New Canadian inductees

Doug Brown, Jacques Hebert, Armbro Emerson, As Promised, Run The Table and Armbro Feather are among the 2006 Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame inductees announced Tuesday.

The class of 2006 features 11 new members, including the four Standardbreds and two Thoroughbreds along with the late Steve Stavro and Thoroughbred horsemen James E. Day and David C. Cross Jr.

The exceptional Thoroughbred stallion Bold Ruckus and the filly Lauries Dancer, a multiple graded stakes winner in the U.S. and Canada's Horse of the Year in 1971, are the two Thoroughbred inductees.

All except Armbro Emerson and David C. Cross Jr., who were elected by the 12 member Veterans' Committee, were voted in by the two 16 member Election Committees. Successful inductees needed a minimum of 75 per cent of the balloting.

For many years Doug Brown dominated the Canadian driving charts and was the Ontario Jockey Club circuit's leading dash-winning driver from 1988 to 1997. The resident of Bowmanville, Ont., earned 8,115 wins and over $86 million. He also drove the winners of five Breeders Crowns, including the great pacing mare Town Pro.

Jacques Hebert's career in harness racing embodied class, integrity, longevity and remarkable consistency. He was deemed by his peers as the "consummate horseman." Hebert, of Drummondville, Que., has 5,802 wins and trained 1,010 winners while based in Montreal.

Armbro Feather was a multiple world champion pacer. A daughter of Most Happy Fella, she earned more than $1.4 million and during her career captured the Rose Are Red Stakes, Jugette, Breeders Crown and won an O'Brien Award as Canada's Older Pacing Mare in 1989.

The Alberta-based As Promised, a son of Abercrombie, was a multiple stakes champion with 71 victories. To date his offspring have won almost $14 million. His best so far has been Breeders Crown champion Rons Girl. As Promised was owned by Keith Clark, who later sold him to Sky West Farms. For the past two years he has traveled to Australia as a dual hemisphere stallion.

Run The Table was a major stakes winner in all three years of his racing career but his notoriety was a formidable stallion in the 1990s at Jack and Don McNiven's Killean Acres of Ingersoll, Ont. One of his great wins on the track was his upset of Jate Lobell. His offspring have earned more than $86 million and include Jays Table, Rabbi Of Racing, Run To The Bank, Elegant Killean, Ryancoke, Heatherjeankillean and Cathedra, the dam of millionaires Cabrini Hanover and Cathedra Dot Com.

Armbro Emerson influenced his sport as an outstanding million-dollar winning racehorse, as a multi-million dollar producing sire, and as an exceptional broodmare sire. One of his daughters, Classic Wish, is the dam of Bettors Delight, who earned more than $2.6 million, and Triple Crown champion No Pan Intended. Armbro Emerson was owned by Ed Weisz of Willowdale, Ont., and The Light Heavyweight Stable.

Stavro, who passed away at age 78 in April, was at one time the majority owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors and until 2000 owned the innovative Knob Hill Farms chain of food stores. He owned a relatively small but highly successful racing and breeding operation that produced numerous champions for Knob Hill Stable. In 1992 Stavro won two Sovereign Awards as Canada's leading owner and breeder. His horses earned six Sovereign Awards.

The gala Hall of Fame induction ceremonies will be held on Thursday, August 24, at the Mississauga Convention Centre.

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