By Greg Douglas – Dr. Sport

 

SCENE & HEARD: We should all be as upbeat as Barbara Heads. Every day, seven days a week, her alarm clock dispatches the rude awakening that it’s four o’clock in the morning and time to roll out of bed. “I like to be on the job by 5:30 a.m.,” she says. “It’s been part of my routine for as long as I can remember.”

Then she corrects herself. “Did I say job? It’s not a job in the truest sense of the word. It’s more like something I do for a living that I enjoy doing.”

Barb Heads, proud member of the distinguished Anderson racing family, is off to an uncustomary quick start as an owner/trainer this season at Hastings … uncustomary because, well, let her explain:

“We’ve had more sprinters than we’ve normally had in the last few years and it has provided us better opportunities early in the sprint races. We’re not doing anything differently but it’s been a nice change.”

In 14 starts heading into this holiday weekend, the Heads camp has scored victories with Always Sunny (April 29), Ace Deuce (May 5) and Mori Girl (May 12).

Things will be somewhat tougher for her in today’s $50,000 Vancouver Sun with Heads having Touching Promise and Yukon Belle entered in the 6 ½ furlong race for 3-year-olds & up fillies and mares.

“They both prefer to go longer,” Barbara says.

Touching Promise is a three-time Grade 3 Ballerina winner and makes her first start this season after running just once last year … a second-place finish to Dear Lily in the Vancouver Sun. Yukon Belle had the unenviable and frequent task of going up against the sensational 7-for-7 stakes winner Daz Lin Dawn last season.

A Hastings milestone was established in 2006 with an amazing female breakthrough in the racing industry as Barbara Heads and Terry Clyde finished tied as Leading Trainers each with 48 victories to their credit. While they both tend to shrug it off as “ancient history”, the feat remains a highlight in Canadian thoroughbred record books.