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READE BAKER
Reade Baker didn't intend to become a trainer, but since starting out in 1990, his stable has grown to 61 horses and includes Canadian Horse of the Year Fatal Bullet. By Frances J. Karon
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N a warm morning in Toronto, Canada, Reade Baker maneuvers his car around the sprawling facilities of Woodbine Racetrack. The car with the “AFLEET” license plate detours to Afleet Street, intersecting with Glorious Song Avenue: this is history-steeped Woodbine country. He drives from barn to track, supervising a set of horses every half hour. Some mornings, Baker will accompany his string from the back of a pony, but not today; despite the sunshine, this is “unponylike weather” for the trainer, who doesn’t like the cold. His assistant, Leroy Trotman, of whom Baker says, “He’s not good. He’s great,” is never farther away than his walkie-talkie, Trotman’s voice crackling over the audio periodically. Baker gestures towards the training track. “I think we’ve got more and better facilities than any place in North America. I’ve been to every place in North America. We’ve got this full mile dirt track, a seven-eighths turf, we also have a sand ring and a field you can train in. I don’t know anybody who can match that.” And in the winter months – when it’s freezing in Toronto even by general standards – he relocates to Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach, Florida. “I’ve got the best of both worlds. I think there’s no better place to train horses [than Woodbine] and I don’t think there’s any better training center than Palm Meadows in the wintertime.” It was a focused journey from the dairy farm on which he was raised in Port Dalhousie, Ontario, to the backside of a racetrack for Reade Baker. He was drawn to the spectacle the first time he went racing. “We had all these horses at the farm, they were just horses; they weren’t all clean and spiffy.” What captivated the then-14-year-old, who was with his uncle at Fort Erie, was that “all of a sudden this horse comes in, he’s slick as a seal, he’s got these bandages on and the women were just absolutely gorgeous with all those fancy clothes on. And I thought, howdy doodle! Now – and then the kicker came, ah! – you ISSUE 13 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 15