywhere, against colts, too. “He doesn’t care,” Grubb said. There was one flaw in the ointment with the grand filly. Jack Diamond from Exhibition Park in Vancouver , wanted to come up with a 2-year-old Futurity, and to get good horses he put up a purse of $100,000. Exhibition Park had only a 5/8^th mile track and few wanted to ship all the way to the west coast and run on that. But the Diamond Futurity might have been the richest race in Canada at the time. Everybody was going to go out for $100,000.

And he also put up $50,000 for the Ballerina Stakes for older mares in Canada.

So Not Too Shy went to Vancouver. “The whole race was built around her to get her out there,” Grubb said. “ A big deal.

But on the way out, something happened with the plane in Winnipeg. The airline had to unload her on the side of the ramp in her crate. But the crate was sitting on the side with planes coming in and out. And Not Too Shy threw a fit. She just flipped.

“I remember we were in the paddock and they brought the horses  over, and I’m standing there and Smythe and Jack Diamond, the three of us.

And Smythe told Diamond in the paddock “Jack if I hadn’t promised you I would bring this mare out here, I would never run her in that condition.” But he had promised and the filly ran, finishing third.

“She was all nicked up and she looked as if she had lost 200 to 300 pounds,” Grubb said.

Not Too Shy was never any good after that. This was late in the season.

Grubb rode her once more at Greenwood and she flipped in the gate. “She got claustrophobic with what happened on the plane flight,” he said. “She just fell apart.”

Grubb’s own ride was roller coasterish. While he had been leading rider in 1967 with 230 wins, he won fewer races in 1968 but earned twice as much money with win in key stakes races. The next two years were fine. But 1971 was a disaster. He battled weight problems, rode fewer races, had perhaps 50 wins. But Grubb kept coming back, gathering himself for his best.

Zaca Spirit fell into Grubb’s purview in 1973 after Avelino Gomez showed an interest in travelling out to Wiinnipeg to ride him in the $100,000 Manitoba Derby. But Gomez wanted extra money to make the trip. Gomez had ridden him to win the Coronation Futurity as a 2-year-old. The colt then went on to the Champagne Stakes and ran against Secretariat, but didn’t so much as sniff his tail, finishing ninth.

Grubb at age 25, was experiencing a lousy year, before another of his comebacks. “I had never sat on the horse, but I knew he had speed and Winnipeg is a speed track. So I said: “I’ll go.”

That year, Assiniboia Downs had also created a sweepstakes on the Derby and that explains why the purse was as large as it was. In 1973, $100,000 was big money.

Grubb put Zaca Spirit on the lead and he won. Grubb didn’t get any expenses to go.

One never knows where that carpet is going to take you. In July of 1971, Grubb inherited the mount on a really talented colt Speedy Zephyr in the Heresy Stakes when the colt’s scheduled rider, Herb Hinojosa missed a plane connection from New Jersey.

Speedy Zephyr was the 2 to 5 favourite after winning the Toronto Cup. The win looked easy. Speedy Zephyr went to the lead at the start and won by 4 ¾ lengths, setting a course record of 1:35 4/5 over the mile on the turf.

“Nothing to it,” Grubb said at the time. “It was an easy way to pick up some money. I hadn’t expected.”  Speedy Zephyr went on to win the Manitoba Derby , setting a track record of 1:48 there, too. He rode Speedy Zephyr only twice.

Grubb caught another flyer with Victorianette in the Bison City Stakes. He rode her only once and that was the day she won the Bison City and defeated Canadian Oaks winner Square Angel . Hawley had been riding both of them. Hawley took Square Angel and Grubb got Victorianette.

“It came up slop, so I ended up winning it,” Grubb said. She ran again two weeks later but Hawley rode her back. The Bison City was the only stakes race that Victorianette ever won. “And I only rode her in that race and I never rode her again.”

The carpet ride wasn’t over in 1973. Grubb rode in Secretariat’s last race, the Canadian International Championship Stakes.

“There I was. I made Secretariat famous,” Grubb joked. “I chased him home.”

Actually, Grubb was riding Roundhouse, a 121-1 shot that finished 11^th of 12. Secretariat won by 6 ½ lengths in a bitterly cold drizzle.

That year, Grubb rode for Dave Cross, but did not get to ride Kentucky Derby winner Sunny’s Halo. He rode the next-best thing, Big Destiny, who won the 1975 Marine Stakes, the Woodstock Stakes, defeating Plate winner L’Enjoleur, and the 1976 Dominion Day Handicap. Grubb had made a comeback at 29, one of several.

Trainers and owners had been good to him. Aside from Cavalaris and Windfields, and Levesque, there was Bob Tiller, Gord Huntley  (Grubb’s agent was his right hand man.) Fred Loschke, Jim Nemetz,  There were many.

And he rode quite a few winners for John Smallman, from one of London Ont’s founding families. His family had come from Ireland in the 1849s, and founded the Imperial Oil Company as well as the London Life Insurance Company. At the age of 14, John inherited much of this stock and became one of Canada’s richest young men.

“I liked him,” Grubb said. “He always had fast horses and pretty women. He was good. “

Years later, before Grubb had finished his riding career, Smallman gifted him a $100 gold Olympic coin. He still has it.

 

So uncertain the life of a jockey.

Never as uncertain as a ride that Grubb knew of.

Around Woodbine three was a rider called Gus Poirier, who worked for Carl Chapman. “He couldn’t really get going here,” Grubb said. “And so he went down to Waterford Park in West Virginia.”

Waterford Park wasn’t racing’s finest outfit. They had really cheap horses. But Waterford had something other tracks did not: they were the first track in North America to race under the lights. Not very good lights, but they attracted a different crowd in the evening.

Waterford Park, like Fort Erie, had a steep include to one side of the track. The horses coming out of the three-furlong mile chute, had a fence and a real steep include in front of the stable barns.

Poirier, in a race one night, broke from the gate, came out of the chute and make a right turn. “He hit the outside fence,” Grubb said. “Gus comes off, goes rolling down the hill and gets knocked out cold. “

Poirier landed at the bottom of the hill in the stable area.

About the same time a big old groom was coming home from the bar that might. He had had too many, and he saw a body lying in the ditch.”

So he picked the body up, took him into his tack room and let him sleep it off there for the night.”

Nobody knew what had happened to Poirier. He went missing for a day. Finally, Porier woke up and came back to reality.

There were always plenty of stories around to amuse racetrack folk.

Gil Rowntree, who worked on Cavalaris’ shed room for a short time while Grubb was there, was asked if he was going to attend the funeral of another racetracker. “Why should I go to his funeral?” retorted Rowntree. “He’s not coming to mine.”

And another Rowntreeism. Rowntree did not like travelling by plane. His reason: “I don’t mind going when it’s my time, but I don’t want to go when it’s the pilot’s time.”

Grubb remembers walking into Rowntree’s shed row one day and Rowntree said: “Stafford called me last night. I had too much to drink. I was pretty much gone.”

Rowntree said Stafford began talking and this trainer couldn’t understand anything he was saying. So he hung up on him.

Rowntree called his owner, Jack Stafford,  the next day and said, “Look, Don’t ever call me when I’m sleeping because I get up and I can’t function. I talk like I’m a drunk, so please don’t call me when I’m sleeping.”

Apparently, that worked.

Grubb got to ride a Rowntree Stable star, Royal North, “one of the better horses I ever rode,” he said. “But I didn’t get to ride her in Canada, because Robin [Platts[ was there. But I rode her twice out of town. She won twice, of course.”

Then, South Africa beckoned. This time, far from home at a time in racing history where international racing was rare, back in 1975. Robin Plats had gone the year before and the South African organizers wanted him back. But Platts really didn’t want to go. Tipping his success over onto Grub’s lap, he put his old friends’ name in the hat instead.

“That was amazing,” Grubb said. “That was really special.”

Since South African tracks didn’t attract the best horses in the world, the next-best thing was to attract name jockeys from various countries to inject colour and flair into the scene.

The feature race was the Beau Brand International, the centrepiece of the whole trip.  Grubb finished third.

The next day, the group went to Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe. “That was the best part of the trip,” Grubb said. “We went on an African safari at Lake Karibe.

The jockeys had to ride one day in Rhodesia, a race called the Plate Glass International at Borrowdale Park in Harare, which opened in 1957 with a right-handed turf course.

It just happened that the horse Grubb drew belonged to the president of the country. “Before we went into the paddock, his aides told me: “This is how you address him, when you meet him.”

After that, he said: “no problem.”  “He was just a good guy.

While talking in the paddock the president told Grubb: “You know we’ve got a beautiful country here. As long as you don’t pay attention to our policies.”

Grubb celebrated his birthday that day by not winning with the horse. He road one another horse, called Goulash in a mile and a half race, and he won by a nose, defeating a French rider, Gerald Rivas, by a nose.”

The thing that struck Grubb the most was that he got to wear the Canadian flag on his chest. “That was so special, to represent your country,” he said. “It was absolutely one of the highlights of my career-life.” He wore red with a big white maple leaf. There was a flag raising.

Grubb was riding against British legend Lester Piggott, who stayed by himself. The other jockeys stayed at the same place. The jockeys all had their own maids and chauffeurs.

“We stayed at Durban the first night, on the Indian Ocean,” Grubb said. At that time, the movie “Jaws” had just come out and was a big hit, but they refused to play if in South Africa because “they thought it would harm tourism, that there were sharks in the ocean.”

Grubb went for a walk on the Indian Ocean beach, where for the first time, he saw signs that said  “ no dogs or coloureds allowed.”

There had been a lot of rioting at the time but the jockeys saw no hint of it.

During their stay in Rhodesia, they had a tour of Victoria Falls. It reminded Grubb of the touristy Niagara Falls, except that Victoria Falls was completely low key. There were no hand rails around it. “You might as well be in the woods,” Grubb said.

Victoria Falls is an awesome sight. It’s the world’s largest falls, with a drop of 354 feet (108 metres) – twice as high as Niagara Falls – and it’s 5,604 feet (1,708 metres) wide. That’s not to forget the Devil’s Pool,  created by hundreds of thousands of years of erosion, allowing brave folk to peer over the edge from a rock lip. Not for the faint of heart.

The group that rode there included Joe Mercer, Pat Eddery, John Lutz, Steve Valdez (United States.

During Grubb’s side tours, he held a lion cub in his hands, but when the cub turned around, he raked Grubb playfully. “It wasn’t nasty but it scratched and drew a little blood.”

On safari, Grubb and friends had their own camp on Lake Karibe. There was no communication outside wireless. They got to the camp by jettying across the water.

The camp was like a wooden hut, but they are supplied with food and drink.

Out the back and at night, the hippos would come out of the water to out. There were also water buffalo.

“Then you walk around the corner and there is an elephant just behind our camp.”

What a carpet. What a ride.

Back to reality. But a good one. Grubb had the mount on a filly called Nurso and she became one of his favourites. Nurso, extremely consistent, won the Old Hat Stakes  in Detroit in 1977, and the Cinderella Stakes at Arlington that year too. Keystone Park was another stop, As a 2-year-old Murso had finished second in the Natalma and won the My Dear Stakes at Woodbine.“

“She was American bred so we had to go on the road,” Grubb said. “She was just honest and always there all the time. She was a damn nice filly.”

Grubb lived a life right out of The Iliad, reliving the Trojan War as gods and mortals clashed in a tale of honour ,and heroism. In other words, Woodbine jockeys, including Grubb, went up against the Harlem Globetrotters in a fantastical matchup.

These globetrotters weren’t chump change. They included Meadowlark Lemon. Wilt Chamberlan played with them for a while. The Globetrotters of this time are pure entertainment, but these players were masters of the basketball. The jockeys? Not so much. They included Hugo Dittfach, Robin Platts, Lloyd Duffy and Sandy Hawley.  It was a ridiculous contest.

“We laughed the whole time we were there,” Grubb said. We played them about 15 to 20 minutes. And just laughed. We got track suits and everything. It was nice.”

The scene: Maple Leaf Gardens, where so many serious contests took place.

Being the kind of rider he was, Grubb wanted a victory. One of the Trotters tried to help out. He dribbled the ball around, slid it to Grubb. Grubb shot and missed.

“Give me another chance,” Grubb asked.

So the Globetrotter dribbled the ball around, slid it over to him again. Grubb shot. Missed again.

“Oh, once more,” Grubb pleaded. ”Please, please.”

The player did it once again and Grubb missed. Yet again.

Finally the Globetrotter walked over to Grubb, took his hands, pushed them aloft, placed the ball in them. Then he lifted Grubb up to the basket. And Grubb dropped it in. Two points for the short side.

Three’s a photo floating around of this feat and it’s priceless.

“So I scored two against the Harlem Globetrotters,” Grubb beamed. Meadowlark Lemon Globetrotters.

“I was looking for some offers from the NBA, but I didn’t get any,” Grubb quipped.

If Grubb was playing the Iliad, he came closest when he went to Greece to ride. But the jockey’s event didn’t come off, and Grubb took in the sights.

He went with a group, that had a talent agency. The principal of this agency gave the jockeys his name, but said “You can call me Ulysses.

“I guess he thought if he could take us over there, he would make a whole bunch of money gambling. It just didn’t work out.”

But Grubb did see the Acropolis, and the Temple of Poseidon. He was an avid sightseer.

Once again, during a suspension, Grubb went off to England. This was during the 200^th Epsom Derby  (won by Troy) in 1979. . Air Canada sponsored a Canada Day promotion at Epsom. and coaxed some racetrack types to go over. Grubb was one. E.P. Taylor was another.

Grubb stayed at a training yard, and Epsom executives  wanted to put Grubb on a horse in a race on Derby day. “We brought you over here, so we will at least try to get you a mount,” they said.

The entire royal family was there, because it was the bicentennial Derby.

Traner Clive Brittain, notable as the trainer of Breeders Cup Turf winner Pebbles, had two horses in the first race, one the race favorite and the other, a longshot. He put Grubb on the longshot.

Before the race, in the jock’s room, one of the leading riders in England (Grubb didn’t know this at the time) who was to ride Brittain’s favourite, approached Grubb.

A stable rider, he said to Grubb : “Look, we’ve been kind of bringing this horse along slowly and we’re looking to cash a ticket on this horse.

“But we didn’t want to run him in here. Look, you can’t win the race. There are about four horses you can’t beat.  You can’t beat my horse, to begin with.

“If you can finish in the first five, go for it. But if you are way back, don’t abuse him for down the road.”

“Well, sure,” Grubb said. “I wouldn’t abuse him anyway.”

The gates opened. Grubb’s horse won.

“That was a big kick,” Grubb said.

While still at the yard where he had been staying, Grubb was asked to go over to Haydock Park and ride a horse in a sprint stake.

Epsom was way south, outside of London. Haydock Park was way up north outside of  Liverpool or  Manchester. Thirty minute drive from each.

The man Grubb had been staying with at the yard had devised a way for Grubb to go from London to almost Liverpool.

The plan went something like this: “You take a cab here and the Tube there, and this here and that there.’

“I’m thinking it was like “Trains, Planes and Automobiles” and I didn’t have John Candy or Steve Martin with me,.” Grubb said.

The next day, Grubb bumped into E.P. Taylor at the directors’ lounge at Epsom.. Grubb explained his situation.

“Don’t worry about it, Richard,” Taylor said. “We’ll take care of it.”

Taylor managed to get one of the Royal Family’s private pilots to fly Grubb to the track  by helicopter. On the way, Grubb got to take in the whole English landscape soaring above castles and manors. The helicopter landed in the infield at Haydock Park.

The bounty kept coming. While there, “some people” came up to Grubb and asked if he would ride their horse in a maiden race.

“Sure,” Grubb said. “I’m here. Why not?”

The maiden race was 1 ¾ miles. The horse’s name was Beldale Ball, a son of Nashua. And they won.

Several months later, Robert Sangster bought the horse and sent him to Australia, where he won the Melbourne Cup.

No rider but Grubb has ridden the horses that finished first in the Queen’s Plate (Royal Chocolate), the Kentucky Derby (Dancer’s Image) and the Melbourne Cup.

“I lucked into that mount and he won the Melbourne Cup,” Grubb said.

While Grubb was at Epsom, the night of the Derby, one of the riders that lied at Epsom threw a house party. Grubb was invited.  All of the English riders were there. Most of them sat playing cards. Grubb did not play cards.

In the corner of the room, who was sitting there but Steve Cauthen, who had won the US Triple Crown with Affirmed, but had moved to Europe to ride.

At the time, Cauthen was just breaking into the British scene. He became a major player later. “He was just a newbie.” Grubb said.

The English riders used to call him “Yank” affectionately. “It wasn’t mean,” Grubb said.  He was very well liked.”

Grubb and Cauthen ended up sitting off o the side, just having a gab session that night. “He is a really nice chap,” Grubb said. He remembers Cauthen telling him that he was having some difficulties with ricing in France. Not because of the racing, but because of the language, trying to interpret certain instructions.

“He was really down to earth,” Grubb said,. “I was really impressed” They chatted for an hour or two.

After riding against Britain’s best, Grubb sees Lester Piggott, Pat Eddery and Willie Carson to be outstanding riders, of course. Among the riders today, he said  Ryan Moore and William Buick are “trop drawer” And he really likes Mickael Barzalona, a French-born jockey  who has ridden for the Aga Khan, Godolphin and Andre Fabre, and has won the Epsom Derby (2100 Pour Moi), the Arc de Triomphe  (Daryz last fall) and most recently Calandagan.

“The best rider to come out of Europe? Grubb says Frankie Dettori.

“He could ride at any track any distance, any configuration, in any country in the world, be comfortable and win,” Grubb said.

All of these adventures didn’t give Grubb enough mounts to ride at home, so the next year he went to Maryland to ride.

He was at Laurel when the track staged the Washington D.D. International. Who should arrive but legendary jock Lester Piggott to ride Argument in the race.

Piggott was hard of hearing and a loner. And a star by any measure.

When Grubb had been in Africa, the kids at the Jockey Academy there would act as valets. And all these valets were fighting over Piggott. “He was a god,” Grubb said. “African racing is very much styled after English racing, and they would fight over him.”

Grubb had ridden against him in New York, Africa and England.

“He didn’t speak much to anybody,” Grubb said. “It didn’t matter to me.”

But in the jock’s room at Laurel, Piggott made a beeline straight to Grubb, who had been at the far side of the room.

Said Piggott: “Beldale Ball. He won the Cup in Australia.”

In 25 years, Piggott had never talked to Grubb, amazed that he would remember him winning a maiden race at Haydock Park.

“They said he was his own agent,” Grubb said. “He would call people and say: ‘I want to ride your horse.’”

“He would say if someone was going to run the horse in a particular race, Piggott would advise him not too. “I got a horse in there you can’t beat, so run him here, and I’ll ride him and he’ll win.” Piggott would said.

“He had to be so astute to pick that up. He hadn’t seen me since 1975 and this was 1980. Five years. He spotted me. Obviously he watched that race somehow. And he picked up and made a beeline.

“Piggott was just a loner. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just the way it was. The guy really had his finger on everything over there. “

Beldale Ball had won the Melbourne Cup only a few days before Piggott came to Maryland.

Grubb stumbled onto another slow year at home in Toronto again, so off he went to Maryland, particularly to some transplanted Canadians, Bobby Brace and Ronnie Raymond, who really helped him when Grubb arrived.

“I got lucky,” Grubb said. I got hooked up with trainer Bernie Bond. I had a very good winter.”

Circumstance helped because Rudy Turcotte had been his first-string rider.

Bond had a 2-year0old, Cure the Blues that had been one of the Derby favourites. Turcotte had been riding him as a 2-year-old and followed the horse to the United States, hoping to stay on him as a 3-year-old.

“I really got to ride him one day, too,” Grubb said: “Rudy took off one day, got sick. I had just got to Maryland, just starting to ride for Bernie.

“Later in the day, the mount came open. But they couldn’t get hold of me. Bill Passsmore rode the horse and won. Then Rudy rode him back. “

Grubb rode a number of horses for Bert and Diana Firestone. And he had a solid winter. And he had a special Spectacular Bid moment.

Bond and Grubb were at Bowie, and the powerful grey was training for his last race of the year. It ended up being a walkover in the 1980 Woodward Stakes in New York. It was his last race and by then, he had no competition. He ran the 1 ¼ miles by himself, finishing in 2:02 4/5.

Bowie Racetrack barns were all at the back of the property, like Woodbine. But there were two barns at the frontside. The two barns sat side by side.

The only two people that were in these barns were Bernie Bond and Bud Delp, trainer of Spectacular Bid. Grubb rode one or two of Delp’s horses, but young Ronnie Franklin was the stable rider.

By this point, Spectacular Bid was a celebrity, for good reason. His exploits were explosive, winning easily, carrying heavy imposts. Every day after training was done, horse people, politicians and movie stars would come to the barn, wanting a photo with Spectacular Bid. “Buddie Delp was very accommodating,” Grubb said. “He was such a star.”

One morning after all the training was done, and the track was closed, something special happened. Nobody knew about it but Bond and Delp. Grubb didn’t.

Bond said to Grubb: “Come on. Let’s go.”

Spectacular Bid was going to do his final work before the Woodward.

They followed the big grey out to the track. They got to an empty grandstand. “Nobody knew about it because the track was closed,” Grubb said. “They harrowed the track especially for him to do the work. The only people there were clockers.”

Bobby Smith was the exercise boy that worked him. He backed Spectacular Bid up the wrong way, and turned him around. He was to go six furlongs.

“So he broke him off,” Grubb said. “He had him way off the fence, 12 to 15 feet off the fence. The horse has got his ears pricked and he’s just galloping and loping along, halfway in the middle of the racetrack all by himself.”

The rider reached down and hit him two or three times, just to make him finish and gallop out.

Bond was the perfect person to watch this workout. “He was a clock man,” Grubb said. “He was an army man. He was known as one of the top trainers of 2-year-olds fin the country for years. That was his reputation. But he was a solider. He laid them on the wood and clocked them, drilled them. When I rode for him, 95 per cent of his horses, you had the same orders, every horse” Put him on the lead. Every figgin’ horse. Put him on the lead.”

“We’re watching Bid work and he looks over and he’s got his watch and he says: “Hell, what do you think?”

Grubb said: “eleven and change.” (1:11 and change)

“Are you friggin’ nuts?” Bond said. “He went in 10 3/5.” (1:10 3/5)

“And he was doing nothing, by himself, in the middle of the racetrack,” Grubb said. “I’ll never forget that.”

It was a very special moment. Only a handful of people were around to witness it.

“He was so good, Buddy was always there [welcoming fans] ,” Grubb said. He just enjoyed that horse. “

Turcotte came back and Grubb lost his job with Bond. Turcotte and Bond were like father and son, Grubb said.

While in Maryland, Grubb got to have another glance at greatness. He attended Sugar Ray Leonard’s training camp while the boxer was preparing for the Roberto Duran rematch in Lanham, Maryland.“Crazy fast hands,” Grubb said,

Grubb returned to Ontario from Maryland for the 1981 season and was trying to get his business moving again. The Canadian Oaks was coming up. Freddie Scott was his agent and they were looking to ride a horse in that race.

Grubb had ridden for Jake Nemett and he had a filly called Regent Miss. She was a longshot., Nobody was fighting over her.

Grubb picked her up. He looked over her previous races in films. “And it looked like she had speed but she couldn’t really carry her speed long.”

Grubb could see that one or two of her races, and they were two-turn races. “She seemed to have enough speed to get herself in trouble on the first turn,” He said. “She then she just discombobulated, unhinged and that was it.”

“So I thought, well, when I looked at the form, said “There is not really a true mile and an eighth filly in this race. Bill Graham had the favourite that year. Sandy [Hawley] came up and rode her.”

Grubb decided to just drop out of there just get around the first turn comfortably..

“So I ended up way back. I didn’t want to use her speed, because she didn’t have enough stamina to carry it. Not a mile and an eighth.

“So I’ll just try to get her to finish if I can do it. If I use her the first part, I’m not going to have anything left.”

He decided to reverse her form, a to see if she would finish. And she did.

Regent Miss went off at 170 to 1 and Grubb was thinking: “I kid around sometimes: What kind of a horse is 170 to 1? One that has three legs? Has it got a crutch? “

He doesn’t believe he had ever ridden a horse at that price. He’s certain he’s ridden a 99 to 1 shot, although the board doesn’t show odds higher than 99 to 1.

At the time, Regent Miss’s win payout of $345.80 was the highest in Woodbine history for a single win ticket. Grubb’s ingenuity and experience made it happen.

Grubb’s other Oaks win was Reasonable Win in 1975, another big win that meant a lot to him.

Business slowed again, so Grubb headed for Vancouver in 1984. He loved the city he almost pondered relocating there permanently. “You could go anywhere in Vancouver and you’d be 10 to 12 minutes away from wilderness,” Grubb said.

When he got there, jockey Chris Loseth was doing well, but Grubb began to lock up most of the better horses.

There was a day when Grubb walked into the jockey’s room when he found actor Mickey Rooney holding court. His stories coloured the air.  Grubb met him one other time after that.

That day there was a horse running called Mickarooney..Grubb wanted him to sign on the name, but “he signed it where he wanted it,” he said.

When Grubb first went out to Exhibition Park, Dale Helmsley and Rob Lnadry also went out. The track was going to set them up with agents. Helmsley ended up on the top 3-year-old out there, but it was hard work. Landry couldn’t get going despite getting on 20 horses in the morning  but Grubb didn’t want to do that. He had to focus on reducing weight.

Landry returned to Woodbine and then won a couple of Sovereign Awards and a Queens’ Plate.

Grubb was slow to start, but then leading trainer Harold Barroby came to Grubb and told him that he wanted to put him on some horses but could never get hold of his agent. Grubb switched agents, and immediately won three races. “And then everything went pretty good from there,” he said.

Grubb picked up the best 3-year-old out there: Keep Whistling (a horse that had raced in Ontario and was sold to Western interests.) When Grubb went to ride him in the Canadian Derby in Calgary, Let’s Go Blue, runner-up in the Queen’s Plate that year, showed up. “You couldn’t beat him,” Grubb said. “He was too much the best.”

Let’s Go Blue also won the B.C. Derby and once again Grubb’s horse finished second to him. “I could have won both of those Derbies, but they sent him out. He was in a different league”

Grubb’s final stakes win was with Time Lap in the Bunty Lawless Stakes in 1987. He retired from riding in 1989.

Then he spent 24 years as a steward in Ontario. “I would say that for 24 years, I worked on a daily basis with some of the finest people you will ever meet,” Grubb said,

“Being an official is walking a tight rope. You make one party happy and the other not so happy. I always felt that I treated everyone equally,” he said.

“As a board, we were fair and consistent. The key word in sports officiating is “consistency.” If I am penalized and the next guy does the same and is not, then I’m upset. Are we infallible? No. but the vast number of decisions are not that difficult.

“There are some calls that are on the edge. They are judgement calls.”

He remembers when he started, an experienced, old-school steward, Dave Sommerville told him: “If you have to use the word: “I think,” you don’t make a change.” That stuck with me.

“You make your racing decisions on the film evidence, as that is what you use at the appeals level. You can see something with the naked eye, but the video must support it.

“Politics aside, I enjoyed most of my time as an official.”

There were times when some riders were upset that Grubb did not show more leniency, since he had been a rider himself. “I certainly understood how competitive it got between the fences,” Grubb said. “But being fair and consistent was optimal.

“If a rider was on a tough horse and having difficulty, all I needed to see was a reasonable effort to correct the situation. If such was the case, I would never support a suspension, even if a disqualification was in order. When I  began, all suspensions were an automatic 10 days with no appeal process in place. When I was leading rider, I served 50 out of a 190 racing calendar under suspension. They were warranted.”

Now those 50 days would be 15, he said. He supports the appeal process as long as there’s a valid reason to do so. “After a while, it became such that it was abused far too often,” he said.

“Stewards have many responsibilities: the betting public, the horsemen, management, racing fans, the media and backstretch workers to whom they must answer on a daily basis.”

Satisfaction in doing the job well is the biggest reward, he said. “Accolades are as common as hens’ teeth.

“Like a hockey referee, you know you’re doing a good job when no one seems to notice you are even there.”

He brings a perspective to the racing scene, having seen so much, having done so much, having ridden to the farthest star.  What horse would he like to have ridden?

Dr. Fager.

Dr. Fager’s most famous victory was in the 1968 Washington Park Handicap in which he set a world mile record of 1:32 1/5 – while carrying 134 pounds. Dr. Fager was Horse of the Year in 1968, and is the only horse to have locked up four titles in one year (champion handicap horse, champion springer, co-champion grass horse.)

In a 1998 poll of top 100 Race horses of the 20^th century, Dr. Fager ranked sixth behind Man O’ War and Secretariat.

“To have that kind of brilliant speed beneath you is just amazing,” Grubb said. “When he ran a mile in :32, he was totally eased the last part of it. And he didn’t have to make the lead. I’ve watched different films of him when he set the world record for a mile. He had an outside post and was laying sixth or seventh the early part of it.

“And I saw a race he won in New York, a two-turn race and he was third or fourth going into the first turn. With his speed, everyone paints him as a wild horse, that he had to leave. He just had that kind of brilliant speed. “

The best horse to ever race in North America?

Grubb’s answer will surprise you. It’s not Secretariat – although he’s a big fan of the chestnut – and it’s not Dr. Fager, nor Spectacular Bid.

It’s Kelso, five times Horse of the Year . The runty little bad-tempered gelding carried 130 pounds or more 24 times. And he defeated more champions and Hall of Famers than any other, Grubb said.

He set nine track records.

The most spectacular reason that shouts Kelso’s greatness was his effort in the 1964 Washington D.C. International, only 11 days after he had run the two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup in record time.

Kelso tackled 1 ½ miles on the turf in the International at Laurel, where to get the distance in, horses had to navigate THREE  turns.

In this race, he ran the 1½ miles one-fifth of a second FASTER than Secretariat did in the Belmont Stakes. “It’s hard to believe he ran three turns one-fifth of a second faster than Secretariat’s two-turn Belmont Stakes,” Grubb said. “Take that to the bank. It’s the fastest 1 ½ miles ever run on a mile racetrack. And he beat a Hall of Famer, Gun Bow by five lengths.”

Kelso is rated fourth on the tally of top 100 horses of the 20^th century.

Kelso’s story is unusually amazing. “He was small,” Grubb said. “He was scrawny. He weighed 900 and some pounds. He was like Overskate. He was barely 15 hands. Maybe 15.1 or 15.2. He was nasty. He wasn’t a real pedigreed horse. They gelded him and he was still nasty, “

Kelson had so many fans who wanted their photos taken with him, that his people had to travel with a double to give him a break. People would get photos of themselves with a horse that looked like Kelso. But that wasn’t actually Kelso.

“My brother ran into him once,” Grubb said. “He was down in Maryland, taking some horses down, and they stopped at Bohemian Stable. And Kelso just happened to be there.

“He was in the barn. Grubb’s brother looked at him and said ‘he didn’t look like anything.’ And he said he went over to pat him but Kelso tried to grab him.”

Grubb never saw him race, but he had one moment at Hialeah, the year he first went there in 1965.

“We were stabled at Hialeah, a couple of barns down from Carl Hanford, who had Kelson,” Grubb said. “And he was looking to run him that winter. I never saw him train or do anything, but one day I was coming off the racetrack at Hialeah and horses were going in one side and coming out on the other side, and I was coming out.

“And there were all these people standing around, And it was almost like a hush, and I’m thinking: ‘What’s going on here?,’ and I looked over and here was this scrawny horse. And I heard somebody say: ‘That’s Kelso’.”

It was the only time Grubb was ever around or close to him. The scene was so quiet. Unless somebody had blurted out: “That’s Kelso”  he would never have known. “And he just looked like nothing.”

During his tenure as a steward, Grubb was awarded the Avelino Gomez award, which recognizes jockeys who had made a contribution to racing in Canada. It is a prized trophy.

He says his two best trophies are his children, Casey and Jordan.

His ultimate prize was in being inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2024. He was inducted 27 years after his friend, Robin Platts.

He retired from being a steward in 2013, he told the crowd assembled at the Mississauga Convention Centre. And to laughter: “From 2013 to now, I’ve been preparing for this speech.”

He took the crowd back to a shedrow at Woodbine in 1965. Barn 10,

“It’s 5:30 in the morning,” Grubb said. “It’s pitch dark out. The sun has not yet kissed the sky. I’m a teenager walking down the shedrow, just getting ready for my morning chores and who do I see?

“I see Lou Cavalaris. On his left Jimmy Bannon, on his right, Robin Platts. There’s a groom leading Victoria Era, ridden by Avelino Gomez. Behind them another groom, leading Cool Reception, ridden by Gil Rowntree, all future Hall of Famers,. And I’m working with them every morning.”

And finally in 2024, the scene came full circle for Grubb. “I get to join these seven. I get to reunite and join them again, but under a different shed row: the hall of fame shedrow. It may be a little late but tonight I’m Number eight,”

His Aunt Bea Webster, who was 99 years old told him: “Richard, I’ve been waiting all my life for this moment.”

Grubb wishes he had said to her: “Aunt Bea, I’ve been waiting longer.”

But his carpet ride wasn’t over. Nobody said the ride doesn’t come without lurches and bumps and dips. In August of 2024, he’d hit the heights with his induction into the Hall of Fame with family and friends around him – and an extra table of them that surprised him by showing up. Life was good.

But several weeks later, he found he had trouble swallowing – and was diagnosed with stage four cancer of the esophagus.

There had been no warning signs.

“Talk about raining on someone’s parade,” he said.

His odds weren’t great. There was a 15 per cent chance that he would live a year, and 15 per cent each subsequent year.

But Grubb rides to win. Two years later, he’s deemed stable. “Every day is challenging,” he said. But he’s doing remarkably well. He rollerblades four kilometres every morning. Eating and swallowing is difficult, but he has maintained weight. He’s managed to keep his weight steady.

“I couldn’t eat because I was a jockey and now again, I can’t eat,” he said. “Not fair!”

Grubb has been supported on this part of the trip by the Walker Clinic in St. Catharines, Ont., which has “the most accommodating staff in the world,” he said. He has support from family and friends. His partner of 16 years, Janet Montgomery, has been the wind beneath his wings.

“I have much to look forward to,” he said. He wants to see Buffalo hoist the Super Bowl  and the Stanley  Cup in 2027. His latest battle is an inspiration.

Meanwhile, the Orioles and the hummingbirds settle about his yard, a stone’s throw from the twinkling waters of Crystal Beach. Grubb’s ride is far from over.