On Saturday evening (May 9), members of Prince Edward Island’s harness racing industry hosted another episode of ‘Virtual Tack Room’, the eighth episode of a series created to bring some positivity to the world of harness racing during the dark days of racing.

Red Shores' Lee Drake & Peter MacPhee along with the show’s co-creators - Jerry McCabe and Kent Oakes - interviewed Phil Pinkney, Jody Hennessey and Ken Murphy.

Phil Pinkney, a stalwart of the Nova Scotia racing scene, was first up on the broadcast and he had a chance to reminisce about some of the great performers that hung their harness bags in his barn over the year.

“Mark Jonathan he made $800,000 or $900,000, well you know what Rumpus Hanover was and I think we had Out To Score for Ian Smith. We had quite a few horses for Ian Smith, and you know when you have them good horses you have to have good owners.”

Another memorable performer Pinkney was associated with was the three-time Atlantic Canada Horse of the Year, Dunachton Gale. Pinkney had high praise for the pacer, who wasn’t always a horse that was that way.

“When I first started training him out, he didn’t train all that good,” said Pinkney. “I’ve had two or three horses like that. Until I get them down to a mile in 2:20, a few trips in :20 and :18 like that and then he just seemed to take right off.

“I remember one of the stakes races there in Truro, maybe the second lifetime start in Truro,” he added. “Hilliard Graves had a good colt there and Kenny Arsenault had one – Seawind Romeo for Doug Heel – and they kind of got in a little bit of a front end battle and at the half I was off 15 lengths and he won by 15. That was pretty impressive I thought.”

When asked what made Dunachton Gale such a great performer, Pinkney had a long list of qualities to rhyme off.

“He was full of himself. He was all horse; he was no kid’s horse,” he claimed. “He just had that spirit and he could get pretty feisty at times. He was smart and he was a great-gaited horse. He had the gait and the heart.”

The Hennessey name is one that is synonymous with racing in the Maritimes, and a key player from that family was Jody Hennessey who praised his parents for raising he and his siblings the right way.

“We come from a big family, there was nine of us,” claimed Hennessey. “We had five boys and four girls. And it wasn’t always real easy for our mother and our father, of course.

“I was fortunate enough to have some great brothers and sisters and we all got along and we were in the race business and we though we had something. And we had great parents. Our father and mother were great people. We were very fortunate.”

Something else Hennessey was fortunate for was a spot on the starting gate in the 1983 Royal Visit Pace at the Charlottetown Driving Park. The event was a $5,000 Invitational that celebrated Princes Charles and Lady Diana’s visit to the Maritimes.

“I was stabled in Saint John at the time and I had a horse by the name of Glen Reynolds which was a real good horse. They were having this big race – the Royal Pace – and it was hyped up for three or four weeks. You could only imagine when the Royal Family is coming to PEI how the people would want to be around to see it.

It was quite a feeling to be able to come from Saint John and come back to your hometown with a nice horse like Glen Reynolds was to participate in that kind of a race,” Hennessey added. “When I came home I remember taking him off the truck. The crowd of people that was around there during the daytime before the race was unreal. Everybody was trying to get a spot. I don’t think they were trying to get a spot to see me, it was the Royal Family they wanted to see. It was quite a feeling and it was quite a crowd. It almost reminded you of the Gold Cup night.”

Ken Murphy also hails from a harness racing family, and he was quick to reflect on a number of projects he and his father worked on over the years.

“Me and dad, that’s what we enjoy doing the best,” said Murphy. “We like taking young colts on, buying them, breaking them, gaiting them up, training them down and racing them a couple of times and then selling them. And then get another colt, you know what I mean?”

Murphy has also had the chance of sitting behind a number of high profile pacers that possessed both speed and class.

“I’ve had the luxury of driving Ramblinglily, One Hot Camshaft, Trace Of Purple – she was a decent mare. I win in 1:55 with that mare; put a record on that mare. Machinthesand, what a great horse that was and still is. He’s training back, actually.

“Them horses there, all you gotta do is keep then outta trouble and pull the right line and smile because they do all the work,” he added.

The episode of ‘Virtual Tack Room’ was produced by Universum Media and is available below.