Owner credits entire team for Quarry victory in Canadian Derby

Eight-time leading Assiniboia Downs owner Henry S. Witt Jr. flew into Century Mile in Edmonton and won the biggest horse race of his life, the $200,000 Canadian Derby (G3), on Aug. 22. His winning steed was named Quarry, a horse he claimed at Churchill Downs for $80,000 on June 20. Quarry is basically a free horse now.

Witt bet $100 win-place-show on his horse and got back over $1,800, some of which went back to the grooms in trainer Jerry Gourneau’s barn, and that’s what he wanted to talk about. He’d already said his trainer was the best in the business, now he wanted to talk about the grooms.

“I was videoing the shed row, you know, just to show some of my buddies how professional everything looked,” said Witt, What he shot mostly showed young grooms doing unglamorous work well. The thing that stopped him was a groom named Juliana LeRoux, who also happens to be Quarry’s groom, standing in a stall with Bergheim, a horse with a reputation for leaning on people.

“Bergheim kind of wallows on you, leans on you a little bit,” Witt said. “And people were saying, ‘You better watch him,’ Anyway, I walk down the shedrow and I look back and she’s over there petting him, kissing him on the forehead, talking to him. And I said, ‘What the heck?’”

Witt knows a good groom when he sees one, not only for the physical care they give their horses, but also for the mental aspects. Horses will go through a wall for you if you love them. Kindness is key and talking to them works too. H. Allen Jerkens, the trainer known as the Giant Killer for his upsets of horses like Secretariat and others on numerous occasions, would often take horses out for a walk at afternoon feed time, talk to them and sometimes even give them pep talks. The horses loved it. He also rewarded his grooms handsomely for going the extra mile caring for their horses.

Witt, who grew up on a dairy farm and rode horses shirtless and bareback to bring the cows home long before he became a champion race car driver and auto glass magnate in Waco, Texas, knows the value of someone who knows how to take care of horses. About halfway into the race meet here he did something he’d been thinking about for a while. He asked Gourneau if he could tip the grooms. Gourneau told him to take them into the office and do it right.

“I just told them, I’m leading the whole world in wins,” said Witt, who is currently third by number of wins in North America. “And it’s because of you. We’ve got a good team here. I’m not here all the time, but you girls and Jerry, all of you together, you make for a great team.”

Grooms rarely get the credit they deserve, but Witt doesn’t think of it as straight generosity. “You know as well as I do, you’ve been a groom,” he said. “You can’t be leading the world in wins with a bunch of bad grooms.”

Witt insisted that Quarry’s groom LeRoux make the trip to Edmonton with the horses. “I told Jerry to bring her with us. She knows how to handle him. She took him to the paddock and had no problem. And when we ran all four horses, she stayed back and made sure they were all okay and everything was good. They had wraps on, the right blinkers and everything else. All that stuff’s important.”

LeRoux is a young Manitoba HBPA Groom School graduate and Gourneau has a number of such graduates working for him, all naturals around the horses.

Most of the horses in the barn go to the track on a clip and a shank. No chain. Witt watched one act up on the way over and saw the girl on the end of it walk up and pet him. “I was thinking she was going to get dragged all the way to the track,” said Witt. “The horse quit. She just talked to it.”

After the Derby, Witt tipped the grooms, the jockey and the Century Mile girls who looked after his horses in the receiving barn. It’s the same arithmetic he learned in the race car business. “You can’t win a car race with a bad crew,” he said.

Quarry is nominated to the $250,000 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs on Sept. 12, and if he runs well in that, he’ll carry on to the $400,000 Oklahoma Derby at Remington Park on Sept. 27. He came out of the Canadian Derby “without a hair out of place,” said Witt. He ate all his dinner Saturday night and his breakfast Sunday morning after the race. “He stuck his head right in that bucket.” said Witt.

Quarry is back home at Assiniboia Downs now.

Juliana LeRoux is here too.

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