Six-time highest-level winner Tepin (Bernstein) will be among five Thoroughbred inductees into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame for 2020, it was announced Tuesday. Other Thoroughbred inductees are longtime industry fixture Sue Leslie, jockey Gary Boulanger, trainer Michael Keogh and Play the King (King of Spain {GB}).
Tepin, trained by 2016 Canadian Hall of Fame inductee and 2020 U.S. Hall of Fame finalist Mark Casse for Robert Masterson, racked up 13 career wins and $4,437,918, including scores in the 2015 GI Breeders' Cup Mile, 2016 G1 Queen Anne S. at Royal Ascot and the 2016 GI Ricoh Woodbine Mile in her lone Canadian start. She sold for $8 million to Coolmore's M.V. Magnier while in foal to Curlin at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton November sale.
Leslie's near 40-year involvement in the Ontario Thoroughbred industry has been as an owner, breeder and trainer as well as a leader–past and present positions she has held include President/Chair of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protection Society of Ontario, President/Chair of Ontario Horse Racing Industry Alliance, Director of the Avelino Gomez Memorial Foundation, Director of LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society, as well as being a member of the Jockey Club of Canada and Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society. A 2011 special Sovereign Award recipient, she was involved in establishing Ontario Racing, and currently serves as its Director and a member of the Executive Board.
Born in Alberta, Boulanger began his riding career in 1987, winning three riding titles at Longacres and two at Calder before eventually returning to Canada in 2000, where he continues to ride–primarily at Woodbine. His notable mounts have included Hall of Famer, Woodbine Oaks and Queen's Plate heroine Dancethruthedawn–conditioned by fellow Hall of Famer Mark Frostad. The 2017 Avelino Gomez Memorial Award winner has won 3,610 races, including 41 grades stakes, with earnings of nearly $80 million.
Keogh, the longtime private trainer for the late Hall of Famer Gustav Schickedanz, has won two Queen's Plates–with Woodcarver in 1999 and Triple Crown champion Wando four years later. The former assistant to Hall of Famer Roger Attfield also steered the careers of such standouts as Mobil and Langfuhr (Wando's sire), and worked with fellow 2020 inductee Play the King while assisting Attfield. Keogh's trainees have won 330 races and $21,512,420 to date.
Play the King, trained by Attfield for owner/breeder Kinghaven Farms, won 15 of 29 starts and earned $942,243. The late bloomer won his first graded stake at age four in 1987 in Aqueduct's GIII Toboggan H., and six more stakes wins that season led to champion older male and champion sprinter honors. He was second in the following year's GI Breeders' Cup Sprint at 49-1 odds, garnering repeat Sovereign Awards for older male and sprinter as well as Horse of the Year honors.
Details about 2020 Induction Ceremonies will be announced in the coming weeks.
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