When people think about Bee A Magician, they rightfully think about the many stakes races won and money earned. In fact, no trotter in North American history has made more money solely on this continent. But when asked about other memories of ‘Bee’, her trainer, Nifty Norman, told TROT a fun story most don’t know: the story of her earliest days in his care, and the many grey hairs she gave both Nifty and his crew at the time. By John Rallis.
Earning just shy of $4.2 million over the course of her racing career, Bee A Magician was as dynamic a trotter as her statistical output would suggest. The man who developed her, Richard ‘Nifty’ Norman, knew he was looking at a superstar the moment he laid eyes on her - before she even hit the sales ring. Just like any other yearling whose connections have high hopes, however… only time would tell. After months of trickery on her part, and frustration and plenty of patience on that of her trainer and his team, Bee A Magician eventually began to show the racing world what caused Nifty to be infatuated with her from the very beginning. Now, despite a copious amount of headaches, the mare’s immense talent and strong desire to win is what has cemented her a spot in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.
In the fall of 2011, as sale time neared, Hall of Fame owner and breeder David McDuffee informed his trainer Richard ‘Nifty’ Norman that he wanted a trotting filly by Kadabra. Nifty knew just where to look for one first, and it didn’t take him long to identify the one that he wanted.
“I was stabled at White Birch Farm and they just happened to be selling a Kadabra [filly] that fall, so it was very easy for me to drive up to see her.” recalls Nifty. “When I went up there [to the yearling barn], there were already a number of cars there that day.
“As I pulled up, I could see this yearling with two or three people looking at her, and I said to myself ‘Jeez, that might be her.’ When I got out of the car and took a few steps, I immediately said ‘That’s the one I’m looking for’.
Nifty had already seen enough, after just a few seconds.
“I was there for about five seconds and that’s all I needed. I went back to my car immediately, and I called David and said, ‘I found the Kadabra filly that you want’.
“I’ve never spent less time selecting a yearling than I did with her, and it turned out to be the best horse I ever bought. She just looked that impressive, honestly.”
A few months and $90,000 later, Bee A Magician was purchased by Mel Hartman, Herb Liverman and David McDuffee as Hip #959 at Harrisburg. They were confident they’d be getting a very good filly, but the early stages of the breaking-process with her caused a little bit of doubt.
Though her eye-catching looks were enough to draw her connections in right away, her mannerisms, during Nifty’s time breaking her, were far from charming.
“When I started to break Bee A Magician, I already knew a little bit about her because her mother [Beehive] was also trained on the farm,” recalls Nifty. “She was an old bitch of a mare, and they had trouble getting her to go to the track. They’d actually get a jockey to ride her to go to the track since they couldn’t get her there themselves. I mean, I was aware of that, but I didn’t expect the daughter to be that way… let alone worse.
“We ended up being able to lead Bee A Magician out to the track, or linedrive her right out there, but once we did that she would stop, back up, and walk backwards for as much as 400 yards sometimes. She just refused to go on the track.”
Nifty knew he had to get creative.
“This was happening over quite a period of time - say three weeks - and it was a recurring issue,” recalls Nifty. “So we put a horse in front of her, a horse on each side of her and a horse behind her. We were able to get her going to and around the track like that in a group.
“But every now and again she would just stop, and buck, and scare away other horses. She would buck and walk backwards. I mean, this would go on for a while, but things were actually starting to progress.”
Eventually, she overcame her quirks… or so they thought.
“Finally, after a long process, she finally got the hang of it and she was able to get around the track. We always had another horse going alongside her, just in case, but it seemed like she was really over it.
“I went away on vacation for a few days, and two days in my second trainer, ‘Slim’, called me and said, ‘I can’t get her on the track’. I asked what she was doing and he said that she’d either lay down or back up like she did before. After I heard that, I remember telling him ‘Alright, don’t do it anymore with her, and just leave her on the walker until I get back’.
It was three steps forward and ten steps backwards with the filly who was giving Nifty and his team everything they could handle and more. Nifty, however, never stopped trying. It was a testament to not only his confidence in her, but his patience as a trainer.
“When I got back [from vacation] we had to go through the entire process again of having to break her,” with a hint of frustration in his voice to this day. “We started from scratch all over again until we could get her to keep moving. We had to linedrive her onto the track and so forth, the same way we did prior… She was a piece of work, but I knew she had the talent.”
To that point, and as the months passed, Bee A Magician had yet to wear a racebike long after most of the other babies had been in one. Far from ideal, but Nifty wanted to stay away from any more setbacks. He knew he would have to do things the unconventional way with her, and he was fine with that.
“She would always hump, and we were worried that she’d kick, so I didn’t want to put a racebike on her until the day she was set to qualify,” he laughs. “She was a big, strong filly, so if she ever decided to start kicking, she’d smash the cart in a heartbeat and hurt whoever was guiding her. It just wasn’t that easy with her.”
Fast forward to June 23, 2012 at The Meadowlands, and Bee A Magician was set to make her debut in a qualifier. As a result of never going with a racebike prior to this, Nifty didn’t feel that listing a driver to sit behind her was safe for the driver - at least not yet.
“I couldn’t list a catch-driver on a filly who’s never been with a racebike before,” explains Nifty. “This was a filly with some really nasty habits, so I didn’t know if it was safe or not right away. I decided that I would be the one to qualify her.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified that morning, but I just remember telling myself that if she was going to kick somebody, it might as well be me (laughing).”
Lining up from post position #4 in that morning prep, Bee A Magician got away last off the gate in a field of six, before trotting a final quarter in :28.2 to finish 4th, beaten 5 ¼ lengths, trotting her own mile in 2:03.
[NOTE: The three horses that beat her in the qualifier that day would go on to earn a combined $106,994… much less than ‘Bee’ would earn in her first six starts].
The qualifying effort led Nifty to believe that his project-filly was ready to race, and there was an OSS Gold elimination scheduled to take place at Kawartha Downs just five days later.
“She got around the track well in that qualifier and she finished up strong,” remembers Nifty. “I figured one prep was enough, so I wasn’t taking any more chances - especially given her quirks. It was time to race.”
It was time to head north to Canada with the Ontario-sired filly, the place where she would spend her entire 13-start, two-year-old campaign. Nifty listed Ontario-based Scott Zeron to drive in that first start, but in a surprise turn of events, he was forced to look elsewhere.
“I put Scott Zeron down to drive in her career debut in Canada, but he had another commitment for Casie Coleman that day. I remember Ricky [Zeron] gave me a call after that and said, ‘Listen, Scotty can’t drive that filly, but I will’.
“That’s how Rick got the drive and it’s a phone call I’m glad he made. It wasn’t the Zeron that I initially had in mind, but the two of them were a perfect match.”
Bee A Magician went on to win her career debut at Kawartha, with Rick Zeron in the bike, in that $40,000 OSS Gold elimination, in 1:58.1.
The filly that caused Nifty so much trouble behind the scenes, was strictly business when it came to the races. The ones that she was a major problem for now, were the other OSS fillies in her division.
“Her freshman campaign was remarkable,” says Nifty proudly. “She won 10 races in 13 starts and bankrolled over three-quarters of a million dollars. The process to get her up and racing was a tough one, but it made it all worth it.
Though Rick might not have been his first choice to sit behind his talented filly, Nifty will be the first to rave about the job that the veteran reinsman did driving her throughout her freshman campaign.
“We raced her off the pace a lot to start her career, just to get her on a helmet for a little bit and get her relaxed,” said Nifty. “Once you tipped her off cover, she was awesome. She would never leave the gate hard, but that’s probably why she had such a lengthy career. Ricky did a great job of giving her a great chance to win, while taking good care of her in the process.”
Of those 13 starts, Nifty will be the first to tell you she should’ve won 11 races as a two-year-old. Her next-to-last start as a rookie, in the 2012 Breeders Crown, was one Nifty would definitely like to have back.
“She should’ve won the Breeders Crown as a two-year-old,” says Nifty. “A horse made a break in front of her just after the start of the race, and she had to make an unbelievable recovery just to finish third. If she didn’t have to check up to avoid the breaker, she would’ve won that race easily.”
After racing solely in Ontario as a freshman, Bee A Magician’s three-year-old season consisted of multiple, marquee stakes races in the United States, along with some Grand Circuit and OSS starts in Canada. With that, Nifty’s plan was to divide the driving responsibilities between the two countries as well.
Any races that were in Ontario, Rick Zeron would drive; and for any races in the U.S., Hall of Fame reinsman Brian Sears would get the nod. It was a two-man show that worked to perfection… literally.
“My plan for Bee A Magician’s three-year-old season was set in place by the end of her two-year-old year,” shares Nifty. “In Canada, Rick was going to be my guy, and in the [United] States, it was Brian. Breaking the news to Rick wasn’t easy, but it all worked out.”
If you know Rick Zeron’s competitive fire, you have to know that a decision like that might bother him a little bit.
“I’ve got to say, when I told Rick that we were going to use Brian in the States, he was not that happy at all,” admits Nifty. “As a competitor, you understand Rick being disappointed, especially given the job that he did with her as a rookie, and what he felt she could accomplish, but it ended up being the right call.
“Brian was probably the best driver in the world, so it wasn’t a slight against Rick at all,” stresses Nifty. “I just wanted an American-based driver to sit behind her when she raced in the U.S. and Brian was the guy. Rick and I are good friends to this day and we get along really well. We had a great run together and enjoyed a lot of success. He’s a big reason why this filly was able to have the career she did.”
Bee A Magician’s first six starts as a three-year-old took place in Ontario, where Zeron guided her to six consecutive wins, including in the $162,765 SBOA final, the $75,000 Casual Breeze and the $364,266 Elegantimage final. Three weeks later, the filly made her first career start outside of Canada, capturing the $265,000 Del Miller Memorial in a world record performance, stopping the clock in 1:51.
Next stop… The Hambletonian Oaks.
“Bee A Magician’s win in the Del Miller Memorial was her coming out party,” says Nifty. "To dominate the race the way she did, and set a world record, it was awfully hard not to be overly confident going into the [Hambletonian] Oaks.
“Even when you go into a big race with a superstar horse, you never want to go into it thinking it’s a foregone conclusion, because we’ve seen plenty of times in this sport that anything can happen. But after that performance, I knew I could be confident.”
After winning her Hambletonian Oaks elimination easily, Bee A Magician was looking to give trainer Nifty Norman his second consecutive triumph (following Perfect Style in 2012) in the signature stakes event for sophomore trotting fillies. Only unlike the year prior, Nifty was the hunted.
“I was far more nervous going into this Oaks than I was the year before, when I also won it. It’s a different kind of pressure when you have a horse that everyone expects to win, and I felt it as the race was nearing
“I walked up into the grandstand, had a beer and watched on my own,” he recalls. “I was nervous as hell, but luckily for me, she and Brian gave me nothing to sweat about during the race. That win was one of many highlights in what was a memorable three-year-old campaign.”
After her Oaks victory, the sophomore trotting filly returned to Ontario where she rattled off four more victories, keeping her seasonal record perfect through 13 starts. As the wins kept piling up, the idea of Horse of the Year honours started creeping into her trainer’s thoughts.
“At the time, Captaintreacherous was the favourite to win Horse of the Year. I didn’t think we had a chance, but the more Bee A Magician kept winning, the more I believed she had a legitimate shot at it.”
With wins in her elimination and the $500,000 Breeders Crown final at Pocono Downs, the $118,500 American National at Balmoral Park, and the $253,000 Moni Maker at The Meadowlands, Bee A Magician finished off her three-year-old season a perfect 17-for-17, while bankrolling over $1.5 million.
Her flawless campaign earned her 2013 Horse of the Year honours in both Canada and the United States.
“If she doesn’t remain perfect, I’m not sure we beat out Captaintreacherous for Horse of the Year honours,” admits Nifty. “When she won at Balmoral Park, Brian was in the three-hole and he didn’t move her. I remember thinking, ‘Well, there goes the unbeaten streak’ (laughing), but she squeezed through and got the job done. She wasn’t at her best, but she won.
“Even in her last race of the year at The Meadowlands [The Moni Maker], she wasn’t very good that night in a winning effort,” admits Nifty. “I remember turning to Brian and saying ‘It’s nice driving a horse like that, isn’t it?’ I mean, they win when they aren’t supposed to. That’s why she’s a champion.”
With 45 victories in just 72 career starts, wins in races like the Maple Leaf Trot (against the boys) and career earnings of $4,196,145, Bee A Magician is the richest trotter in North American history that didn’t make a dime of it overseas. Not bad for a filly that refused, for months, to walk to the track and trot around in circles like the others.
“One thing about Bee A Magician, is she had this massive gait,” shares Nifty. “I remember saying to David McDuffee, early on: ‘Honestly, don’t worry too much about her manners right now, her gait will take her a long way.’”
She definitely turned out to be just the Kadabra filly that Nifty Norman and David McDuffee were looking for… and more!
It was probably her trainer that needed to be the Magician - especially in those early days - but it was the filly that turned out to be the Queen Bee.
This feature originally appeared in the June issue of TROT Magazine. Subscribe to TROT today by clicking the banner below.
