Derby Day Overnights
A first look at Saturday's bumper nine-race BC Derby card which, in addition to the $125,000 feature, also includes the $75,000 BC Oaks as well as two $100,000 futurity events for juveniles
The third Leg of the Western Canadian Triple Crown :
BC DERBY!
📍Hastings Racecourse (PNE Gate 6)
🗓️ Saturday, Sept. 16th
✨ FREE ADMISSION
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FOUR exciting stake races:
🏆BC Oaks ($75,000)
🏆BC Derby ($125,000)
🏆Sadie Diamond Futurity ($100,000)
🏆Jack Diamond Futurity ($100,000)
BC Derby Day Overnights, Saturday September 16
Sunday, September 17
BC DERBY DAY SALUTES HOCKEY LEGENDS FROM HISTORIC ERA OF FATHER DAVID BAUER
There is no question the $125,000 BC Derby on Saturday, September 16 will be the premier event of the 2023 Hastings Racecourse season. It’s been that way in local thoroughbred racing circles dating back to the post-WWII years.
This 76th edition of British Columbia’s very own ‘Run for the Roses’ for 3-year-olds going 1 1/8 miles just keeps taking on added glamour.
For the first time in Canadian thoroughbred racing history, the BC Derby will be billed as the third and final jewel of what we now know as the Western Canadian Triple Crown.
The new concept was introduced in early May of this year connecting the $125,000 Manitoba Derby August 7 at Assiniboia Downs, the $200,000 Canadian Derby at Century Mile August 26 in Alberta and the $125,000 BC Derby at Hastings on its traditional mid-September date.
Not that BC Derby Day this year needed more energy sprinkled into the mix when along came Rick Noonan, former owner and groom with Tak Inouye at Hastings Racecourse.
Noonan had been actively involved in Canada’s original national hockey team as trainer from 1967 thru 1970 and manager of the 1980 Olympic team under the legendary Father David Bauer who passed away in November 1988.
Father Bauer was the brainchild of the national team that represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics held in Innsbruck, Austria, the first time in Canadian Olympic hockey history that our nation was represented by amateur players whose mandate was combining education and hockey.
Noonan, inducted into the UBC Sports Hall of Fame in 2012, and Ronnie Paterson, former Team Canada goaltender and member of the BC Hockey Hall of Fame, are organizing what they expect will be the final Father David Bauer Team Reunion Sept. 14-18 in Vancouver.
With BC Derby Day on Saturday, September 16, Noonan was thrilled to be able to include Hastings Racecourse as one of the key attractions of the 2023 Reunion agenda.
Former players from all the years of Father Bauer’s national teams will be arriving from across Canada to be part of the 2023 BC Derby festivities. Original 1964 team members will include Roger Bourbonnais, Marshall Johnston, Terry O’Malley, Paul Conlin and Barry MacKenzie.
Team Canada players from the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, NY, will be represented by Doug Buchanan, Tim Watters, Brad Pine, O’Malley, Don Spring and Stelio Zupancich. Others from all the years of the national team program will include brothers Herb and Gerry Pinder, Jim Irving, Grant Moore, Harvey Schmidt, Wayne Freitag, Steve Carlyle, Wally Kozak, Morris Mott and Paterson.
“Age, health and passings have reduced our numbers greatly,” Noonan says. “This will probably be the last time we all gather together. Father Bauer will be represented by one of his nieces, Maureen McGahey and Carl Brewer from the 1967 Centennial Cup champions will be represented by his daughter Annalisa. Everyone is super excited about being part of BC Derby Day. We can’t thank Hastings Racecourse management enough for all they’ve done to make this happen.”
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