If three-year-old trotter Meadowview Arty earns a share of the $144,000 in Grassroots purse money up for grabs at Kawartha Downs on Saturday evening, Charlie Reid might be moved to bestow a small token of appreciation on his neighbour Arthur Balson
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Three years ago Balson and his son Kyle carried a newborn Meadowview Arty the half-mile to Reid’s barn when the foal was delivered into a snow bank two weeks before he was due.
“It was just a fluke I came home, and I looked up out of the truck, and said, ‘I think that mare’s starting to foal,’” recalls Reid. “So I went down and got Art and Kyle and they come up. The other three mares are out there, and we said, ‘Let’s bring them in’, so we bring them in and by the time we walk back to the hill there’s the baby coming out and he was right in the snow bank. We left him for two minutes and Art said, ‘Well, we’ll carry him in.’
“It was, I would say, a half a mile from the barn, and they had to put him down 10 times,” adds Reid with a chuckle. “They were huffing and puffing.”
Whether from his chilly start in life or his inborn personality, Balson’s namesake was a tough customer through his early months and Reid says it quickly became apparent that the colt would have to be gelded.
“I had to geld him at eight months old or he was going to kill me. Or I was going to kill him. He had a terrible attitude,” recalls the Orono resident. “He was the worst colt I think I ever had. Meadowview Sunny was bad, but not as bad as this guy.”
The newly mellow Meadowview Arty learned his early lessons from trainer Michael Wade of Little Britain, and at two he delivered two third-place finishes in late season Grassroots action — his only freshman starts. This season the trotter has logged one win and one second through six starts since early May, and makes his sophomore Grassroots debut from Post 2 in the first $24,000 division.
“We love him, he’s a good colt, he’s a nice colt, and he looks like his daddy, he looks like Ken Warkentin,” says the owner-breeder. “If you stood the two of them beside each other they’d look the spitting image of each other. He’s a little bit taller, but not very much.”
Meadowview Arty is the second foal from Reid’s homebred mare Meadowview Marion, who was a Grassroots, Gold Elimination and Gold Final winner during her own racing career. The mare is a great, great, granddaughter of Flemingtons Jane, a 1988 Hall of Fame inductee whose descendants, by Reid’s calculation, have earned almost $9 million.
“I added them all up last year and they were a little over $8.5 million,” notes Reid. “Like Corn Cob Conch, Bobbo, Meadowview Sunny, Frisky Mitchelle, all of them. And she’s buried 50 feet from where this colt was born. You look her up and you see what her offspring’s done and it’ll blow your mind a little bit.”
Stephen Byron will steer the current generation of Flemingtons Jane’s bloodline in Saturday’s contest, lining up alongside eight other Grassroots hopefuls including one of last year’s point leaders, Major Herbie, from Post 4, and two other colts with local connections. Chuckalo Lightning will start from Post 7 for breeder-owner-trainer-driver Chuck Thompson of Sunderland and his partner Ernest Alston of Toronto, while Herecomesthechief gets Post 8 for owner-trainer-driver Murray Brethour of Sunderland and his partner Benbar Stables of Oakville.
Kawartha Downs’ first race rolls in behind the starting gate at 7 p.m. on Saturday night, with the three-year-old trotting colts and geldings starring in Races 2, 4 and 6 through 9.
(Ontario Sires Stakes)
To view entries for Saturday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Saturday Entries – Kawartha Downs.