Alberta’s 2024 champions honoured

The top performers of Alberta’s 2024 harness racing season were honoured at the annual Alberta Standardbred Horse Association (ASHA) Awards on Saturday, March 1 at the Best Western Premier Plaza in Calgary, Alta.

The star of the night was filly Outlawguns N Roses (Captive Audience-Gunslingin Gal), who was named Alberta’s Horse of the Year following a standout sophomore season in which she won 11 of 13 starts and earned $285,270 in purses for trainer Rod Starkewski. In addition to winning two Alberta Sires Stakes finals and the Super Final, she won the Shirley McClelland Breeders Stakes, Century Casino Filly Pace and crushed her competition in the Gord & Illa Rumpel Memorial with a 1:51.3 track record performance for three-year-olds at Century Downs.

Some of her connections were also recognized individually as Starkewski and Clauzette Byckal were named Owners of the Year and Outlaw Stable was awarded Breeder of the Year.

The inaugural Keith Clark Horsemanship Award was presented to veteran Sturgeon County trainer/driver Jamie Gray. Named in honour of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame inductee who passed away last December, the prestigious award celebrates an individual who exemplifies outstanding skill, dedication and passion for the sport, just as Keith Clark did throughout his legendary career.

Gray also received the breeder award for six mares and under and his homebred Custard Dolce took top honours in the two-year-old filly categories. The daughter of Custard The Dragon out of Blue Star West was undefeated in stakes action and set a 1:54 track record for two-year-olds at Century Downs in the ASHA Filly Pace. In total, she won eight of her nine starts and earned just shy of $140,000 for Gray and partners Jackson Wittup, Max Gibb and Derek Wilson.

Mike Hennessy was honoured at Driver of the Year after putting up career-best stats of 155 wins and more than $1.2 million in earnings and driving defending older male pacer Shark Week in his near-perfect season among Preferred competition, while Travis Ellis was named Trainer of the Year after his stable won more than 70 races and $400,000 for the second straight season.

The full list of winners appears below.

Two-Year-Old Alberta-Sired Filly
Custard Dolce

Two-Year-Old Filly
Custard Dolce

Two-Year-Old Alberta-Sired Colt/Gelding
Momas Work Of Art

Two-Year-Old Colt/Gelding
Outlawminutbyminut

Three-Year-Old Alberta-Sired Filly
Outlawguns N Roses

Three-Year-Old Filly
Outlawguns N Roses

Three-Year-Old Alberta-Sired Colt/Gelding
Grey Horizon

Three-Year-Old Colt/Gelding
Grey Horizon

Aged Mare
Stash The Cookies

Aged Horse/Gelding
Shark Week

Claiming Mare
Cheese Whiz

Claiming Horse/Gelding
Came A Cavalier

Broodmare
Rummys Command

Trainer – Under 200 Starts
Chris Lancaster

Trainer of the Year
Travis Ellis

Driver – Under 200 Starts
Thomas Miller

Driver of the Year
Mike Hennessy

Owners of the Year
Rod Starkewski and Clauzette Byckal

Breeder – Six mares and under
Jamie Gray

Breeder of the Year
Outlaw Stable

Keith Clark Horsemanship Award
Jamie Gray

Caretaker of the Year
Amber Campbell

Horse of the Year
Outlawguns N Roses

From Standardbred Canada