Every month, as soon as I finish writing this column, The View, and send it for translation, I feel a slight sense of relief.
I usually get more comments on this piece - most of them good (lol) - than any other part of the magazine, so I have to admit that finding a good new topic for the next column always comes with a bit of pressure.
As each month passes however, I usually come up with a few ideas, and I often have my topic chosen with time to spare.
This month was no different, and I was pretty sure that I was going to write about some self-centered NCAA football players that were getting ready to turn pro, so they were stiffing their teammates by ‘taking a pass’ last month on games like the Rose Bowl, because they deemed them ‘meaningless.’ Football is supposed to be this great team game and harness racing more of an individual sport, but my plan was to write about how most horsepeople show much more class and commitment than any of these supposed ‘team players’ that would let their mates down by doing something like that.
Then January 18th hit.
William ‘Bud’ Fritz and Dave ‘Garney’ Gibson both passed away on Tuesday, January 18, 2022, and my topic changed, because the more I thought about it, in the days that followed, the more I realized that both of these men left an imprint on me - without me really even realizing it until now.
I hate to date myself but when I was no more than five or six-years-old I spent a good amount of time at Orangeville Raceway, and I spent most of that time staring at and idolizing Hugh & Ray McLean, Guy Larush… and Bud Fritz. My parents had horses with the McLeans, and as much as I was terrified of Hughie’s ‘hook’ (he lost a hand in a lawnmower incident), Ray was my hero.
Ray McLean drove Mr Peter Ray, Guy Larush drove Johnny Bing, and Bud Fritz drove Popular Brad - those names, both man and equine, have been etched in my brain ever since. And they all (the men at least) drank whiskey. I have vivid memories of standing in a hollowed-out barn near the Orangeville paddock - more of a large empty shed that doubled as a mid-seventies driver’s room really - watching them and the other drivers pass around a bottle of whiskey… usually after the Sunday afternoon races, but sometimes, I imagine, between dashes too. They were big (to me), they were rough, they were gruff, they had the best horses, the best driving suits, and they were the coolest guys around. Looking back now I also believe that they were all part of the reason that I ended up spending my life in this sport.
I do want to state that the actual whiskey itself really has nothing to do with the story, or why I’ve made a life in this business. I’m not really much of a drinker these days anyway, but I guess, looking back now, it’s kind of fitting that a group of my friends and I were drinking rye - out of extra large McDonald’s cups - in the grandstand at Greenwood Raceway, and cheering like crazed idiots when Bud Fritz and Apaches Fame won the North America Cup on June 23, 1990. It’s kind of like I came full circle with Mr. Fritz on that, probably the biggest day of his career.
I never actually met Bud Fritz, although I played hockey both with and against his sons. I played hockey against Dave ‘Garney’ Gibson too, in many Horseman’s Hockey Tournaments over the years. Garney was the best - he always seemed to be smiling, happy and upbeat. In this day-and-age our world needs more of that and not less.
The thing about Garney though, that will stay with me more than anything, is that in a sport filled with the greatest wise-cracks and one-liners ever, he delivered to me, the one-liner that stuck with me the most, one that I’ll never forget.
Garney and I were both in the last race one January night at Woodbine (not Mohawk) many years ago. I remember it being a cheap class on a very cold night, and if either of us got a cheque it might have been for coming fifth. We were the last two in the paddock, our rigs pulled up by the door, as we each, paddocking our own horses, loaded up for the ride home - him to Peterborough and me to Mohawk, after another 16-hour work day. Garney smiled at me as we passed and simply said, “It’s a tough way to make a poor living, isn’t it Fish?”
I’ll NEVER forget that.
I chuckled, too tired to laugh, and we both headed off into the dark, frigid night.
I thought about that line many times in the years that followed, but it didn’t bother me at all. He knew it was true. I knew it was true. You know it’s true. And none of us care.
We do what we do, or did what we did because we love it, and true horsepeople never ‘take a pass’ on a game, even if we don’t make a penny for playing that night. And if I were an NFL General Manager, the only thing I’d ‘take a pass’ on would be drafting someone that bailed on their teammates. I’ll bet neither Bud nor Garney ever took a pass on theirs.
Maybe my topic this month didn’t really change after all?
Rest In Peace Mr. Fritz.
Rest In Peace Garney.
Dan Fisher