“Why would you bring your kids to the races?” With nine kids in their group it was a question that owners Linda Lockey and Myra Masterson
overheard someone mutter minutes before their own Happy Lady went to the gate in the $333,328 Monticello OTB Classic in 1978. Moments later, surrounded by their children in the winner’s circle, the answer was obvious. By Chris Lomon
She turned heads and made headlines on both sides of the border, a pacer that even knew how to bring about a little child’s play on occasion.
The connections of Happy Lady and their family members – numbering more than a dozen – weren’t where they were supposed to be in the minutes leading up to the 1978 edition of the Monticello OTB Classic.
But after all was said and done, where they found themselves turned out to be the perfect spot.
“Unbeknownst to us, we were supposed to be up in the dining room with all the other owners,” said Linda Lockey, of Ridgeville, ON, who co-owned Happy Lady with Myra Masterson of St. Catharines, ON. “We had nine kids between the families and the parents – so we decided to go to the grandstand. The kids were walking around, picking up all the tickets off the ground. They were coming and going. There were people in front of us who were kind of getting annoyed with the kids coming along and doing that. They made a couple of comments about, ‘Why would you bring kids to the races?’”
The owners initially resisted the urge to respond, but when Happy Lady, with driver-trainer Jim Rankin in the sulky, crossed the wire an easy three-length winner in the $333,238 race (she paid $5 for the win), they changed their mind.
“When the race was over and we had won, we looked over and said, ‘This is why,’” said Lockey. “And they just stood there with their mouths open. We would always try to involve the families as much as we could. It was a fun time.”
A fun time that might never have happened if it weren’t for a five-figure decision by the ownership group.
“Bill Masterson was the breeder and he didn’t make all the payments when she was first born, so to get into the race we had to supplement her, which was to the tune of $16,000,” recalled Lockey. “That was a lot of money back then and it’s still a lot of money now. We went down there and she had to race before that. She broke stride that race and we thought, ‘Oh dear!’ They asked if we were still going to supplement her and we said, ‘Definitely.’ She deserves it. And so we did.
“When she started her career, her first race was on May 2, 1977 – which was my mother-in-law’s birthday – Jim Rankin said he was going to go in 2:10 with her. If we won the race, great, and if she didn’t, so be it. It was going to be 2:10. And he went with her 2:10 on the dot. Not 2:10.1 – it was right at the time he said. And she won the race. The next week, he said, ‘Okay, she’s ready for 2:08.’ And she went in 2:08. The next week, he said it would be 2:06, and that happened. When we went to the OTB about a year and a half later, we asked Jim what his strategy was. He said, ‘We’re going to go as far and as fast as we can.’ And that’s what they did.”
Said Rankin, post-race, in a New York Times story, “They say the best horses race in front and that's where she raced. I wanted to race her in front. In a 10‐horse field there is a lot of traffic, and I wanted to be up front controlling it. She is the kind of filly that you can race from behind or in front. You can do most anything you want with her.”
The Monticello triumph was one of the 34 career scores for the daughter of Most Happy Fella. Happy Lady’s 1:58.4 victory in the Lady Maud at Roosevelt Raceway was a stakes and track record.
She banked $528,825 in career purse earnings and attained a life’s best mark of 1:55.3. She was one win shy of notching an unblemished record in her juvenile campaign, notching 15 victories from 16 starts.
For her efforts, Happy Lady was selected the two-year-old pacing filly of the year by both the Canadian Trotting Association (CTA) and the United States Trotting Association (USTA).
As a sophomore, the bay won 19 of her 24 starts.
In a tragic turn, on January 10, 1981, Happy Lady died – along with 13 other mares – in a barn fire at Castleton Farms in Kentucky, while in foal to Bret Hanover.
Over 35 years later, Happy Lady, nominated in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, was announced as one of the 2017 inductees into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.
For Lockey, the honour brings about a wealth of recollections, remembrances of her excellence on the racetrack and the impact Happy Lady had on so many people.
“It’s just awesome that our peers would think as much of her as we do,” offered Lockey. “It’s a very emotional time, an awful lot of memories. Some of the people that were involved in her success are no longer with us. So, there are good memories and bad memories. She was a member of the family. Between the Mastersons and us, we took our respective families to as many races as possible. It was a family event every time.”
What does Lockey want people to take away when they read the story of Happy Lady at the Hall of Fame?
“I don’t know,” she said with a laugh. “Jim could take her right to the lead and lead all the way or he could go to the back end and let everyone sort themselves out. I think it brought a lot of people in and around the St. Catharines area – it kept them interested in horse racing. We had a phenomenal sports editor here named Jack Gatecliff. Every time she raced, he had articles in the paper on her. She had a quite following here in the Niagara area and in New York State. It was amazing the following she had. She made a lot of people happy.”
