Thoroughbred Racing
As a boy, Robert Davies developed a love for horse racing and for a while was on jockey in Thoroughbred flat racing. In 1865 at the racetrack in London, Ontario, the then sixteen-year-old rode in that year's edition of the Queen's Plate. He soon turned to training his own horses and at age twenty-two raced and trained Floss who won the 1871 edition of the Plate. The following year, a horse he bred named Fearnaught won the Plate. As of 2008 Robert Davies is the only person to ever ride in the Queen's Plate as well as own, train and breed winners of that race.
Davies purchased the filly Southern Maid from Kentucky breeder, John E. Madden. A daughter of 1898 Kentucky Derby winner, Plaudit, Southern Maid was voted the retrospective American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly of 1913. As a broodmare for the Davies family, she produced 1922 King's Plate winner, South Shore.
In 1888, Davies purchased a large property in the Don Valley from his farther-in-law on which he established a breeding operation he dubbed Thorncliffe Farms. He raced horses both in Thoroughbred flat racing and in harness racing under the nom de course, Thorncliffe Stable.
Davies served as president of the Canadian Horse Breeder's Association. A vice-president of the Ontario Jockey Club from 1895 to 1904, he unsuccessfully lobbied for the lifting of the rule that prevented horses foaled outside of the Province of Ontario from competing in the King's Plate.
Robert Davies died in 1916 at "Chester Park" and was buried in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto. For his contribution to the industry, in 2001 he was inducted in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in the Builders category. His estate sold Thorncliffe Farms to a group of investors from Baltimore, Maryland who built a horse Thorncliffe Park Raceway.
Davie's Dominion Brewery complex at Queen Street East and Sumach Street continued until 1936, but the brewery complex was renovated from 1987 to 1990 and is now Dominion Square (and used by Vistek as commercial office space) and the old Dominion Hotel is now home to the pub Dominion on Queen.
Read more about this topic: Robert T. Davies
Famous quotes containing the words thoroughbred and/or racing:
“A thoroughbred business man cannot enter heartily upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)