Prologue (With files from Beverley Smith)
For decades, Hall of Fame trainer Stew Firlotte has battled Cheynes-Stokes syndrome, a sleeping disorder that predisposes him to congenital heart failure and in the past has nearly killed him. The illness began to haunt him shortly after he engineered the career of the dominant pacing filly Town Pro. In 1996, he suffered his first stroke, which paralyzed the entire left half of his body. Stew recovered, but the symptoms returned in January 2000. After collapsing in the Toronto Airport and being rushed to hospital, Stew was told he needed a heart transplant. In the interim, the medications they used to keep his symptoms at bay prompted dangerous hallucinations -- causing him to threaten nurses and throw chairs across the room -- and his body broke out in blisters. At the ripe age of 60, however, he was denied the opportunity to accept a donor organ. He was too old, the doctors told him; his productivity was over, his children grown... they released him from the hospital.
With nowhere to turn but his friends and family, Stew took matters into his own hands. Thanks to a reference from a friend, he met respirologist Patrick Hanley, who was able to diagnose his sleep disorder, and Stew committed to a healthy lifestyle. He practiced Tai Chi for months with his Chinese friends in an attempt to increase the amount of oxygen entering his body. Within a few months, Firlotte had found a clinic that would get him on the transplant list, but to his disbelief, doctors told him that his own heart was now working just fine. He didn’t need a donor.
In the fall of 2001, Firlotte shared his story with reporter Beverly Smith, whose retelling was featured in Trot Magazine, The Canadian Sportsman, and The Globe and Mail, among others. Will to Live and Horse Trainer Breathes Easier, screamed the headlines. Now, a decade later, there is yet another chapter in his unbelievable story.
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On the day of the 2003 North America Cup, Stew Firlotte was feeling immortal, like nothing could knock him down. He had a Triple Crown win under his belt. Three of his horses had that day qualified for the upcoming racing season. He and his wife Joanne had a promising stable that year.
When he went to bed that night, though, Stew soon found himself on the floor, unable to speak. A cerebral hemorrhage was causing the death of the entire right half of his brain.
On June 21, 2003, Stew suffered what he calls ‘the big one’... a stroke that prompted his retirement as a trainer and put him into recovery for almost seven years. Now able to talk, walk and consult his sons Brad and Terrance as they train horses of their own, the 69-year-old veteran horseman looks back on his road to recovery with a desire to help others. “I’m strong again and ready to go,” says Stew. “I’m ready to help anyone in the industry who’s going through this terrible ordeal.”
Stew was born in Noranda, a copper mining city in northwestern Quebec. There, “horses were not even thought of as an occupation or a career,” Stew admits. But when he came to Toronto in his 20s, he began attending races at Greenwood Raceway – and everything changed.
In 1968, he married Joanne and moved to Campbellford, Ontario. “The first thing we did was buy a couple of horses,” he says. Their first filly, a two-year-old named Presto Stone, cost $500 to buy, needed $1,000 worth of equipment, and made a whopping $32.50 in her first start. But two years later, Stew and Joanne left their jobs, loaded their two young children, Brad and Terrance – and their cribs and strollers – into their Buick Century and left for Florida to train seriously. “We were heading south to learn from the big boys and set the world on fire,” grins Joanne. “It’s called paying your dues.”
When the Firlottes made their return to Canada six years later, they began dabbling seriously in the Ontario Sires Stakes. Stew’s stable of horses included Pointsetta, Goldie Omaha, who gave them an undefeated year in 1979 racing free-legged, and AM Playgirl, a late starter who was undefeated in 1980. “That multiplied my investment into a horse named Ralph Hanover,” he says.
Stew bought Ralph Hanover as a yearling in 1981 with driver Ron Waples for just $58,000. “He went to the sale with the thought of buying only him,” says Joanne. “He noticed Ronnie was interested, too.” The next year, Ralph Hanover showed promise as the fastest Canadian two-year-old at the time, and as a three-year-old, dominated the track.
While Ralph Hanover was never great in training – “he might give you a blistering mile in 15 and that was it,” says Stew – it was a different story on race day. “He was a great horse on race day. Any other day he was an old roly-poly. And he only raced as fast as he needed to to win.” But that was enough to capture the 1983 Pacing Triple Crown, making Ralph Hanover just the seventh standardbred ever to do so.
Over the next 20 years, Stew concentrated on his champions with a full crew, including second trainer James “Friday” Dean, and a full stable of about 32 horses.
In the summer of 2003, with Casimir Camotion, Articulator and Economical Clout on his roster, he was looking forward to an amazing year. “My wife and I talked just that day about what a great stable we had,” he says. That night, after he and Joanne returned from the North America Cup, Stew complained of a bad headache and went to bed.
Moments later, Joanne heard a thump coming from the bedroom. “I was making a sandwich,” she said, and thought, “Stew, what are you doing now?” But when she went upstairs to check on him, he was on the floor. “He was trying to get up and he couldn’t. He was trying to talk.
“I didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know either,” she says. But at that moment, his brain was hemorrhaging. Blood was seeping out inside his skull, paralyzing his left side.
And Joanne dialed 9-1-1.
For seven weeks, Stew stayed in Toronto East General Hospital. At first, doctors thought he was comatose, says Stew. The right side of his brain was entirely dead, and the left side of his body paralyzed as a result. “I knew most of the things that were going on around me,” he says. “I kept trying to get up myself. I kept getting more numb and I couldn’t move.”
After his release in August, the Firlottes found little support, says Joanne. Stew was immediately admitted to Bridgepoint Health, where he spent three months bed-ridden and wheelchair-bound. “He thought he was going to die in his sleep. I had to hire a nurse to come in overnight,” said Joanne.
With discouraging results, Stew’s deepening depression, and frequent visits to the emergency room for complicated sleep apnea, Joanne decided to check him out. “He begged me to take him out. He said, ‘I’m dying here, I need out of here.’” So in October, she called a cab and took Stew home to their apartment in east Toronto, where she carried him upstairs on her back.
From there, not knowing where to turn, Joanne contacted the Victorian Order of Nurses, who sent a nurse to provide care for one hour a day. “They got him a hospital bed delivered that day in my living room,” she said. That hour gave Joanne time to run errands and go grocery shopping, but for the rest of the day, she was in charge of Stew’s care. Around the same time, Joanne put the horses up for sale.
After spending the winter months in Florida with his sons and grandchildren, Stew went back into rehab, this time at Providence Care. But once again he wasn’t improving, says Joanne.
So after only two months, he checked out once more.
That’s when he started treatment with the Florida Hospital, receiving financial aid from the Ontario Harness Horsemen’s Association, says Joanne. And he’s been improving ever since entering a therapy centre affiliated with the hospital, she adds. He can now walk with the help of a cane, though his left side is still paralyzed. “They work him and they build him up. He talks to other people there,” she says. “He can do 80 lbs on some of [the machines].”
His depression was also alleviated when he was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2005, says Stew. “At first, just to be considered for it and then to be inducted... It perked me up like a banty rooster.”
Stew’s family, friends and colleagues gathered eagerly for the event in support. “It was pretty special,” says Dean. “You gotta accomplish a lot. But Stew, he’s got a lot of good horses and he deserved to be there.”
Looking back now on his road to recovery, Stew is thankful for his family’s support. “My family has just been tremendous,” he says of Joanne, Brad and Terrance. “My wife has been my 24/7 caregiver for almost seven years now. If it wasn’t for them coming in to light my candle every time…”
But his recovery also made him realize that stroke survivors don’t always receive the support they need. “You come to so many dead ends in this recovery unless someone’s there to wind you, to throw you a bone,” he says. “If you don’t hit the right people, you get lost in the shuffle.”
That’s what prompted him to reach out to other stroke victims and families in the harness racing industry. He even made a promise to Walter Gretzky, who he met an a Toronto Maple Leafs game at the Air Canada Centre while he was still wheelchair-bound, that he would help others. “He always came around to the wheelchair section. As soon as he saw me, he knew I was a stroke survivor. He took one look at me and said, ‘How long has it been?’
Joanne says he already speaks with other recent stroke victims around Florida Hospital. “When he sees somebody down there, he always tells them: ‘you’re doing good. I’ve been through it, so keep your chin up.’”
Now consulting for his sons at Firlotte stables, he spends three or four days a week at either the stable or the track.“The horses give him something to look forward to every day, and talking to the guys,” says Joanne. “He sees things about the horses that other people wouldn’t notice.”
Dean, who now works on his own, shares a barn with the Firlottes at Southern Oaks in Sorrento. “Stew’s got his golf cart out so he’s around, telling stories,” he grins.
“We talk about old times. We talk about some of the horses we used to have. He’ll watch the ones I’ve got and tell me what I’m doing wrong,” he adds, laughing.
While Stew still experiences some lingering effects of ‘the big one’ – terrible headaches, for one – he emphasizes that he’s better now. And he’s ready to help. “I think I’ve got it. Seven years and I’m doing well,” he says. “I’m still pretty fresh yet!”