Mel Lawson was a lumberman, a sportsman, and a Canadian racing icon, but most of all, he was known as a gentleman.
At age 88, after suffering from a series of ailments, Lawson died in the Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital in Burlington, Ont. Wednesday afternoon. A year ago, he was inducted in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.
Born on Feb. 14, 1923, Lawson made history by becoming the youngest player - at age 20 - to win a Grey Cup, when he served as quarterback for the Hamilton Flying Wildcats, He scored the winning touchdown in a 1943 game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The "Flying" was added to the team's name because six of the players were airmen and posted at the nearby Hagersville airbase during wartime.
Lawson also played junior hockey for the Toronto Marlboroughs (with Harold Ballard serving as coach) and during his time at university, was quarterback and punter for the University of Toronto Blues.
Lawson earned a forestry degree from the University of Toronto and then followed his father into the lumber business in Hamilton, Ont. For 62 years, Lawson showed up to work at the family-run business, Lawson Lumber, but retired because of health issues in December of 2008.
He bought his first thoroughbred racehorse during the early 1960s and his first stakes winner came in 1966 when Carodana won the Manitoba Derby in Winnipeg.
He and his wife, Barbara, who married in 1947, named their stable, Jim Dandy, after the names of their three children, Jim, Dana and David. Jim is now a chief steward for the Jockey Club of Canada. Their red and black racing silks came from the team colours of his Hamilton high school.
One of his early stars was Eternal Search, a filly he had bought during the early 1980s for $50,000 from top Quebec breeder Pierrre Levesque. He had an agreement with Levesque to pay him a further $25,000 if the filly won a stakes race. Eternal Search accomplished that feat in style, winning the Kingarvie Stakes as a 2-year-old at Greenwood Racetrack, defeating two colts - Frost King and Fiddle Dancer Boy - that would become stars the following season. Eternal Search won 15 stakes races and three Sovereign Awards before she retired to become the foundation broodmare in the farm's breeding pursuit.
Lawson won more than 45 stakes races during his 50-year tenure at the track, even though his small stable produced only a handful of racehorses every year. His stars included Pottahawk, Let's Go Blue, Ginger Gold (winner of the $500,000 Canadian Oaks), Jiggs Coz, Kesagami, Utterly Cool, Ghost Fleet and Smokey Fire. The latter three were all sons of Lawson's top broodmare, Destroy, who was also inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame last year.
Eternal Search had produced a host of winners, and one non-winner, Destroy, an aptly named daughter of Housebuster.
Lawson is also remembered as the owner of Sovereign award winner, Let's Go Blue, which finished second in the controversial 1984 Queen's Plate, after a bumping incident with eventual winner Key to the Moon during the homestretch. After both jockeys claimed foul against each other, the stewards did not change the order of finish, uncertain whether the foul had been committed before or after the wire.
"I remember we were jobbed," Lawson said in 2007, when his Jiggs Coz was favoured to win the first Queen's Plate Lawson had undertaken in 23 years. "There was no doubt about it."
However, although his son, Jim, a lawyer, suggested they appeal the decision, Lawson declined, saying after 60 years of being in sport, he would accept any ajudicator's ruling.
"He was a gentleman," said Sid Attard, who has been training Lawson's horses for years. "I miss him a lot already. He was a good person. When he won a race, he was so happy. But when he lost, he didn't have a long face. He was competitive, but he never questioned what you did. He supported you.
"I remember him as a very, very nice man."