Real Grace a real winner

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/07/2020 (2072 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Call it what you will, but when Real Grace came soaring home to win the 46th running of the $25,000 Derby Trial at Assiniboia Downs on Monday for 78-year-old Jean McEwen and her partners, you got the feeling the laws of nature were balancing the books.

Sent off as the second choice in the mile-long Trial, Real Grace duelled outside favoured Gambler for half the race before drawing away to win by five lengths under jockey Rico Walcott. The first victory of his young career, it also stamped the three-year-old Mine Shaft gelding as the local horse to beat in the 72nd running of the Manitoba Derby on Aug. 3.

Owned by McEwen, her daughter Bette Holtman, U.S.-based trainer Bernell Rhone and local trainer Shelley Brown, it was the latter who picked the horse out for McEwen at the 2020 Winter Mixed Sale in Ocala, Fla.

“Jean asked me to look for a horse that had the potential to be a nice horse,” said Brown.

“And of course, everybody has the Derby in mind. But trying to find a non-started three-year-old that has potential isn’t exactly easy, because a lot of people don’t want to sell them.”

Off to a hot start in 2020, and the first woman ever to lead the trainer standings at Assiniboia Downs in 2012, Brown looked at 70 horses at the sale and narrowed it down to three. Two of the three horses worked very fast in the morning, one of which was going to be above Brown’s $30-$35,000 budget, and the other of which looked like it might not have enough pedigree to go the 1 1/8-miles of the Derby. Real Grace worked a second slower than those two horses and the game was on. They got the horse for $38,000.

“I loved his pedigree, I loved the look of the horse and I loved the work,” said Brown.

“He was my pick and I waited it out. I had to make the decision late to go over the budget. I bought him originally for Jean and then I got him home and I bought a small percentage of him, just because I really, really like the horse.”

The new purchase looked a little rough around the edges in his first lifetime start in Tampa Bay, finishing 11th and beaten 21 ¼-lengths after a poor break, but he came back to run second in his next start and followed that race up with another good second at Canterbury Park in Minnesota. He arrived in Winnipeg just three days before winning his fourth lifetime start, the Derby Trial.

“That was the first time I ever saw the horse,” said McEwen. “I couldn’t go to Canterbury to see him because of the virus. I never expected him to win here. We were hoping for second or third. I was shocked.”

McEwen has owned racehorses for five decades, going all the way back to the Jake Sawatzky/Jack’s Charger days of the 1970s. The Derby Trial was her first stakes win in 50 years as an owner, and she shared it with her three partners, daughter Bette Holtman, Rhone and Brown.

Having a genuine Derby horse seems only fitting for McEwen, who grew up with horses and still provides a home for 24 of them — that don’t run anymore — on her farm in Rosser.

“I don’t get rid of them,” said McEwen. “I’ve got a bunch of old horses that are just pets now. One paint, two warmbloods and 21 thoroughbreds. They’ve got pasture, they’ve got hay, they’ve got shelter, they’ve got water and they have all the freedom they want.”

The horses no doubt provide some degree of comfort for McEwen, who lost her husband of 59 years in 2014 and is now helping her daughter Bette, who also lost her husband three years ago, deal with breast cancer and chemotherapy. Their new horse is helping to lift her spirits.

“She’s all excited about the horse and now she’s getting ready and prepping for the Derby,” said McEwen.

“She’s got a hat going and wants a table, the whole nine yards. She’s really excited about it, actually we all are, because we’ve never been lucky enough to get this close to a “good” horse. If it weren’t for Shelley, we wouldn’t have this horse. She really came through for us.”

Mother and daughter and team already own a piece of history with their Derby Trial win. They might even find their names on another trophy in two weeks. And 100 years from now, someone will read an inscription that tells a true story, in two words.

Real Grace.