More and more champion horses are spending their winter training at Desert Park because the milder winter climate beats the Prairies. Last month, Killin Me Smalls, a horse trained in Osoyoos, raced to a $50,000 victory at Northlands Park Racetrack in Edmonton. Desert Park has seen an explosion of trainers flocking to Osoyoos with more than 120 horses this past winter. Corrine Andros (right) has had a successful season. (Margaret Pasko photo)
Last month, racehorse Killin Me Smalls streaked to a $50,000 victory at the Journal Handicap at Northlands Park Racetrack and Casino in Edmonton.
The horse, which has an Osoyoos connection, runs six furlongs in 1:09 flat, has won nine of his 22 total starts and has been raising eyebrows across the region.
Killin Me Smalls trained for 60 days this winter at Osoyoos’ own Desert Park Racetrack and Training Facility.
And he is not the only one.
Desert Park has seen an explosion of trainers flock to it over the past few years, as word spreads across the horse racing circuit that it is the best place in the region to condition horses over the winter.
According to Gail Huchsteiner, who helps run the non-profit Desert Park Exhibition Society that operates the track, this winter more than 120 horses trained at the facility. That’s a far cry from the handful of locals who were almost the only ones using it just a few years ago.
As town councillor and former head of the Exhibition Society Carol Youngberg pointed out in an interview May 27, Desert Park is a far more accessible option for trainers in the region to get in their winter conditioning than BC’s lower mainland.
“Osoyoos is weather wise absolutely one of the best training centres, because they start earlier here than any other part of Alberta and northern B.C.,” she said.
Ernie Keller, who owns Killin Me Smalls, agrees.
“It certainly helps us a lot,” he said of the winter training his horses go through in Osoyoos. “We got a lot better weather than we’ve got in Edmonton. That’s for sure. We were able to train every day.
“We only lost one day and that was due to rain, so it really helps.”
While horses can handle training in brutal cold weather, most of the people who work in the industry in Alberta and northern B.C., including jockeys, trainers and grooms, prefer to train over the winter in a warmer weather climate like Osoyoos. That’s the reason behind the westward winter migration to Desert Park that’s been happening since 2012.
Youngberg explained that the Desert Park Exhibition Society took over operation of the facility in 2012, with the intention of repairing and improving it to allow more trainers to use it each year.
Right now the society is in the process of repairing the grandstand building, which Youngberg said will be finished in July. After the season is over, even more repairs are scheduled.
She said that as the facility continues to improve, more and more people should look to it as a training option.
“Ernie Keller’s always trained here, and with an improved facility it improves the condition of the horses,” she said.
And as more and more trainers learn about Desert Park, the facility is starting to boast more and more successful “alumi.”
Huchsteiner pointed to Daniel Dibert, who trains and rides at Desert Park and recently finished big at the Ajax Downs in Ontario.
There’s also Corrine Andros who, recovered from an injury while training at Desert Park this winter, has also just been selected to represent Canada at the H.H. Sheikh Mansoor Festival in Warsaw May 31.
As well as increased success of trainers who use the facility, Youngberg said that Desert Park is also contributing a hefty chunk to Osoyoos’ economy over the winter. Trainers stay in the town’s hotels, eat at the restaurants and local feed and tack suppliers are getting more business all the time.
But the “icing on the cake” for Youngberg is to be able to field a couple of days of horse races per year.
“Because as people will tell you horse racing doesn’t make you a lot of money. But the Desert Park Exhibition Society dedicates themselves to the facility and to putting those races on for the benefit of the community, and totally for entertainment.”
TREVOR NICHOLS
Special to the Times
