Coming off a year in which he garnered Trainer of the Year honours and his stable star was named Horse of the Year, you would think that 40-year-old horseman Stacy Gay has spent a lifetime around the barns honing his craft
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Not the case. Gay just started grooming a few years ago although his family has a long connection with harness racing.
Fred Gay, Stacy's great uncle, was among the most recent inductees to the Fredericton Horseman's Association Wall of Fame, with Stacy was in the backstretch regularly as a fan.
"Since I was young, we went to watch his horses race," Gay told the Daily Gleaner. "But it's just been over the last five years really. Five of us went to a sale and bought a horse together. The next year we bought two more and then the next year two more."
One horse no longer in Gay's care is Frederiction's 2009 Horse of the Year All Star Dragon, who was claimed at The Meadowlands in March. For a horse whose career was considered over after a bowed tendon a few years back, the achievement was amazing.
"A lot of horses don't come back from that injury," said Gay. "They're pretty much done. But he did. We gave him six or seven months off. The tendon actually healed unbelievably well."
To read more about Stacy Gay and how he'll be driving for the first time in 2010, click here.