Live racing winding down at RMTC
With two weekends of live racing left this year, the upcoming weekend of live races at Rocky Mountain Turf Club will feature some of the best horses in the area. Post time for today, Sunday and holiday Monday is 1:15 p.m. with seven races each day today and Sunday and six races on Thanksgiving Monday.
The Rufus Goodstriker Memorial is one of the feature races this weekend. Rufus was a Hall of Fame Horseman and a master of several other sports in the Southern Alberta area. Thanksgiving Monday will feature the turkey with all the trimmings, which has become a fan favourite at Rocky Mountain Turf Club.
I have interviewed several veteran trainers at Rocky Mountain Turf Club over the years and to a person, they all say the same thing. “We need to have new blood come into horse racing”.
One of the, “New Blood” entries into the world of horse racing is a young transplant from Ontario by the name of Travis Robson.
Travis grew up on an acreage in Ontario where his father was a farrier and bred a variety of different horses. Travis was riding horses at the age of four and competed in barrel racing at the tender age of eight.
When Travis was ten years old, he had his very own horse, but his father didn’t have time to do the farrier work the horse required in Travis’ mind, so he did the farrier work himself.
Travis says in the beginning he learned by trial-and-error through watching people. He set himself up to be a sponge in everything involving horses.
Travis learned at an early age what to do and what not to do. He also broke his first horse at the age of ten, which in itself is an incredible accomplishment.
Travis became one of the more sought-after farriers in his area, as well as a well respected trainer of dressage and barrel-racing horses.
Travis tells the story of a wellto-do family in the area who spent $100,000 on a potentially champion dressage horse. Unfortunately for them, a farrier had made the horse lame with a bad farrier job. The people who owned the horse wanted to find a good home for him and Travis bought the horse for a dollar.
Travis realized the mistakes that were made with the horse, made the necessary adjustments and within two weeks he had the horse back into training. Eventually the horse regained his championship status and won all of the major awards there were to win in the area.
He eventually sold the horse for $60,000. The horse was sold a year later for close to $200,000.
It seemed Travis had everything going in the right direction until a divorce from his ex-wife came about and Travis was feeling down and out.
A friend of his from Alberta thought it would be good for him to get away for a while and invited him to a barrel racing tournament in Olds.
Travis accepted the invitation and was blown away by the beauty of Alberta and the amazing horse people that lived here. He immediately sprung into action and moved to Alberta.
He initially went to work for a stable in Medicine Hat and then moved to a stable near Coaldale.
This is where his introduction to thoroughbreds came into play, as several trainers had their horses at the facility for early spring training.
Travis began shoeing those horses and got to know some of the trainers from the race track. He then came out to the race track and his life has never been the same. He was absolutely taken with the race-horse industry and the many characters that make up the fabric of said industry.
Eventually Travis became a half owner in a race horse, “John’s Quest”, who is currently racing at Rocky Mountain Turf Club.
He is working under the tutelage of veteran trainer, Gail McConaghie. Travis is the first to admit that training thoroughbred race horses is a whole different world from barrell and dressage horses and is grateful to Gail for her knowledge and support.
One day Travis would like to train himself, but in the meantime is open in his usual sponge-like way to learning everything he can from Gail about training race horses.
Travis is the exclusive farrier at Rocky Mountain Turf Club for successful trainers such as Lyle Magnuson, Dennis Speaks and Janice Sather. Travis also returns for ten days to Ontario every six weeks to work with his long-time clients.
You will undoubtedly be hearing the name, Travis Robson, over and over at Rocky Mountain Turf Club, as his ultimate success is obvious.