Leg 2 of Marathon Series highlights weekend at RMTC
With the first two weekends of the fall race meet in the books at RMTC., the action will now most certainly turn up the volume. This Sunday is Leg 2 of the Marathon Starter Allowance Series and it is wide open for speculation as to who the winning horse will be.
The savvy veteran, Bull Time, upset, Master’s Bluff, in the first leg of the series.
Master's Bluff, trained by Nellie Piegeau, had been a rock star at Evergreen Park in Grande Prairie this summer, winning two of the three Marathon Series races, plus another stakes race to boot.
Bull Time, a nine-year-old veteran, is on the road to his best year ever and will be considered the favourite with Master’s Bluff the second favourite. However, there is some competition to consider in here as, Cowboysteviewonder is the only horse who beat Master’s Bluff at Evergreen Park and is is ready for the rematch.
Also entered is, Magnetic Jazz, coming in from Winnipeg, along with, B.B. Prince of Scat, another Winnipeg invader.
There are six races tonight with post time at 6 p.m., while Saturday goes with eight races and Sunday has seven races. Post time for Saturday and Sunday is 1:15 p.m.
There is already a buzz regarding the return of the Indian Relay Races to Rocky Mountain Turf Club next weekend.
The event promises to be bigger and better than ever, so this event will definitely be something to look forward to.
One of the more interesting trainers at Rocky Mountain Turf Club is Bucky Stockwell.
Stockwell’s father was a cowboy and Bucky picked up the art of working with horses at a very young age.
Bucky had a fondness for cutting and reigning horses, and showed them as well. As a young man, Bucky met Jerry Stojan, who got Bucky into the horse racing business with a quarter-horse.
Bucky jokes that his first wife never liked Jerry for the introduction into horse racing. Bucky says she’s no longer his wife and he’s still racing horses. Bucky laughs and says that was in 1977.
The first place Bucky raced a horse was Teepee Creek and from there went to Grande Prairie. He then sent that horse to Kenewick, Wash.
This was a filly he bought at a yearling sale. When he showed the papers to Stojan, Jerry responded with, “We should be running this horse”.
Bucky says he didn’t have a clue what he was doing and gives all the credit to Stojan for his help. He wound up sending the horse to Herb McNally and returned to farming in Whitecourt.
In 1979 Bucky moved to Salmon Arm, B.C., and ran in the B circuit of British Columbia.
In 1982, Stojan passed away and Bucky took a couple of his horses for his wife and ran them in Alberta.
He came to Lethbridge every fall and he liked it in Lethbridge. Horse racing died out in B.C. in 2002 and Bucky came to Alberta full time again.
In 2005 Bucky and his wife Bev moved to New Mexico and Bucky proudly states that he won races drug-free in places like Albuquerque and Rio Dosa.
Bucky sold out in 2012 and came back to Alberta because his wife Bev had lost her father and they wanted to be closer to Bev’s mother, so they bought an acreage in Camrose to achieve that.
Last year they sold their place in Camrose and now Bucky says they live in an RV and have a six-horse trailer for the horses. Bucky now plans on going to Los Alamitos this winter and try his luck out and enjoy the winter weather.
Bucky says he is lucky to have a wife, who can train horses as well, as it affords him the opportunity to to be at one track with horses, while Bev can be at another track with their horses.
Bucky and Bev Stockwell are two of the good people in horse racing and we're lucky to have them.