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Joey
Described by biographer Leon Jacques as “an ugly duckling with a Roman nose and a rat tail,” Joey wasn’t much to look at. Nonetheless, he became one of the most popular Canadian runners of all time, winning both hearts and races with a come-from-behind style similar to that of his contemporary Malicious. Joey was bred in Alberta by Arthur Layzell and sold as a suckling in a package deal with his dam Aileen Hoey for one hundred and eighty dollars -- a trifling sum even by Depression-era standards. The purchaser was C. L. “Louis” Jacques, who found he had made a good bargain after the scrawny youngster got to the races. The little son of Dr. Joe won the Winnipeg Futurity and was considered the best juvenile in Western Canada in 1932. Joey was unable to follow up on that promise in 1933, however, as he caught pneumonia and barely survived. Although he had lost considerable weight, he recovered enough to resume training, placing in the Alberta and Manitoba derbies against his peers and the Whittier Park Handicap against older males before the close of the season. Joey could not do much at four, but at five, the “Pony Express” came into his own. He won nine of eighteen starts, including one streak of eight straight victories, and was generally considered Canada’s top handicap horse that season. Over the following two years, Joey expanded his territory, running races at Bay Meadows and Santa Anita as well as in Canada. While he was never a menace to the top horses on the Southern California circuit, he was a consistent and game competitor and became well liked there. Unfortunately, wear and tear began catching up with him, and he was lame when he returned to Winnipeg in June 1938. Joey then began an odyssey that took him from Canada to Mexico and through several owners. It began with his appearance in, of all things, a $700 claiming race rather than the Speers Handicap in which he had originally been entered. If Jacques had been hoping the horse would get an easy spot without being claimed, he was disappointed, for Joey was promptly claimed by the partnership of trainer Ernie Heavener and bloodstock agent A. H. Smith. A month later, the horse was purchased by H. A. Bruns of Spokane, Montana, who retained Heavener as trainer. Heavener gave his charge a long rest, and when Joey reappeared in 1939, he seemed his old self again, bringing the cries of “here comes Joey!” from track announcers and “there goes Joey!“ from the crowds once more. In twenty-three starts in Canada, California, and Mexico, Joey won eleven races and placed in ten more, earning an unofficial title as the best horse racing in Northern California that season. He was also named horse of the meeting at the Agua Caliente racetrack in Mexico. Joey continued running -- and winning -- as a ten-year-old in 1940, taking the Western Canada Handicap that year. He was voted the most popular horse in British Columbia that season, but for unknown reasons was once against exposed to the claiming box. Predictably, the old horse was haltered, this time by Riverview Stable from a $1200 claimer. But Bruns recovered the horse within a month, taking second with him in the Spokane Derby at Playfair. Even Joey couldn’t defy time forever, however, and his aging legs finally proved unequal to the task of further racing at age eleven. He was retired after finishing last in three starts in Mexico and was brought home to Winnipeg, where $18,000 was raised for the wartime Victory Bonds campaign at his retirement ceremony. But the old horse did not enjoy a long retirement; away from the routine of training and the racetrack atmosphere he loved, he seemed to give up, became ill, and died. He was buried at the old Victoria Park racecourse near Calgary, Alberta. Joey became one of the first members of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, entering in 1976. In ten seasons of racing, he started 181 times, winning forty-one races and placing in seventy-seven more. A true son of the Depression era, he had traveled wherever there was a little money to be made, making appearances everywhere from Ontario to Mexico and from California to West Virginia, and was at one time Canada‘s leading money winner. He will never be remembered among racing’s great, but if heart is the true measure of a racehorse, then Joey can stand with racing’s best. © 2005 by Avalyn Hunter |
