(Shawn Steacy was just 21 when his career got a major jumpstart when he bought a piece of a horse with Hall of Famer Peter Heffering. Ten years later, Steacy is an important part of his father Mark’s stable. This year, Mark won his first Johnston Cup as the top trainer in the Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) program. Dave Landry photo)
by Dave Briggs
Lansdowne, ON native Shawn Steacy was just 21 when he received the opportunity of a lifetime to purchase a small piece of well-bred pacer Priceless Edition with future Hall of Famer Peter Heffering.
“He was a (Real Desire) pacing colt out of the mare Precious Delight. Peter Heffering kept him himself because he didn’t bring enough at the sale. I ended up getting a piece of him with Peter. He was really well bred and he just kept getting a little better and a little better,” said Steacy, who works with his father, Johnston Cup-winning trainer Mark Steacy who led the Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) program’s trainers this year.
The partnership between the late Heffering and the Steacys on Priceless Edition was just the extension of a relationship between Mark and Peter that began in 1997 when Peter bought Day In A Life ($1.8 million) from Mark.
“That was when Peter and my dad first started together. Their friendship just grew and the business just stayed good for as long as Peter was with us,” Shawn said.
For Shawn, the impact of having Priceless Edition with Heffering was profound.
“For a young guy at the time who had no money, (Priceless Edition) gave me my first step to making a little bit of money and I was able to buy furniture and start life — get a down payment on a house with what he made,” Shawn said. “He turned out to be a good horse that made $500,000 and we sold him.”
Shawn even was Priceless Edition’s driver at the nascence of both of their careers.
“I thought I was going to be a driver just like everybody else in the world at that time. I remember driving (Priceless Edition) and he was smarter than I was. He would pull himself, almost, out of a hole, and know when to move. He was a push-button horse and out of a sensational family. What made him a horse was when we gelded him. We cut that attitude right out of him. He turned out to be a great horse after that,” Shawn said.
And Shawn Steacy had a major kick-start to his career.
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