‘The Stable That God Loves’ has nearly reached its $50,000 fundraising goal in an effort to help the less fortunate in Ontario’s horse racing industry.
To date, just shy of $48,000 has been raised from a one per cent cut of the earnings of 75 racehorses.
The money has been donated to the Standardbred Chaplaincy of Canada that lost its office and chapel space when the backstretch area of Mohawk Racetrack in Campbellville was closed in 2012.
Chaplain Ken Carter, who once ran a blacksmith shop at Mohawk, now operates the non-denominational, non-profit horse racing fellowship out of his home and truck when he’s not attending to his duties as the chaplain at a church in Waldemar, Ont.
In previous years, the chaplaincy’s only major source of funding was an annual golf tournament that raised some $16,000.
The Stable That God Loves was conceived and implemented by Bill Galvin of Mississauga, Ont. and managed with the help of Mohawk race caller Ken Middleton Jr. of Cambridge.
Through Nov. 22, horses in the program had compiled 117 wins, 100 seconds, 90 thirds and total purse earnings of just shy of $4.8 million.
The horses that are donating are of a variety of ages and ability levels, but there are several heavy hitters on the list.
Standardbred owner Mac Nichol, who operates the Ideal Training Centre in Erin, Ont., owns a piece of Madefromlucky, the lone Thoroughbred in ‘God’s Stable.’ Madefromlucky, trained by Todd Pletcher, and co-owned by Everett Dobson, one of the owners of the NBA’s Oklahoma Thunder, has earned nearly $900,000 this year.
Madefromlucky and the five highest-earning Standardbreds have contributed more than $28,000 combined to the chaplaincy this year. Trotting mare Shake It Cerry, owned, in part by John Fielding of Toronto, has earned over $445,000 in 2015. Older pacer Luck Be Withyou, trained by Bill Cass of Milton, has made more than $427,000. Ontario Sired trotting filly Elegant Serenity, owned by Doug Millard of Woodstock, has won purses exceeding $425,000. Two-year-old pacing colt Nvestment Blue Chip, owned, in part, by his trainer, Dave Menary, of Rockton, Ont., has earned nearly $370,000, and three-year-old trotting colt Dont Rush, owned by trainer Dustin Jones of Waterdown, Ont., has made just shy of $300,000.
Galvin said in April that the goal was to get a full-time chaplain. Carter works part-time now.
“Chaplain Ken is traveling to 15 or more training centres in a 300-kilometer square area and it’s 22,000 kilometers a year that he’s travelling. So, it’s an added expense,” Galvin said.
It’s a time-consuming job tending to those at the bottom end of the horse racing industry that are sick or underprivileged, but The Stable That God Loves is helping the best way horsepeople know how — with horses.
(Re-published with permission from ontariohorseracing.ca)