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Four graduates of British Columbia’s annual CTHS Sale shared the spotlight in the winner’s circle during the 14th running of BC Cup Day at Hastings Racecourse:  Spaghetti Mouse (Redekop Classic), And All That Jazz (Sprint), Remarkable Miss (Dogwood) and El Sinaloense (Nursery).

With this in mind, a wave of optimism surrounds this year’s sale on Tuesday, Sept. 9 at Thunderbird Show Park in Langley.

Down through the years there have been several all-star breeders in B.C. and we will be profiling some of the best in the weeks ahead.  We begin the series “Grass Roots of B.C. Breeding” with the long-standing husband-and-wife team of Russ and Lois Bennett.

They have been breeding mares and standing stallions since the early 1970’s and still have an extensive broodmare band that has between 20 and 30 foals every spring.  It’s by far the largest foal count in the province owned by any one farm – the famous Flying Horse Farm, located in beautiful Westbank on the shores of the Okanagan Lake near Kelowna.

The Bennetts have been in racing since the mid-1960’s.  They went to the Queen’s Plate in 1974 with Madly Magic and won the Longacres Mile with homebred Canadian champion Travelling Victor in l984.  Over the years they have had numerous stakes stars such as Lord Nelson, Right Chilly, Skovinsky, Flying Magic and Madly Magic.

Russ and Lois Bennett were winners of the Breeders Sovereign Award in 1983 and were inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2007 as part of the Builders Category.

It is amazing the effort and hard work that breeders go through to make it all happen. They are truly the Unsung Heroes of the racing industry.