The Week In Review: The Legend Of ‘Red’-Trainer Saddles Winner At Age 96

[Wandering Eyes]

Trainer Robert “Red” McKenzie doesn't get much ink south of the border here in the States, but he is a living legend on the western Canada racing circuit. With practically zero fanfare or notice, McKenzie added to his impressive list of lifetime accomplishments Friday night when he saddled Entitled Star (Roi Charmant), a 10-year-old mare he owns, to a 25-1 upset victory in a $4,000 claimer in the second race at Century Mile in Edmonton.

The win was significant because McKenzie is 96 years old.

The feat could very well be a record in Canada. It's shy, however, of what is anecdotally credited as the North American record for oldest trainer to win a Thoroughbred race. That honor goes to Jerry Bozzo, who saddled a winner on Oct. 11, 2018, at Gulfstream Park West, just two weeks before his 98th birthday. Bozzo died one month after winning that final race.

The prior record belonged to trainer Noble Threewitt, who visited the Santa Anita winner's circle about two months after celebrating his 95th birthday in 2006. He died in 2010 at age 99.

Entitled Star, who sports a robust 13-for-80 lifetime mark, was ridden by apprentice jockey Meagan Fraser. The two have a connection: Entitled Star was responsible for giving Fraser her first career win last September at Century Mile.

McKenzie has started two horses for a combined five starts this year, and the victory was his first of the season. Equibase credits him with 623 lifetime victories, but that database only goes back to 1976, when McKenzie was closing in on age 50 and already had four successful decades of horsemanship under his belt. Numerous published reports credit him with at least 1,000 more victories dating back to the 1940s.

An October 2022 profile by Curtis Stock in Canadian Thoroughbred noted that McKenzie is up at 5:30 a.m. every morning and “still pedals his bicycle around the Century Mile backstretch, acting like a guy half his age.”

McKenzie started getting on horses in 1937 at age 10 at an Edmonton riding academy. By 13 he had his first bush-track mounts on what was then known as western Canada's long-since-defunct “B” circuit of small-town half-milers and county fairs. By 17, he was the B circuit's leading jockey with 87 victories, scoring in stakes like the Red Deer Derby (twice) and Rimbey Derby.

With a knack for winning races in bunches while tacking just 93 pounds, McKenzie soon graduated to the “A” tracks of the old Western Canada Association. But young Red's body began sprouting faster than his career, and he outgrew riding after 300 wins as a jockey. Not wanting to go through the rigors of reducing, he turned to training, which he had already begun learning to do long before he got his license.

McKenzie cultivated a winning touch with everything from 2-year-olds to older horses, from claimers to stakes, gaining an advantage by shoeing his own trainees. Over the decades he won the Canadian, Saskatchewan, and Alberta Derbies, and although he sometimes ventured to the higher-profile Toronto tracks or occasionally to Northern California or New York with the right horse, western Canada was his home. His best horse was Grandin Park, an Alberta-bred who campaigned from 1972 through 1980, amassing a 29-17-14 record from 116 starts.

TDN could not reach McKenzie prior to deadline for this story to ask his thoughts on winning a race at age 96.

But 15 years ago, when McKenzie was 81, he told Horse Racing Alberta in a video interview, “Age is just a number. If you've got nothin' to do, you'll get old awful fast. Horses can keep you young, I think.”

Ohio Derby/Haskell Double?

Two Phil's (Hard Spun) made short work of the GIII Ohio Derby field at 3-5 odds on Saturday, getting second run into an honest pace to swat back second choice and 'TDN Rising Star' Bishops Bay (Uncle Mo), who on paper loomed as his only true competition.

After finishing second, beaten a length, in the GI Kentucky Derby, Two Phil's was rested by sitting out the concluding two legs of the Triple Crown. Ten horses have now run back out of the May 6 Derby, but they have managed only two wins between them.

The Ohio Derby could serve as a useful confidence boost, but the going will get tougher for Two Phil's in his next projected start–the July 22 GI Haskell S. After that, he's being pointed for the GI Travers S., which also looms as the potential landing spot for top East Coast-based sophomores Mage (Good Magic) and Arcangelo (Arrogate), the Derby and GI Belmont S. winners, plus Belmont runner-up and GI Florida Derby victor Forte (Violence).

A glance at the list of winners of the Ohio Derby reveals that it's been quite a while since the last winner of that stakes had a significant national impact.

In fact, you have to go all the way back to Skip Away's 1996 season to find the last time an A-list threat roared through Thistledown and parlayed an Ohio Derby win into end-of-the-year hardware.

Skip Away ran 12-2-2 in the three Triple Crown races, then 15 days after the Belmont S., he resurfaced for the premier race in Cleveland, winning it by 3 1/2 lengths as the 7-10 favorite.

The stocky gray then won the Haskell, ran third in the Travers, won the GI Woodbine Million (when Woodbine still had dirt), and capped off his season by dethroning the mighty Cigar in the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Skip Away asserted himself as the champion 3-year-old of 1996, then stuck around to rack up back-to-back older horse Eclipse Awards in 1997 and 1998, plus the Horse of the Year title in that final campaign.

Prior to Skip Away, the Ohio Derby had a pretty nice run of winners who later blossomed into mainstays in the older dirt handicap division from 1985 through 1987: Skip Trail (who also won the Haskell, then sired Skip Away), plus Broad Brush and Lost Code (who were fifth and third in their respective Haskells).

Geaux Rocket Ride | Benoit Photo

On the western horizon…

Let's not forget the talent in the sophomore division currently parked out west. Three horses who had to be withdrawn from Kentucky Derby consideration because of fevers earlier in the spring are at various stages in getting back on track.

Geaux Rocket Ride (Candy Ride {Arg}) won the Affirmed S. at Santa Anita back on June 4. He's being aimed for the Haskell.

Skinner (Curlin), who was third in the GI Santa Anita Derby, will reportedly contest the July 8 Los Alamitos Derby.

Practical Move (Practical Joke), who beat both Geaux Rocket Ride and Skinner at Santa Anita, has yet to post a published workout since being scratched two days before the Derby.

There's also early-season phenom and 2-for-2 'TDN Rising Star' Arabian Knight (Uncle Mo), who is unraced since winning the Jan. 28 GIII Southwest S. He also appears Haskell-bound, with five published works since May 29 at Santa Anita, the last two of them bullet moves.

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