Seeing The Humour In Disappointment

"I'm blaming myself entirely for all of this. Once I got Put On A Show, I said to myself I need to duplicate this...So I had the nerve to name a filly Put On A Clinic. Once I named a horse Put On A Clinic, she invariably couldn't keep herself out of the clinic

and has been there ever since, and so has every other horse I own including Put On A Show."

On today's episode of Trot Radio, Richard Young, co-owner of Put On A Show provides his refreshing perspective on harness racing and more. The richest filly ever at ages two and three, Put On A Show has been put on the shelf with a knee chip requiring surgery. Young provides an update and a timeline for her return to the races, which if all goes according to plan could see her campaign predominantly in Canada.

Young also discusses A Spring Of Hope, the non-profit public foundation established by his wife Joanne and daughter Brittany that builds wells in rural African schools to improve community health conditions and to promote education. The Youngs received the USHWA Humanitarian Award for their efforts, which were featured in the January issue of Trot.

"They went to South Africa for a safari, really, and they went to visit a school about 200 miles north of Johannesburg, and that school was about as sad as one can picture. The roof leaked, the windows were broken, the floors are made out of dirt, but the worst part about it was they had no water. When my daughter saw this she said people should never live like this, this is terrible, I have to do something about it. People say that and then forget about it, my daughter came back and drummed up enough money over the next few months to actually build a well in that school about four or five months later and that school became and example for other schools as then they started doing crops and growing all kinds of food.

"Before you know it, we start a foundation called A Spring Of Hope and as of last week we've now built 19 wells and some of those are in Uganda where we had kids dying of cholera on a daily basis. A conservative estimate is that we've saved about 20,000 kids lives in the last three months."

The full interview with Young is available below.

Episode 192 – Owner Richard Young

Audio Format: MP3 audio

Host: Norm Borg

Please note that the opinions expressed in the following interview are those of the participant and do not necessarily reflect Rideau Carleton Raceway and/or Standardbred Canada.

(Photo credit: Mark Hall/USTA)