By all accounts, the late Ed Tracey was an excellent driver and great all-around horseman. By those same accounts, he was even a better human being. TROT reached out to a number of the Alberta-horseman’s peers and asked them to share memories and stories of the friend they all miss dearly, in an effort for us all to learn more about the man who is soon to enter the hall of fame, as a member of the Class of ‘24. By Matthew Lomon.
Although there is no shortage of superlatives to describe the man and horseman that Ed Tracey was, those who knew him best remember “Eddy” in a similar, fond regard.
“To win a race, you had to beat Eddy Tracey,” said long-time Alberta horseman and friend Rod Hennessy, who himself has driven 2,831 winners and trained another 2,238 over his illustrious career. “If you tried to park him and let him go out to the front, the next quarter would be faster than that one and he’d just drive off. He had a great knack for winning races.”
He also had a knack for getting the most out of each pacer and trotter that he partnered with.
“Every horse that he ever drove, he had their respect. It was an amazing thing. I’ve driven a lot, against a lot of people, but Eddy Tracey, the horses respected Eddy as much as he respected them.”
In his teens, Tracey was already driving with the maturity and confidence of a veteran. It was something that John Baxter, who competed against Tracey on the Alberta circuit for years, took notice of early on.
“He started when he was 15,” recalled Baxter. “When I was that age, I was having a hard time riding a bicycle,” he joked.
Tracey, who was born in 1943 in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, a town of less than 11,000 people, came by his love of racing naturally. It was ingrained in his DNA. Both his parents, Hugh and Katherine, and his five siblings, Ann, Pat, Edna, Donald, and Tressa were all involved with horses from an early age.
Ed, who did indeed earn his driving license at the age of 15, had no qualms about carrying on the family legacy.
Tracey didn’t start out on a slow and steady gait either - he got his start in three-heats-a-day race meets in his home province. Despite the demands and long hours, Tracey excelled.
In his 50+ years on the job, the horseman with small-town roots and small-town values would become a big-time star. Whatever the stage, Tracey produced a rousing performance, almost always greeted by sterling reviews.
His many successes, far too many to note, included the 1978 ice racing championship on Ottawa’s Rideau Canal. Tracey family friend and veteran Alberta-area trainer Harold Haining recalled Ed’s valiant effort at a young age.
“I remember watching the ice racing championship in ‘78. I was only a kid then, but I was in BC at the time and everybody else was cheering for Keith Linton. Eddy’s cousin was sitting with us, and we were the ones cheering for Eddy.”
The now-defunct event holds a special place in Canadian racing history, be it Standardbred or Thoroughbred. Believed to have first been run in the 1860s, the ice racing championships went off as a regular event before going on a lengthy 56-year hiatus.
While it did only last until 1985, after its late 1970s return, it’s only fitting that Tracey helped play a starring role in the heritage event’s return to prominence.
That same 1978 campaign proved to be a banner one for Tracey, who at year’s end was rewarded with Alberta Horseman of the Year honours. It was a richly deserved accolade for a horseman who was only getting started. Over time, his reputation, and his many trips to the winner’s circle would continue to grow. But it wasn’t only on home soil where Tracey would make his mark - he also made a name for himself in U.S. racing circles.
As Hennessy recalled, that indescribable Tracey magic was on full display in the John W. Miller Memorial at Rosecroft Raceway in Maryland on May 2, 1987. If people didn’t know his name at the start of that card of racing, they no doubt did by the end of it.
“Eddy was racing here [in Alberta] on a Friday night, then right after he jumped in an airplane,” remembered Hennessy. “He had a mare by the name of Quille Lauxmont racing out of the province for the first time ever.”
The daughter of Bret Hanover would win 24 races and finish in the top three 47 times in 80 career starts. Bred by Lauxmont Farms (PA), she consistently took on top competition in both Canada and the U.S., and earned $370,014 for her troubles.
Her performance in the Miller Memorial that night was simply sublime. Not only did she square off against top rivals on that occasion, so too, did her driver. It would be a storybook ending for both.
“Eddy rolled into Rosecroft Raceway for the Grand Circuit and went wire-to-wire with her against all the drivers that were down there - John Campbell, [Bill] O’Donnell, the whole bunch. That’s how good he was,” beamed Hennessy.
Baxter also marveled at Tracey’s skill in the sulky. Whatever the situation, whatever the circumstances, Tracey seemed to rise to the challenge.
“I saw him do so many things,” recalled Baxter. “He’d get up behind a horse that he had never driven before, or a horse that was maybe a bad actor or something, and he’d win with them. I would say to him ‘How’d you do that?’ He would say, ‘Well, I don’t know. I just asked him to go, and he went’.
“That’s the kind of guy Eddy was,” laughed John.
Baxter, a driver with 2,301 victories himself, acknowledged the immense challenge that came with driving against Tracey. He also saw it as a great honour.
“There was never a safer driver in the world than Eddy. You never had to worry about what he was doing out on the track.
“He was a good friend to most everybody and a very good driver and horseman. There was no spit and polish with Eddy. He just went about his business and raced his horses.”
Baxter also recalled that Tracey was also a master of ‘flipping the switch’ after a long day at the office. Win or lose, once Eddy crossed the wire for the final time on the card, any disappointments were quickly cast aside.
“When he got on the bike it was all serious. Afterwards, there were quite a few good barn parties over the years. He could turn the page better than everybody else. When it was over, it was over.”
The news of Tracey’s induction prompted that so-called trip down memory lane for another one of his old contemporaries as well - fellow Hall of Famer, trainer/driver Keith Clark.
After debuting in 1977, the same year as Tracey, the Class of 2009 inductee, Clark, would drive 6,620 winners, and train another 4,302 that would end up in the winner’s circle.
There wasn’t much on a racetrack that Clark hadn’t seen or done before himself, save for Tracey.
“He could get a lot out of a horse,” said Clark. “I’ve never seen anything like it, really. He’s one of those guys who could just make horses go. And the best part about him was that he was really good with bad-gaited horses. If you had a bad-gaited one, Eddy was your driver because he could get along with those kinds of horses. Not only could he drive them, he could train them too. It was all natural for him.”
Tracey’s talent for getting the most out of any equine athlete also caught Hennessy’s eye.
“First of all, when you went out to race against Eddy, you had to beat him every week,” praised Hennessy. “He was tough to beat, and it didn’t matter what the horse looked like, or whatever. His horses were always ready to race, and he won with a lot of them.”
Tracey earned the respect of his fellow drivers in more than just victory also.
“If there were any spots that you wanted to be in, following Eddy was one of them, because he was a very safe driver, never close to you,” noted Clark. “He was one of those guys that you could feel safe following and feel safe being out there with.”
Tracey’s prowess as an all-around horseman is something Clark noticed from the very first moment that he watched him race. And while that may have made Clark’s life difficult, even for only two minutes at a time, the 14-time winner of Alberta’s Horseman of the Year Award always appreciated going stride-for-stride with Eddy.
It made the time they spent together away from the hustle and bustle of the track even more memorable as well.
“He had a house right behind Stampede Park,” shared Clark. “He was a good horseman and he liked to have fun. We spent many nights over at his place, playing pool, and sharing a good laugh.
“We were chasing him for quite a few years, but we still hung around and had lots of fun off the track too. You don’t generally do that with a guy you’re in heavy competition with all the time, but when the race was over, Ed was the kind of guy you enjoyed being around.”
Both a friend and an on-track foe that Clark will remember as “a great horseman and a fun-loving person.”
Others remember him in the same light.
“Eddy was a very good friend of mine also,” shared Hennessy. “I met him when I was 14-years-old. We never once had words, on or off the track, in the decades we knew each other.
Hennessy’s admiration for Tracey also extended to his work on the administrative side of the Standardbred game.
“Eddy and his brother ran Moore Horse Transport. This was back in the days when there were 1,000 to 1,200 Standardbreds, and 1,000 to 1,200 Thoroughbreds flipping between Edmonton and Calgary every three months.
“They organized it, and some way or another it all got done. They did a brilliant job.”
That ability to manage all aspects of racing undoubtedly gave Tracey a leg up on the competition, even when it didn’t appear he had one. Longshot or odds-on favourite, every horse was given a trip tailor-made for their abilities. And Tracey embraced every opportunity he was given.
“He would drive anything,” said Haining. “He didn’t just drive the best all the time. He took whatever people put him on and routinely delivered good results.”
As Haining put it, Tracey was a true jack-of-all-trades.
His expertise as a farrier was also well-known across the Alberta racing scene.
“He usually did all of his own shoeing. Eddy was a very good blacksmith. I worked for him as I got older and learned a lot about shoeing from him. He was an all-around horseman, not just a great driver,” shares Harold.
Tracey, who earned the Dr. Clara Christie Award in 1998, for his contribution to Alberta’s harness racing industry, was also a grandfather figure to Haining’s kids.
Haining, who’s held his training license since age 16, recalled one occasion that still brings a smile to his face.
“He treated my kids like he was their grandpa. One time, we were living up in Grand Prairie and we came down to his place. He took my oldest boy, who was maybe eight or nine at the time, out to feed the horses, and we looked out and my son’s driving the quad and Eddy’s running behind throwing the hay off to the horses.
“I’ve known Eddy since I was eight-years-old. He treated all of us like family.”
A common theme in the remembrances of Haining, Hennessy, Clark, and Baxter is that each one unequivocally agree, Tracey is deserving of a spot in The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.
Their only wish was that he had been called to the hall earlier.
“It’s very hard for anybody from out here to get into the hall of fame because not many people know about us,” said Baxter. “I thought it was great that Eddy would finally get in there. Even if it was long overdue.”
Efforts to get Tracey enshrined amongst the sport’s greatest were by no means lacking. Haining’s wife Colleen, who worked as project manager at the Alberta Standardbred Horse Association, nominated Tracey for the Hall of Fame twice, previous to this year.
The third time was indeed the charm though, for the man who recorded 3,168 driving wins and more than $7.5 million in purse earnings.
Ed Tracey passed away in April, 2019, at the age of 76, leaving behind his beloved wife of 51 years, Aldona, as well as his daughters Betty and Barbara and his grandson Morgan. One of Alberta Standardbred racing’s most respected and revered horsemen and citizens, Eddy has an annual race at Century Downs named in his honour, The Ed Tracey Memorial, for four-year-old colts and geldings.
On August 7th, Tracey will be immortalized in harness racing history as a member of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame; Class of 2024.
“He was my hero,” said Hennessy. “Just because he was Eddy. He was a complete gentleman on and off the track, and he personified honesty.”
The horseman from Weyburn also personified excellence, at every turn.
“Just a really good all-around person and horseman,” lauded Haining.
This feature originally appeared in the June issue of TROT Magazine. Subscribe to TROT today by clicking the banner below.
