Behind the Gate

3?

answered. ".»l/’/‘/)ol‘11e .-l./. because he gaye me a lot of thrills. l)ri\‘ing him was just like driying a Cadillac. llis owners. the Parkdale Stable. were so good to me. My uncle, Alack was his trainer and my uncle Aloe helped to deyelop him. lie was such a tremendous horse with so

many sentimental connections."

Atlantic proyinces history took place in 199‘) in

The fastest dead—heat in

the 539.000 Provincial (Iup at the Saint

~lohn Exhibition Raceway. The two yicto—

rious combatants were Order To (in and Raleigh Fingers and the time was 154.4 which was one fifth ol~ a second lrom the track record. Kenny Arsenault would neyer lorget that race because he was the driyer of (Nu/e170 (it) and it was his most memorable race. 'l‘rainer lan Reid asked Kenny to substitute for the absent ~lohn Holmes and he was honored to answer in \\'"hen the gate lel‘t. Bill

Sharpe had It’d/ere!) I’ll/gels on the engine

the al‘lirmat ye,

l‘ollowetl by [5/ I’L‘Ij/c’do and (NI/(‘1‘ To (/0. Kenny wa.s seyen lengths behind the leader wher he moyed first over: howey—

er. from the top of the lane to the wire.

they raced LS a pair and a second print ol‘

the photolirish reyealed a dead heat. It was also Keith’s fastest win until he won in 1:31 with the great .Als/rmmmicu/ at the (Iharlottetox'n l)ri\‘ing Park.

There have been many changes. some positiye illiti some negatiye. in the har— ness racing industry in the past three decades. lienny suggested that pylons,

the quiclelitch and simulcasting were

Kenny Arsenault

three ol‘ the major changes in his time; howeyer. he strongly belieyed that the absence of young people at the racetrack was. unlortunately. the biggest change. The next time you go to the track. look around and estimate the ayerage age of the people present and you will under— stand his point. He belieyed that unless the industry did something positiye soon to reyerse this trend it could spell the end of li\'e racing in this region.

One aspect of the industry that this train- er—driyer did not want changed in this region was the size of the racetrack. Today. there is a trend to build new tracks larger than the half—mile yariety. ;\lost new tracks are of the seyen-eights or one mile Variety. The reason for this trend is the emphasis on speed. Kenny disagreed with this philosophy and he emphatically stated. "I dont want them to change the hall—mile racetracks. The best driyers will win SS per cent ol the time on a small track. This is not the case on the larger track where it is mostly speed and less strategy. In addition. the l‘ans are much closer to the action at the hall! mile tracks."

Prolessional driyers haye dil‘l'erent rou— tines on a day that they are racing. Kenny normally droye in from the to ten races per night at the C.l).l’. and most ol these were catch—driyes. Some driyers spend a lot of time reading the race pro- gram to plan their possible strategy for each race. Kenny explained. "I don‘t spend hours on the race program but I

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