Kindness the key to Danelson’s decades of Assiniboia Downs success

We thought last year was trainer Gary Danelson’s swan song at Assiniboia Downs. We were wrong.

The 88-year-old all-time leading trainer at Assiniboia Downs was in the winner’s circle Tuesday night as an owner after winning the 96th running of the $50,000 Winnipeg Futurity with Omaha Warrior, trained by Jared Brown.

“It felt pretty good,” said Danelson. “I’d never won the Futurity. And I’ve never won the Manitoba Derby.”

Danelson left training last year when his grey speedball Kate’s Princess bumped him into the wall of her stall and broke his hip. That and facing two forms of cancer, one in remission, ended his training days, but he couldn’t stay away from his home away from home. He was back this year with a horse Brown purchased for him in the 2024 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale for $20,000.

Although his mind is sharp, Danelson uses a walker now, and everyone waited for him to make it to the winner’s circle and find a place where he could get some support while posing for the win picture. Joining him were his longtime partner Bonnie McCrory, who also co-owns Omaha Warrior, along with trainer Brown, Manitoba Jockey Club Chairman Dr. Norm Elder and his wife Lorena, jockey Antonio Whitehall, and groom Dodie Chmilowsky.

For a man who has won 1,255 races at the Downs since his first victory in 1959 with Coherence, a $400 purchase, this Futurity win held special meaning. In all those years of training two-year-olds, the Futurity had eluded him.

“I quit taking two-year-olds when I was probably in my 60s,” said Danelson. The champions he conditioned read like a who’s who of Assiniboia Downs royalty. Electric Fever won the Victoria Day Stakes three consecutive years from 1984 to 1986. His Smart Figure and game rival Smoky Cinder engaged in one of the most memorable Gold Cup battles in track history in 1998, with Smart Figure prevailing by a nose.

“That’s probably one of my favourite memories,” said Danelson. “They went head-and-head all the way around. I was right at the wire, and when they turned for home, the announcer said, ‘This is where it all begins!’ And they finished like that. I thought I got beat.”

But he didn’t.

Danelson’s specialty was finding bargains and turning them into stakes winners. Sals Imp, purchased for just $250, won three races and had three seconds in six starts one year, then won seven of 11 the following season. Baladi, who cost $25,000 with knees that needed constant attention, won six in a row in 1981, including the Gold Cup when he upset heavily favoured Alberta shipper Ky Alta.

Danelson’s attention to detail and patience with horses who needed fixing, physically or mentally, defined his training philosophy. “You have to keep your horses happy,” he once said. “Kindness is key.”

It’s that kindness that explains why Danelson is still in the winner’s circle all these years later, now as an owner. When Brown called from Kentucky with an opportunity, he jumped at a chance to stay in the game.

“Jared was in Kentucky and he called me,” said Danelson. “He said, ‘Gary, I’ve got room to haul one more two-year-old. Would you like to have one? There’s a two-year-old I really like.’ And I told him, well, go ahead and bid on it. I said, you can go up to $20,000. And that’s just what he sold for.”

Brown, who won his second consecutive Winnipeg Futurity, knew he had something special in the Omaha Beach colt. “I thought he was the best one I had all spring,” he said.

On Futurity night, jockey Antonio Whitehall gave Omaha Warrior a perfect trip, stalking a duel between the favourite and second choice before unleashing a powerful rally to draw off and win by 4 1/4 lengths. The victory gave Brown a 1-2 finish as his other trainee, Wecanonlyimagine, finished second.

Through it all, Danelson has had the support of McCrory, his partner of 26 years whom he met at his cousin’s bar in Scobey, Mont., in February 1999. It was a blind date.

“I’d never seen him before in my life,” said McCrory. “I thought, gosh, that’s a nice shirt he’s got on. He was holding a rose and a box of candy.”

“And she didn’t even offer me a piece of candy,” laughed Danelson.

They’ve weathered health challenges together, and at the same time. McCrory broke her hip the day after Christmas, just months after Danelson’s injury from Kate’s Princess.

“We were both on walkers,” said Danelson, with the humour that has carried him through decades in racing. That sense of humour has been constant throughout Danelson’s time at the Downs. He still chuckles about the water bucket prank he says he still didn’t pull on me back in 1977 in an ASD tackroom.

After getting drenched himself the day before, Danelson knocked on my door at 5:30 a.m. saying “Wake up! You’re late!” I quickly ran down the hall to the washroom, and when I opened the door, a bucket of water came rushing down on my head.

“I got drenched from it the day before, so I wanted to see somebody else get it,” grinned Danelson. “But I didn’t put it there.” A fact that is still debated today.

As Omaha Warrior heads to former top trainer Jack Robertson’s farm for the winter, thoughts turn to next summer and the possibility of the Manitoba Derby, the only other stakes race Danelson has never won at the Downs, and ASD historian Bob Gates backed that up.

“I don’t know if we’re even going to run in it,” said Danelson. “But getting him ready for the race will be no problem.”

Danelson came to Assiniboia Downs in the fall of 1958 and has missed only five years since. He compiled a career record of 1,293 wins, 1,100 seconds, and 959 thirds from 6,519 starts for purse earnings of US$5,982,125 and a 20 per cent win clip as a trainer.

“I’m 88 years old and I’ve got a lot wrong with me,” he said. “It’s hard to tell if I’ll even be around.”

On one magical September evening last week at Assiniboia Downs, Gary Danelson was around, and exactly where he belonged: in the winner’s circle.