Mickey Walls, Josie Carroll among Canadian Hall of Fame inductees

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Jockey Mickey Walls and trainer Josie Carroll were among the 2019 inductees into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Mississauga Convention Center on Wednesday night.

Walls began riding professionally at age 16 in 1990 at Vancouver’s Exhibition Park, before concluding that year at Greenwood in Toronto and garnering his first Sovereign Award as Canada’s outstanding apprentice. In 1991, Walls won a record 231 races in Ontario and garnered his second straight apprentice Sovereign, along with honors as the top jockey in Canada. He was also voted the Eclipse Award for outstanding apprentice that year.

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Walls’s biggest victory came on Woodcarver in the 1999 Queen’s Plate. He won 1,453 races, and his mounts banked $37.3 million during a career that concluded in 2013.

Carroll has won the Queen’s Plate twice, and she conditions reigning Canadian champion male 2-year-old Avie’s Flatter. Her most successful charge was Careless Jewel, who captured the Grade 1 Alabama, the Grade 2 Delaware Oaks, and the Grade 2 Cotillion in 2009. Since striking out on her own in 1994, Carroll has won 805 races, including 44 graded stakes, for earnings of over $45 million.

The late Bory Margolus will be inducted as a builder. At one point, his Elmbrook Farm was the leading money-winning owner in Alberta for nine consecutive years. He won the Sovereign Award for outstanding owner in 1975, and was the country’s Sovereign award-winning breeder in 1977. Margolus retired from the industry in 1986.

Lexie Lou is an inductee in the Female Horse category. Bred by the late Hall of Fame builder Michael Colterjohn, Lexie Lou won the 2014 Queen’s Plate and Woodbine Oaks for trainer Mark Casse and owner Gary Barber, who had purchased her that spring from owner-trainer John Ross. She was the 2014 Canadian Horse of the Year, and her turf prowess enabled her to land a fourth Sovereign Award in 2016, when she was voted champion female grass runner.

The French-bred All Along will be inducted in the Veteran Horse category. Trained by Patrick Biancone, All Along swept the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Grade 1 Rothmans International, Grade 1 Turf Classic, and Grade 1 Washington D.C. International in 1983. She was voted the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year in 1983, and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga in 1990.

The inductees on the Standardbred side are builder Ian Fleming, driver Trevor Ritchie, trainer Jimmy Takter, and the horses Tricky Tooshie and Angus Hall.