Wise Dan, Casse top ballot for Canadian Hall of Fame

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Wise Dan, the two-time Horse of the Year and two-time winner of the Woodbine Mile; Mark Casse, a seven-time Sovereign Award winner as Canada’s outstanding trainer; and long-time Daily Racing Form columnist Joe Hirsch headline a list of 15 Thoroughbred candidates eligible to be inducted to the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2016.

The Hall of Fame’s 20-member election committee will determine the inductees in each of the five Thoroughbred categories on this year’s ballot. The results will be announced April 5, with the induction ceremony set to take place Aug. 3 at the Mississauga Convention Centre. Another 15 candidates are eligible for induction in five Standardbred voting categories.

The Thoroughbred categories included on this year’s ballot are male horse, trainer, communicator, builder, and veteran horse.

Wise Dan is among the male horse candidates after recording 23 wins in 31 career starts, winning at the Grade 1 level 10 times. Two of those Grade 1 wins came in the Woodbine Mile, which he captured in back-to-back years in 2012 and 2013 on his way to victories in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile in both seasons.

Wise Dan is joined in the male horse category by 2000 Canadian Horse of the Year Quiet Resolve and 2002 Canadian Horse of the Year Wake at Noon. Quiet Resolve won the then Atto Mile in 2000 and also was named champion turf horse that season, while Wake at Noon won 6 of 10 starts in 2002, which included wins the Grade 3 Vigil Handicap and Grade 3 Highlander Handicap, and earned Sovereign Awards as champion sprinter and champion older horse in addition to his Horse of the Year title.

Casse, who has won the Woodbine training title 10 times and set a record of 119 wins at a single meet in 2011, is eligible for induction in the trainer category along with 2005 Sovereign Award winner Reade Baker and Harold Barroby, the all-time leader in wins and stakes wins at Hastings.

Hirsch, the founding president of the National Turf Writers Association, began writing for Daily Racing Form in 1954 and retired as its executive columnist in 2003. Hirsch is among the nominees for induction in the communicators category, along with Edmonton Journal writer Curtis Stock and long-time Woodbine track announcer Daryl Wells Sr.

In the builder category, breeders James Sabiston and the late Dr. Michael Colterjohn are eligible for induction, along with the late James Irvine, a long-time Ontario Racing Commission and Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association employee.

Rounding out the Thoroughbred nominees in the veteran horse category are 1983 Canadian International winner All Along, 1974 Canadian International winner Dahlia, and 1970 Canadian Oaks winner South Ocean.

Members from the election committee will cast a secret ballot and have the option of either a positive vote or a “no” vote. The candidate who receives the most “yes” votes in each category will be declared elected, unless the “no” vote leads the ballot.