Oct 6, 2024 – In the second race on Woodbine’s Sunday card, Canuck Racing Club gelding Bowman’s Run (sired by Audible out of Queen Martha) made his sixth career start in an optional claimer race that went a mile and an eighth on the turf.
The 10-horse field made for a big break with the potential for immediate traffic and chaos, but Bowman’s Run left the gate well. Jockey Sahin Civaci found a sweet spot in the number four position watching the front three down the backside. Despite the distance and a long way to go, fast-moving Motion Granted seized control, set a strong pace and pulled two in his wake. Bowman’s Run soon found himself uncrowded at the front of a second pack.
Content to be well back of an overly ambitious frontrunner with a commanding early lead, Civaci asked for a steady pace and patience until he eventually closed the gap on the loose leader and positioned his mount for a run seven wide at the top of the lane. When he asked at the 440 yard mark, Bowman’s Run was game and the two narrowed the margin further in mid-stretch. At the sixteenth pole, the gelding was sweeping past rivals outside and – as Robert Geller phased it – “gobbling up the ground.” When he reeled in Motion Granted, there was no resistance on offer. Bowman’s Run pulled away from him and a surging Weller Green on her mission to take second. He finished ahead of his closest rival by 2 1/2 lengths
Canuck Racing Club named their horse Bowman’s Run in tribute to Scotty Bowman, the winningest coach in NHL history and arguably the greatest coach ever in professional sport. In a league that has an average coaching tenure of 2.4 years, Scotty Bowman’s run is legendary. Born in Montreal, Bowman by far holds NHL records for most everything: most Stanley Cups, most games coached, most career wins, most regular season victories, and most playoff appearances in a record 30 seasons behind the bench.
Bowman was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, the Order of Hockey in Canada, Canada’s Walk of Fame, and the Order of Canada.