Saving Sammy: It's training day as Denny tests Sam on the track

Jayson Baxter, producer and co-host of CTV News at 5, shares the personal story of Saving Sammy, his family’s beloved racehorse.

I drove back to Prince Edward Island to rejoin Sammy and Denny on Oct. 6, four days before they would parade the entries for the “Saving Sammy Pace” at the Atlantic Breeders Crown Championship Sunday at Red Shores Raceway in Charlottetown.

Dad was in a hurry to get going as soon as I got there. He wanted to take Sam from Randy and Donna Van Meer’s farm outside Stratford, P.E.I., to Red Shores for a light training trip.

So far on the farm track, he’d been jogging Sam ‘free-legged,’ which means without ‘hopples,’ a piece of equipment designed to assist pacing.

Trotters move their opposite, front and back legs, at the same time -- right-front, left-hind and vice versa.

Pacers like Sammy extend both legs, same side, at the same time.

These stunning slo-mos by Chris Gooden Visuals show the difference in clear detail.

Bulldog Hanover – a horse with P.E.I. connections – broke the world record for a one-mile pace last summer in 1:45.4/5ths of a second. In harness racing, seconds are measured in fifths, not tenths. The four-year-old stallion’s average speed to do so was almost 55 km/h. Crazy speed.  

Bulldog Hanover’s father, or sire, is Shadow Play, who was raised in P.E.I. and started his racing career at Red Shores before going on to make more than $1.5 million in purse money for co-owner Dr. Ian Moore, an Island veterinarian and one of the sports’ top trainers.

Sammy didn’t set any track records at Red Shores (maybe for an 18-year-old?!), but he hit the pace like he never left it, leaving dad excited about Sunday’s prospects.

OK, my head hurts from all the math … I hope you enjoy episode 3!