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Garry Simms (third from right) with Circle Unbroken and owners after the two-year-old colt won the Bashford Manor Stakes at Churchill Downs
TRM Trainer of the Quarter
GARRY SIMMS
The TRM Trainer of the Quarter award has been won by Garry Simms. Simms and his team will receive a selection of products from the internationallyacclaimed range of TRM supplements, as well as a bottle of fine Irish whiskey. WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
16 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 25
FTER winning a race, the last thing a trainer wants to see is a red light appearing on the tote board. But this wasn’t any race. It was the 111th running of the Grade 2 $109,800 Bashford Manor Stakes for two-year-olds. Then again, this wasn’t any trainer. A year and a half earlier, doctors who had told Garry Simms he had two months to live because of multiple myeloma – an incurable cancer which starts in the plasma cells in bone marrow – revised their forecast, telling him he had two weeks to live. They were wrong. “By the grace of God,” the 60year-old trainer said. Instead of dying, Simms won the 2011 and 2012 Grade 2 Debutante Stakes for two-year-old fillies with Flashy Lassie, who cost $4,000 and made her first start in a $20,000 maiden claimer; and Blueeyesintherein, a $10,000 purchase. Flashy Lassie’s victory was Simms’ first stakes triumph at Churchill Downs, which he used to sneak into as a kid. On June 30, his two-year-old colt Circle Unbroken, named for the owners and their friends who had helped Simms through his hellish battle with cancer, split horses late and