The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame congratulates the people and horses being recognized as inductees in 2022. Five people and three horses have been elected from an extremely deep ballot of candidates.
Induction ceremonies for the Class of 2022 will be held during the summer of 2023, along with those inducted as part of the CHRHF Class of 2023, which will be announced in April of 2023.
Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame Class of 2022 Standardbred Inductees:
Frank Salive – Communicator
Shadow Play – Male Horse
Jack Darling – Trainer
Gilles Gendron - Veteran
Frank Salive – Standardbred Communicator
Originally from Leamington, Ont., Frank Salive was known for over 35 years as “The Voice” of Canadian harness racing. Before moving to the announcer’s booth, Salive was a successful junior hockey player as part of the Peterborough Petes and also participated in the very first World Junior Championships when the Petes represented Canada in the 1974 tournament held in the Soviet Union. Canada earned the bronze medal and Salive was named the top goaltender of the tournament. He then moved on to a broadcasting career, which included assignments in Sudbury and Windsor, where he began to call harness races in the late 1970’s. He continued at tracks throughout Ontario and the US, including 14 years at Ontario Jockey Club/Woodbine Entertainment Group harness tracks as well as at Pompano Park, Western Fair Raceway, Clinton Raceway and Fort Erie Racetrack before his most recent role as the voice of Ocean Downs in Maryland. During his career it is estimated Salive has called close to 200,000 races at an estimated 75 different tracks, becoming a fan and industry favourite for his knowledgeable, informative calls and silky voice. Salive was also a regular writer for the Canadian Sportsman for several years.
Shadow Play – Standardbred Male Horse
Shadow Play earned $1,559,822 with 20 wins, nine seconds and five thirds in 49 lifetime starts, and took a record of 1:47.4 as a four-year-old. The son of The Panderosa out of the Matts Scooter mare Matts Filly, Shadow Play was purchased as a yearling, trained and co-owned by Dr. Ian Moore along with R G McGroup Ltd. and Serge Savard for most of his racing career. His race career highlights include winning the 2008 Little Brown Jug and setting a world record for three-year-old colt and gelding pacers on a 5/8-mile track, of 1:48.2 in the elimination of the Coors Delvin Miller Adios.
As a sire standing at Winbak Farm of Canada, in partnership with Blue Chip Farms, and owned by the Shadow Play Syndicate, Shadow Play has sired six millionaires, including the fastest Standardbred in harness racing history, Bulldog Hanover (1.45.4) with earnings to date of nearly $2.2 million; three-time O’Brien Award winner and double millionaire Lady Shadow; 2021 Horse of the Year and North America Cup winner, Desperate Man; and O’Brien divisional winner, Percy Bluechip. In total, Shadow Play-sired horses have earned $56 million. Twenty horses sired by Shadow Play have records of 1:50 or better.
Jack Darling – Standardbred Trainer
Cambridge, Ontario-based Jack Darling has enjoyed a successful career as a harness horse trainer in southern Ontario over three decades campaigning 1,072 winners and conditioning horses to over $22 million in earnings, and counting. For the first two decades of his career Darling focused on overnight horses, before getting involved in the yearling business. In 1995, four fillies put Darling in the spotlight - Diamond Dawn, a winner of $175,000, Low Places (winner of a 1996 O’Brien Award), Faded Glory (winner of more than $250,000 as a freshman) and Diehard Fan (over $200,000 as a two and three-year-old). Other top horses included Northern Luck ($907,984), North America Cup champion Gothic Dream ($1,528,671) and Twin B Champ ($437,235). Darling’s latest protégé, Bulldog Hanover, recently set a new world record of 1:45.4 to become the fastest horse in harness racing history and has to date earned nearly $2.2 million. Darling is also known for significant fundraising efforts on behalf of racing related causes, and was the 2015 winner of the Lloyd Chisholm Memorial Award, presented by the Standardbred Breeders of Ontario, the United States Harness Writers Association Unsung Hero Award, and the Good Guy Award.
Gilles Gendron – Standardbred Veteran
Gilles Gendron of Saint-Eustache, Quebec, started his illustrious driving career in the spring of 1967 at the age of 22. During his career, he drove in more than 37,000 races, posted 7,053 victories, finished second in 5,008 starts and recorded 4,819 thirds. He drove horses to earnings in excess of $36.9 million. Gendron was the dominant driver at Blue Bonnets racetrack during the 1970s and 1980s. At age 27 in 1972, Gendron won the Challenge of Champions hosted by Windsor Raceway, defeating the likes of Herve Filion, Ronnie Feagan and Carmine Abbatiello. Nicknamed “Le Chef”, he dominated the Blue Bonnets driving charts, leading the driving standings 10 times between 1972 and 1984. For 14 consecutive years, he won more than 200 races and ranked in the North American top 10 seven times. Among the equine stars he drove were Hall of Famers Grades Singing and Garland Lobell. In 2009, he drove a pair of winners at Rideau Carleton to put him at 7,000 career wins to join Quebec natives Herve Filion, Michel Lachance and Luc Ouellette in the select group of North American drivers who had posted 7,000 career wins.
Class of 2022 Thoroughbred Inductees include:
Charles E. Fipke –Builder
Eurico Rosa Da Silva – Jockey
Court Vision – Male Horse
Alydeed – Veteran Horse
Charles E. Fipke - Thoroughbred Builder
Edmonton, Alberta-born Charles Fipke, who is now based primarily in British Columbia, is a successful Canadian geologist and prospector involved in the discovery of the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories. He entered the Canadian Thoroughbred Industry in 1981 and over the past forty-plus years, has bred and owned numerous horses that have been successful on the track and as part of his breeding operation. His Canadian racing accomplishments include breeding and owning three Sovereign Award winners - 2008 Champion Three-Year-Old Male and winner of the 2008 Queen’s Plate, Not Bourbon; 2010 Champion Older Female, Impossible Time; and 2003 Champion Male Turf Horse, Perfect Soul, who went on to become a successful sire. Additionally, he bred and owns racehorse Perfect Shirl, winner of the 2011 Breeder’s Cup Filly and Mare Turf (GI). Other Fipke-owned Grade 1 winners include champion Forever Unbridled, Bee Jersey, Lemons Forever, Seeking the Soul, Jersey Town and Tale of Ekati. Fipke bred and owned Lady Speightspeare who received the 2020 Sovereign Award as champion 2-year-old-filly, was most recently victorious in the 2022 edition of the Seaway Stakes (G3). Horses owned by Mr. Fipke have earned over $35 million. In 2020 Charles Fipke was awarded the E.P. Taylor Award of Merit by the Stewards of the Jockey Club of Canada for his contributions to the Canadian Thoroughbred industry.
Eurico Rosa Da Silva - Jockey
A native of São Paulo, Brazil, Eurico Rosa Da Silva, was drawn to the idea of being a jockey from a very young age and enjoyed substantial success in his home country before relocating to Macau. In 2004, Da Silva moved to Canada making Woodbine his main base. Da Silva had back-to-back wins in the Queen’s Plate with Eye of the Leopard in 2009 and Big Red Mike in 2010. Over the next decade, Da Silva won multiple Grade 1 Stakes and was awarded the Sovereign Award as Canada's Champion jockey seven times. Other career highlights for the 2021 Avelino Gomez Memorial Award recipient include two Oaks wins, as well as upsets prior to his retirement at the end of the 2019 racing season with El Tormenta in the Woodbine Mile and with Bullard’s Alley in the Canadian International. Da Silva also had a remarkable partnership with multi-time champion, Pink Lloyd. On the international stage, Eurico claimed victory in the 2017 World All-Star Jockeys Championship in Japan. Admired by both racing fans and fellow jockeys, Da Silva was appreciated for his professionalism, unbridled joy and exuberant wishes of “Good Luck to everybody”.
Out of the saddle, Da Silva's generous spirit was evidenced by his long-time commitment to racehorse aftercare at LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society and supporting his community by volunteering with the "Out Of The Cold" program for the homeless. Statistically, Da Silva achieved 11,630 starts (2,286-1914-1567), and earnings of $102,764,264.
Court Vision – Thoroughbred Male Horse
One of the most talented and versatile colts of his generation, Court Vision was a multiple graded-stakes winner on both dirt and turf at two, and a Grade 1 winner at three, four, and five. His pedigree includes Champion Sprinter and classic sire (Gulch), out of a sister to a classic winner and classic sire (Summer Squall) and the immediate family of A.P. Indy. Of his eight graded-stakes, five came in Grade 1 races, including the 2011 Breeders' Cup Mile and the 2010 Woodbine Mile - his first of two appearances in that race. In a career consisting of 32 starts, he accumulated 9 wins, 4 seconds and 4 thirds, with total earnings of $3,746,658.
In 2012 Court Vision began his career as a sire in at Michael Byrne’s Ontario-based Park Stud and he was Canada’s leading Freshman Sire in 2015 - both in earnings and stakes horses. Beginning in 2016 his stallion career continued in Kentucky and later in Louisiana. Among his stakes horses are 2019 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and Eclipse Champion, Storm the Court, with 13 starts (2-2-3) and earnings of $1.365 million, and Grade 3 winner, Mr. Havercamp, 14 (8-1-0) $679,558.
Alydeed – Thoroughbred Veteran
Bred by CHRHF 2015 Builder Inductee, Robert Anderson’s Anderson Farms, Alydeed was sold as part of the Three Chimneys Farm consignment in the 1990 Keeneland September yearling sale to David Willmot’s Kinghaven Farms. The son of English Two Thousand Guineas winner Shadeed, he was trained by CHRHF Honoured Member Roger Attfield throughout his career. In his only start at age two Alydeed won the Victoria Stake. The following year Alydeed developed into a prominent three-year-old in both Canada and the United States with five victories in 10 starts, including the Grade II Derby Trial at Churchill Downs. He was also a close second in the Preakness Stakes to Pine Bluff. Returning to Canadian soil, he won the Marine (GIII), Plate Trial and Queen's Plate in succession by a combined 22 1/2 lengths.
At four, Alydeed’s race success included wins in the Grade III Commonwealth at Keeneland and Grade 1 Carter Handicap at Aqueduct. He concluded his race career with a record 9 wins, 2 seconds, and 2 thirds from 18 starts and earnings of $930,689. He was retired to stand stud at Windfields Farm and became Canada’s Leading Sire in 2001.
Additional information about the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame may be found at the CHRHF website.
(CHRHF)