Recipe For Creating A Modern Legend

1. Take one small Camluck mare, named Ruby Cam, that is blind in one eye and has two broken sesemoids.
2. Breed her to a stallion named Modern Art.
3. Send the resulting offspring to a Management Consultant to be trained.

Yes, you read the recipe right.

This is exactly how Dave Drew, of Dave Drew Associates Incorporated management consultanting, bred, raised and trained Modern Legend into the champion race horse he is today.

Dave has spent most of his life managing six different plants for General Motors. He is secretary-treasurer of COSA (Central Ontario Standardbred Association) and is Past Chair of the Audit Committee for Standardbred Canada.

Dave has always had a love for racehorses, but until retirement no time for training.

He owned horses with his brother Greg Drew, from Merlin, Ontario.

Dave purchased a lovely little mare named Ruby Cam as a yearling at the Forest City Sale in 2000. His brother, Greg, trained the filly and both of them drove her in 11 starts as a four year old with 6 wins, 3 seconds and a third including winning the Middlesex County Filly Pacing Series Final.

“She had a real nice gait,” says Dave,” but sesemoid trouble kept her from racing more than one season.”

“I decided to retire her into the broodmare ranks.”

“I gave Greg her first foal and he raced her for several years. When I retired from GM I decided to train the mare’s remaining offspring.”

“I had the experience of amateur driving in the Billings Series with the opportunity to participate at 60 different tracks in North America. This included winning the Delvin Miller Silver Cup at the Meadowlands in 2007. I also drove my own horses some of the time winning with Stonebridge Wish in two legs and the final of the Middlesex Pacing Series,” smiles Dave.

Web Cam, Modern Legend’s older brother, kept Dave busy for the next few years, with earnings of over $200,000 dollars in less than 100 starts and a mark of 1.51.4. Dave sold Web Cam this past March to concentrate all his efforts on Modern Legend.

Modern Legend, and what a legend he has been. Dave drove him in his first four starts but realized that this horse’s talents should be in the hands of professional drivers. He won eight stake races in a row in 2011-2012 at Mohawk and Woodbine sweeping the Autumn, Snowshoe and Cam Fella series. In 2013 he was second by a neck to Foiled Again in a world record performance in the Ben Franklin Series and finished third in the Breeders Crown Final. Now in 2014 he made the best of the best take a second seat in the Canadian Pacing Derby in 1.47.2 equalling the Canadian racing record.

Dave, the humble fellow he is, gives a lot of credit for Modern Legend’s success to his consultants at the training centre.

He explains that “I am at the Dr. John Hayes Stable. John Hayes and Carmen Hie have given me many tips on training that have helped a great deal in getting horses to the track and as importantly keeping them racing.”

So there we have it the recipe for creating a Modern Legend.

As we watch Dave Drew in the Mohawk winners’ circle after his big win in the Canadian Pacing Derby, accompanied by his wife, two daughters, sister and grandson we see with the right recipe even the little guy can make it big in this business.

Asked how he felt at that moment Dave declares, ”Pure exhilaration. I felt so lucky to be associated with this horse who has raced beyond anything I could have dreamed of.”