Last week Ontario’s top two-year-old male pacers were at Woodbine Mohawk Park for two $100,000-plus Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) Gold divisions. That’s business as usual at Ontario’s premier racetrack, but for Jeff Taylor, the evening was anything but typical.
Taylor, a longtime industry participant, has 245 career training starts. The biggest purse in any of his own 10 training starts in 2023 was a $22,000 OSS Grassroots division.
The purse in the first Gold division that night was $103,100 and T H McMurry, a gelding Taylor co-owns with Siobhan Andrusek and Graeme Mitchell, drew the eight-hole. From that outer post, he paced a mile in 1:51.4 to win by a length and give Taylor the biggest win of his life.
“I didn’t know how to react to it, I was so happy, I couldn’t believe it,” said Taylor. “It’s sunk in a little bit now and I feel really lucky to have an animal like him. I know how hard a lot of people work for a long time and some of them never get to this point. I’m just appreciating every minute because it’s been so fun so far.”
Those watching the Mohawk broadcast on July 10 heard the gelding's trainer Dave Menary praise Taylor, a Gloucester, Ont. resident, and his role in training down T H McMurry. But from Taylor’s point of view, the win was a team effort.
“Dave’s done an excellent job,” said Taylor. “He had a great week [at Mohawk] in the Sires Stakes and I wouldn’t pick anybody else to trust him with. Dave’s been 100 per cent. He’s a class act.”
Bred by Tara Hills Stud and Brent Vincent, the road to T H McMurry’s Gold win began at the 2022 London Classic Yearling Sale. Taylor was attending with Mitchell and he had his eye on the son of McWicked after reviewing online videos prior to the sale. When he entered the ring as HIP 183, the bidding went to $21,000 before stalling short of the $22,000 Taylor signed for. A few days later, he sold 25 per cent each to Andrusek and Mitchell.
“I looked at the mare and I got looking at her record and what she did, and I thought, she’s got to throw something with the talent she had,” said Taylor. “I loved the look of the other McWickeds in the sale and I put my hand up, I guess the rest of it’s kind of history.”
McWicked is a Hall of Fame racehorse who needs no introduction and T H McMurry’s dam Waasmula is a millionaire who won the 2011 OSS Super Final as a three-year-old.
So, he has pedigree, and when he shipped to Ottawa to begin his training to become a racehorse with Taylor, he showed he had the potential to follow in his parent’s footsteps.
“I gave him a day off and just put him in the paddock the first day he was here,” said Taylor. “The first day we put the harness on, I line drove him out the door. We put the cart on him and he was pacing walking up to the track. There was no bucking. There was no kicking. He walked up to the track, took a little look around, not out of panic or anything, and he just took off pacing.”
As T H McMurry continued to progress, Taylor found himself racing the youngster off a helmet as he trained his yearlings alongside Robbie Robinson’s. But it didn’t surprise Taylor that in his win T H McMurry cut the mile from the middle of the second quarter onward.
“Training, I liked to get him kind of in the middle of the back or on a helmet. I found he was a little racier off a helmet,” said Taylor. “Then one day I cut the mile and he was a gentleman on the front. Nice hold on the bit, but when another horse came up to him, he wanted to hit another level. It was like he found a gear where it kind of surprised you. It brought a smile to your face.”
Taylor is a lifelong horseperson. His first exposure to racing was in his native province of Prince Edward Island through his grandfather Glen Taylor’s horses, and continued with his father Kevin Taylor and his Uncle Kerry Taylor.
Then, nearly two decades ago, Taylor accepted a job working track maintenance at Rideau Carleton Raceway, a role he still holds today. It wasn’t the job he envisioned in racing when he moved to Ontario, but it gave him stability as he raised young children.
Now his kids are more grown up and he has ramped up his involvement in the game. In racing, the horse of a lifetime can come at any moment, and for Taylor, with T H McMurry, that moment appears to be on the horizon.
“I feel really privileged for him to have done what he’s done so far,” said Taylor. “The number of calls, texts and messages I got... it was really humbling just how nice people were. I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate all those kind words and everything.”
(With files from Ontario Racing)