(PHOTO - HELEN VANEK in 2015 - by Laurie Overton)
It is fitting that as the Thoroughbred set gets ready to honour the champions of 2015 on Apr. 8 at the 41st Sovereign Awards, Ontario Racing catches up with Helen Vanek, a Sovereign Award winner herself who first and foremost is a Quarter Horse rider.
Vanek, the 1998 Champion Apprentice Jockey in Thoroughbred racing, began her riding career at Picov Downs at the age of 17 as her family bred and raced Quarter Horses. She made the transition to Thoroughbred racing and was the leading rider at Fort Erie in her championship season.
She plied her trade throughout the east coast tracks in North America and in 2011, came back to her first love, the Quarter Horses.
“I rejoined Quarter Horse racing when I began riding in the Midwest: Oklahoma, Iowa and Minnesota,” said Vanek. “I rode for many great trainers. Larry Sharp is now in his seventies and still training; he gave me first call in his barn and we found ourselves in the winner’s circle with many stakes wins. Among his trainees was Okie Dokey Annie. She was an amazing mare on whom I won many stakes, including Challenge races.”
Okey Dokey Annie, foaled in 2004 in Montana and owned by Duane Murphy, was a graded stakes winner of seven races and almost $95,000, a great deal of money in the sport in 2007 and 2008 when she was at her prime.
Now a broodmare, Okie Dokey Annie is the dam of Sudden Separation, a graded stakes winner in 2015.
Not only did ‘Annie’ rejuvenate Vanek’s love for the speed and toughness of the Quarter Horse breed, so too did trainer Sharp.
“Larry is a wonderful trainer and more importantly a good friend who inspired me to rejoin the industry of quarter horse racing.”
Vanek also wanted to share her memories of the Thoroughbred Crown Attorney, the graded stakes winner of Tony and Mary Jane Lamb who went on to earn over $990,000 in his career.
“It was way back when I started as a big rider at Woodbine. I galloped and race rode him for trainer John Mackenzie, then rode him to a second place finish in the King Edward Gold Cup on the turf against Chief Bearheart.”
Indeed, for a young rider to partner a horse to a big finish in an important race certainly puts Crown Attorney on the list of horses that changed her life.
Result chart from one of Okie Dokey Annie’s big wins:
John Deere Central Distaff Challenge Stakes $28,980, Prairie Meadows, Aug 10, 2007 3 year-olds & up, F & M (fillies and mares), 400 yards 1. Okie Dokey Annie, br. f. 3, by Okey Dokey Dale--Annie Montana, by Easily Smashed, Bred by Barley & Sharp Farm (MO). Owner-Duane Murphy. Trainer-Larry Sharp. Jockey-Helen Marie Vanek
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