Ansel recalls fellow jockey Don Meade

In 1930 Ansel says he was racing at Brighouse Park, Vancouver, BC. when he broke his maiden (jockey wins his first approved race) on a horse called Salty, the next day Evan Neil broke his, and the third Don Meade broke his. Just kind of odd, Ansel said, that we all three of 'em got it one, two, three, just like that. In the picture above, Salty is being held by Harry Walters, the horse was owned by George Drumhiller, from Walla Walla, Wa. George was a wheat farmer, and Ansel remembers distinctly that George always kept a framed photostatic copy of a check for $1,000,000.00 on his office wall. One particularly good year, he had sold his wheat crop for the one million and he always wanted to remember that milestone.

A week later at Lansdowne Park, Ansel recalls, "I was on a three old, and it was a horse I had no control over, no rein on him. And Don was on one too that he didn’t have much control over. When we came around the first turn we got into each other. I shut him off, and he came around on the outside and passed me and shut me off, and we bumped, he knocked me. Neither of us had any control, the colts we were riding and sure didn’t have much rein on them."

When we got back into the jocks room, we started a fighting and cussing with each other, but each of us, we only weighed 70 lbs dripping wet, so it was pretty easy for the valets to separate us… and they said when they did, “oh if you keep that up in here, you’ll just get fined. So we knocked it off, and we agreed to fight the next day.

So the next day out behind the shed row we met… and I came face to face with him, oh about 5-6’ apart, and I was ready to fight and building to swing, and Don kicked the dirt and said, Oh heck, let’s just go get some breakfast. And that was that, we never did fight.

Don Meade won the Kentucky Derby in 1933 on Broker’s Tip. At the Derby he and Harry Fisher got into it, and I had heard that they went out and fought each other the next day… I never heard how it came out, so one time I asked Don about it, and he smirked and said “well Harry Fisher was in the habit of finishing 2nd”.

Don Meade was a real hot head, later he got ruled off for life , but somehow he managed to get himself reinstated and… so he went to down to Mexico City and rode for my Dad, E.M. Marshall who was training down there. He was doing real well down there and then one day the judge called him in and sat him down, and the judge was telling him about all the things he’d done wrong all his life and how unruly a fellow he was… and Don said "Hipodromo de las Americas didn’t need him and he didn’t need Hipodromo de las Americas, and you can take it and shove it up your arse".

Last I heard of him, Ansel said, he owned a bar and restaurant in Ventura CA.

Another account of that Kentucky Derby finish, taken from “At Churchill Downs, May 15, 1933
Odds on Broker's Tip were 9 to 1. The favorite was William R. Coe's Ladysman. son of Pompey who was beaten by Col. Bradley's Bubbling Over in the Derby of 1926.

At the post last week, Head Play with Jockey Harry Fisher up was nervous. The starter tried to quiet him. then moved him to the outside, which meant an extra 30 ft. to run. It seemed to make very little difference. Fisher got his horse away fast, crossed over to the inside and took the lead going round the first turn. At the half mile, he broke away from the field to a lead of more than a length. Ladysman tried to keep up but could not. Charley O held on going to the second turn but could not overtake the leader. It was then that the crowd of 40,000 saw the shaping of the most exciting Kentucky Derby finish that anyone could remember. A dark brown horse with a jockey in white silk with green hoops had cut in ahead of the field as they turned into the stretch and was gaining on Charley 0 and Head Play. The dark brown horse was Broker's Tip.

Broker's Tip's jockey was Don Meade of California. With spur and whip, he got his horse up to Charley 0 and passed him, went for a narrow opening between Head Play and the rail. For a few moments in the last furlong of the mile and a quarter distance the crowd saw the two of them locked together at close quarters, their jockeys' boots rubbing. As they reached the finish still jammed together at the rail, in the immense uproar of a crowd that wanted the Bradley horse to win, Broker's Tip got the soft part of his nose out in front.


Two strides past the finish. Jockey Fisher stopped whipping his horse and reached over to slash at Jockey Meade. He dismounted, ran up to the judges' stand to protest that Meade had fouled him by holding his saddle cloth before the finish. For a moment everyone in the grandstand could see Fisher, a tiny, wildly excited figure in bright orange silks, waving both arms. The judges—aware that both jockeys had ridden roughly—turned their backs. Jockey Fisher sat down, buried his face in his hands. (Both he and Meade were later suspended.) On the score board, the word "official" appeared beside the results: 1st Broker's Tip. 2nd Head Play. 3rd Charley O. Ladysman was fourth, a length ahead of his stablemate Pomponius. Broker's Tip's time—2:06 4/5—was fair for a muddy track.

And in another account: I read - it said that in the last stretch Don Meade had thrown his reins down and the jockeys were pushing and pulling on each other, and that Broker’s Tip won by the flare of her nose because of the free reins.

Willy Molter

Ansel said Bill Molter was the leading race horse trainer in Canada, he trained the great horse Round Table. Got him to be the leading money earner of the world. Round Table himself would make a book on his own.

When Bill was still riding he was called Willy. He had (owned) a gray horse by Iron Crown II, and one time he ran him at Calgary at the Stampede Park, and they were all in the Jock's room just before the riders went out to get on their horses. He gave his valet $10.00 and told him to go bet on the gray horse to win. So Ansel saw this and said, well if thats what he thought, then that was worth his money too, and gave the valet $10.00 to bid on the gray horse for him too, and then the horse finished third. When Bill came back to the Jock's room, he patted himself on the back and said to himself laughing, “well Pally you got him beat today, but I’ll let you ride him back the next time I run him”.

Addendum taken from: TexasEscapes.com by Bill Bradfield

Willie No. 2 is William Molter Jr. who outgrew his first occupation -- jockey -- and became one of the nation's greatest racehorse trainers. A native of Fredericksburg, he was born in 1910 and launched his training career in 1935. He trained Determine, the 1954 Kentucky Derby winner, and 1958's horse of the year, Round Table.

For four consecutive years, 1946 through 1949, he led America in the number of winners saddled. In his career, Molter saddled 2,160 winners collecting $11.9 million in purses.

Russcenes the 2nd place horse

Boots Durnell won the Kentucky Derby with a maiden horse so he won a ton of money. Charles “Boots” Durnell was the trainer and owner of the horse "Elwood" who won the Kentucky Derby in 1904.

So he was going to do it again, so he looked and several years later he thought he’d found one he thought could do it. and this horse, a 2 year old, was fast and he was sound and so he bought him an he wanted to go up to where he could get a good price when he bet on him. Cause that’s the way he made so much money when he won the first one. He would let this horse be in front and he’d get up to the wire and they would take him back. They’d never let him finish in front at the wire so the horse learned his lesson real well, to stay back and not finish first.

When he was a 5 yr old, I think it was the meet was up at Long Acres. (WA) This old irish groom had got ahold of the horse, and he had a little accident and he got tangled up with a hind leg and the bumper of a car. It didn’t hurt the horse much, it shoulda hurt him real bad, but it didn’t, it barely took the skin off, but it made a couple of big dents in the car, and the guy needed $25.00 to fix his car. And so my Dad bought Racines for $25.00 and we took him to CA, to Tan Foran, and started him 5 times, I rode him and he was second all five times. He could have won all of them, but he was trained real good, trained to not go to the front.

But I did win once on him up in Winnepeg, Canada at Whittier Park in 1934. So the way I got him to win… the track didn’t have much space it had real long stretches and short turns. Going down the back stretch here, I always ran him in a nose band and blinkers, we weren’t close to the wire, I got him out about the middle of the race track where he couldn’t see another horse and so we went to the front, he was in front when he headed into the stretch and he finished in front. Russcenes, won that race but that’s the only race he ever won. His Dad traded Russcenes to a race announcer for a little filly that was out of a Son of Man O War, her name was Opie Field.

Whittier Park, Winnipeg July 4, 1934

E.M. Marshall, owner (Papa holding horse) A. Marshall up (Ansel)