BC Racebook Newsletter - June 14, 2022

Become a Horse Owner for only $300/year!

Hastings Race Club

Your Hastings Racing Club membership includes:

Reserved grandstand seating in the Hastings Racing Club section on club’s race dates
Accompanied paddock access before your races on club’s race dates
Free program on club’s race dates
Accompanied backstretch access to watch your horses in training
Orientation event
All costs associated with training, vet, blacksmith, stabling, entry fees
Updates about your horses, plus racing and ownership information

The Hastings Racing Club is a low cost, low risk way to get involved in horse racing and have some fun.
If you have any questions, please contact hastingsracingclubs@gmail.com

Mendoza Stakes Winner Shamra Ridden by Efrain Hernandez (Photo by Michael Bye)

HASTINGS’ LEADING TRAINER EDGAR MENDOZA
LEARNED HIS TRADE FROM THE VERY BEST

By Greg Douglas – Dr. Sport

Edgar Mendoza’s first visit to Hastings Racecourse in 2006 as a wide-eyed teenager didn’t go well. “I went home to Mexico City after three months,” he says. “I came to be part of a program for grooms. It was all so strange to me.”

When he returned to Vancouver the following year with a couple of buddies, Edgar was introduced to Tracy and Chris Loseth. “I worked with them for 10 years at Canmor Farms,” Mendoza says. “It changed my life. I started breaking horses with Chris and Tracy taught me how to run a spotless barn.”

Today, at 34, he refers to Tracy as ‘Mom’ and Chris as ‘Daddy’. Edgar Mendoza is the current Leading Trainer at Hastings who’s won 11 races in 36 starts this year, including four $50,000 stakes: the Jack Diamond, Sadie Diamond. River Rock Casino and Ross McLeod.

“When Chris and I first met Edgar, he stood out with a friendly quality about him,” says Tracy. “He was like a sponge; he wanted to soak up and learn everything it would take to make him a successful trainer.” Eventually, Edgar also worked with trainers Mark Cloutier and Dino Condilenios at Canmor before springing onto the Hastings scene as an assistant trainer under Christine Ammann, Tracy’s niece, in 2019. The two are still together in reversed roles with Christine happily working as Edgar’s assistant.

“We have 30-35 horses for a lot of clients,” Edgar says. “Working with Christine, I can say I am 100 per cent happy.” What will make him even happier is if Tracy and her Hall of Fame husband Chris visit his mother and brother in Mexico City this winter.

“It’s on our bucket list,” Tracy says. “Edgar is a very proud young man and we are very proud of him.”

BAILEY ON THE BACKSTRETCH

By Bailey Williams

Once you own an off-track thoroughbred, you are hooked. Then to go on and win multiple championships in both the hunter and jumper ring your love and admiration for the breed continues to grow.

Twin sisters Lisa and Laura Anderson are the perfect example of how these situations develop. They began managing and coaching their own schooling program consisting of more than 25 students and a lesson horse string containing mostly rescues.

Lisa and Laura are no strangers to the horse community. Laura captured the team’s maiden victory in 2019 with Ware’s My Jennie and from there they continued to build their racing stable with both taking their share of on-track victories.

The champion filly U Did It was purchased for $1,500 and has taken them on a wonderful journey with four victories in five career starts. From the moment Lisa purchased U Did It under the guidance of her dad John – the Anderson family racing patriarch - Laura good-naturedly said to Lisa: “Don’t bring that thing home”.

Fortunately, Lisa didn’t listen. In the months following the sale it took three attempts to break her and be able to start her training career. That is when they came to realize U Did It needed to be partnered with the right barn to handle her and handed the training responsibilities to Edgar Mendoza.

Although you can find Laura in the Mendoza barn five days a week, you won’t see her brushing “Molly”. Laura leaves that special bonding for horse and trainer.

As U Did It continues to grow a public fan base with each start, the twin sisters are comfortable in knowing what Molly enjoys more than anything is being turned out and pampered at the farm in the company of well-loved horses and ponies.

TWO DATES REMAIN ON FRASER DOWNS SCHEDULE
WITH PICK 5 CARRYOVER UP FOR GRABS

Just two Monday night cards remain on the Fraser Downs Racetrack and Casino standardbred schedule: June 20 and June 27 both with 6 p.m. post times.

Racing will resume at Fraser Downs for the Fall/Winter schedule on Wednesday, September 7.

Should the Pick 5 not be solved with a single ticket winner on June 20, there will be a mandatory Pick 5 Jackpot on Monday, June 27. The Pick 5 carryover currently sits at just under $30,000.

Also on the June 27 closing day, BC Racebook members will be on hand providing wagering information and distributing popular BC Racebook swag.

Greener Pastures – BC Standardbred Horse Adoption Society is a non-profit organization founded in 2003. Here at Greener Pastures our goal is to find long term forever homes for retired race horses. We wish to accomplish this by giving these horses a solid foundation in their new careers and placing them into homes that are suitable for them as they begin their new life with their new families.

The Standardbred is an ideal recreational horse with a calm disposition,sensible mind and a friendly outlook! These are the attributes that have enabled Greener Pastures to adopt out over 50 horses per year. These numbers alone are testament to the suitability of the Standardbred as a riding horse.