Colin Wick led fishing parties at his North Bay cottage.Michael Burns, Sr.
Long-time jockey agent Colin Wick had the Midas touch.
Known best as the man who booked mounts for champion thoroughbred jockey Sandy Hawley, Mr. Wick sent his opposition scrambling, foiled them with his tricks, played dumb (but was far from it), was fatherly in his own peculiar way, looked at the world through sly, mischievous eyes, laughed a lot, drank a lot, partied a lot, smoked a lot, fished a lot and won. Whatever he did, he almost always won.
Mr. Hawley, who led all jockeys in North America in 1970, 1972, 1973 and 1976, may have been his best-known client, but Mr. Wick secured rides in races for a long line of jockeys who became champions under his watch: Jim Fitzsimmons, Brian Swatuk, Jeffrey Fell, Robbie King Jr., John LeBlanc, Jim McAleney and Mickey Walls. Everyone he touched earned gold.
"He was the powerhouse of the racetrack," said agent Barry Swatuk, who marvelled at Mr. Wick's methods and abilities. "Colin was far ahead of everybody. He was a master of the chess game of people."
"In my estimation, he was one of the best, if not the best agent, not only in Canada, but in North America as well," Mr. Hawley said.
"He made me who I am," Mr. Walls said. Mr. Wick postponed retirement to be Mr. Walls's agent from 1991 to 1993, when he became champion apprentice in both Canada and the United States.
Almost 86, Mr. Wick died on July 13 of complications from surgery to deal with a cancerous bladder tumour. The night before his surgery, rather than resting, he attended the races at Woodbine racetrack, and the slots, too, where he won a couple of jackpots, totalling $5,500. It was so like him. He lived life to the fullest.
He was Wicksie to all who knew him and Toddy to some of his friends, for his love of the spiced alcoholic drink. He held many parties at his home 10 minutes from Woodbine Racetrack and welcomed guests to his basement, which he dubbed "Stagger Inn."
And his fishing trips to his cottage north of North Bay were legendary. Trainer Dave Bell has been part of those fishing escapades for 25 years, the last one about a month ago. "You'd be sitting in a boat, fishing next to him and he'd catch the fish and you wouldn't," Mr. Bell said. "He'd do it so very quietly. He wouldn't shout and holler, but you'd look over, his rod would be bent and you'd better get the net."
His crew of friends would have a big shore lunch on an island and Mr. Wick always stirred up the batter for the fish. "We used to tease him that the batter was the best we had anywhere, but we couldn't figure out where he got the pepper from," Mr. Bell said. "After a couple of years of teasing, he wouldn't smoke any more while he was doing it."
Mr. Wick was born on Oct. 22, 1929, near Newcastle, England, where his father delivered milk by horse and cart. But the family moved to Canada in 1949 when Colin was 19 and brother Alec was 15. When someone suggested Mr. Wick, at 5 foot 2, was the right size for a jockey, a career was born.
He'd had little to do with horses in England, and didn't want to admit that he didn't know how to ride the first time up. The horse promptly ran off with him. "It takes a lot of guts to get on a horse if you don't know how to ride," Mr. Hawley said. "That's the way he was, adventurous, for sure."
In the end, Mr. Wick became the leading apprentice jockey in 1952 while riding at Hamilton, and rode three winners on his final day as a jockey. The next day, while trying to break a horse from a starting gate in training, the horse flipped in the gate and Mr. Wick tore up his knee so badly that he was never able to ride a horse again. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
He became a jockey's agent, and his first client was his brother. "Take care of the young'un," his parents would always tell Mr. Wick, referring to Alec. "He made me leading bug [apprentice] rider," Alec said. "I was no great shakes. I was just a rider."
The Wick brothers couldn't be more different, even though both were called Wicksie. Alec hated the north country and fishing. Colin loved movie Westerns. He adored John Wayne (his thrill of a lifetime was meeting him in California while Mr. Hawley was riding there), and his favourite song, for obvious reasons, was I Did It My Way.
"He just loved having a good time," Alec said. Colin would sometimes roll home at 1 a.m. with his younger brother in tow, and holler up the stairs: "Margaret, put the kettle on."
Margaret, a British-born woman who he'd met and married in Canada, would reply: "Put it on yourself."
"He married the most wonderful woman, and realized that," Alec said. "Margaret put up with him – I mean, she loved him, but he could be aggravating at times."
The couple were like second parents to Mr. Hawley. A year ago, when Margaret broke her arm, Mr. Wick tended to her diligently, bringing her tea, meeting her every need.
Mr. Wick really shone as a jockey's agent. "Colin always had a trick," Barry Swatuk said. In a restaurant after the races, "he always pretended he was a little gassed, a little drunk. He was a performer." He would get up on the table and dance and sing, sometimes even drop his pants. "He'd get going and he couldn't stop," said trainer Reade Baker, once a jockey's agent, too. People would laugh. They thought he was hilarious.
At the last minute, he would lean over to an owner or a trainer whose horse he wanted his jockey to ride next time out and say: "Don't forget: See this race here? I'll give you Hawley."
Mr. Wick was sharp and he did his homework. He had no cellphone or Internet connection. He would pore over piles of old racing forms. He knew every horse on the track and he knew how to read the eligibility conditions of races often better than some trainers.
"He might actually pick out races that maybe a trainer might miss," Mr. Hawley said. "So he would tell [the trainer]: 'I've got a race that your horse will win. If you put my rider on, I'll tell you what it is.'"
Mr. Wick would watch every race, and had an uncanny ability to see what every horse did in the race. "Most of us could only watch one or two horses," Mr. Bell said. While most agents went home after the races, Mr. Wick would head for the backstretch, offer kudos to those that had done well, sympathize with those that didn't – and get calls for good horses.
"Having Sandy Hawley made it easy," said (Coffee) John Calleja, also a jockey agent. "[Trainers/owners] would come swarming over to the race office and trample over us. I still remember the day when there were 14 horses in the race, and Sandy Hawley was named to 13 of them."
Mr. Wick showed his ultimate talent when he left his comfort zone of Canada and booked mounts for Mr. Hawley in California, without having built up contacts or knowledge of horses and people racing there. "I don't think California really liked him too much," Mr. Swatuk said. "Colin had ways about himself that he could make people look at things the way he wanted them to."
And he played the bumpkin. Around the racetrack, it's called "playing the iggy [ignorant]."
One day in California, he sidled up to an agent for a top jockey, and asked how a certain race condition worked and what it meant. After he left, the agent said to another: "Can you believe that guy? He doesn't even know what the condition means and he won 500 races ?" (Mr. Hawley had set a North American record of 515 wins for a season in 1973).
That changed within minutes when they realized that Mr. Hawley was down to ride the race favourite. "He's playing the iggy with you," the agent said. "Wake up."
Mr. Wick was such an efficient agent that nothing ever seemed impossible. With six weeks to go in the 1983 Ontario racing season, Mr. King was well back in second place with 110 wins behind jockey Larry Attard, who had 130. To Mr. King, Mr. Wick said: "If you end up leading rider, will you buy me a snowmobile?"
Mr. King thought there was no chance, so he agreed. But in six weeks, they won 53 races, even though Mr. King was suspended for a week during that time. Mr. King was leading rider by three wins. Mr. Wick enjoyed that snowmobile.
"You managed to pack 200 years of living into 86," said former jockey and racing steward Richard Grubb in a note of condolence for Mr. Wick. "By now, you'll have St. Peter at the bar, toasting him, having learned the jig. Heaven will never be the same."
Mr. Wick leaves his wife, Margaret; brother, Alec; son, Colin (a.k.a. Young Colin); and grandson, Ian.
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