Keith Linton, 55, one of the best known drivers in Western Canada, died Nov. 2, 2002 in Langley Memorial Hospital from cancer complications.

Born in Saskatchewan, Mr. Linton was involved in harness racing his entire life. He moved to British Columbia shortly after the opening of Cloverdale Raceway. For many years he was the top driver in Canada by the UDRS. In 1973 he led all of North America in UDRS and percentage.

Mr. Linton is survived by his daughter Victoria (Dave) Chester; and two grandchildren.

Harness racing has been a decades long tradition in Saskatchewan. The names of Saskatchewan natives, past and present, abound in North American harness racing: Kopas, Remmen, Baldwin, Linton, Kerr; and there many more, more names than I can list at present. At one time, almost every town had a track, even if that track was just a dirt bullring, and there was racing at least one weekend a year. Then came bigger tracks, larger purses, and the beginnings of extended mutuel meets, and the small town tracks were gone, but there was still racing, and lots of it: Yorkton, Prince Albert, North Battleford, Weyburn, Estevan, Moose Jaw (apologies to places I missed) and the larger, longer meets at Regina and Saskatoon. By the late 60's most of the 'fair circuit' was gone, leaving us with Regina (then Exhibition Park) and Saskatoon's Marquis Downs. The extended mutuel meets alternated between Exhibition Park and Marquis Downs for years, with many of us going to Manitoba after the tracks here closed, then to Alberta and back to whichever track opened the season here. In the early 80's, Regina revamped its facilities, and with a new name, Queensbury Downs, tried for a longer season. This worked well for quite some time, but recently, this plan has run amok, and dates dwindled to almost nothing. Dwindling dates, combined with no revenue sharing from handle, or simulcast wagering (we are the only province with no revenue sharing from these sources) and no advertising, have reduced us to a shell of what formerly was a grand sport in Saskatchewan. Other factors contributing to the degradation of racing in general has been the introduction of casinos (without the lifeline from casino to race track as is common everywhere else but here).  Case in point: the Woodbine Entertainment Group, formerly the OJC, where they have casinos. VLTs and other forms of entertainment as part and parcel of the racing, here they have removed the Silver Sage to be replaced by Casino Regina, with not even a mention of a local track being made by casino management (no sour grapes, just a fact). VLTs have been installed at the tracks here, no revenue sharing as there is elsewhere, again, fact.

This progressive downslide has left the Saskatchewan Standardbred racing industry is in a state of crisis. Our probability of racing at Queesnbury Downs this year is almost nil. Over the next few days, any and all references to Queensbury Downs ,except where needed to clarify an issue, will be removed, and the whole page revamped as I get more information on the state of affairs within the province regarding racing. Please do not contact me using the e-mail links, as that is no longer a valid address, but feel free to leave comments regarding the situation of our racing (or, more precisly lack of racing) in the guest book, and if an e-mail address is left, time permitting, I will try to get back to you. At this time, I ask any and all Saskatchewan horsemen who read this, regardless of breed or dicipline, to please leave a note in the guest book, as what affects one group affects us all. It is time we stood united against the bureaucratic stance against the horse industry in general, and racing in particular; we are the forgotten part of the agricultural community in this province, and looked down upon as even less than grain farmers. As things are right now, with this particular governments' attitude to agriculture, we, the horsemen (to be completley politically incorrect) of Canada in general, and Saskatchewan in particlular, are the sludge in the bottom of the barrel, only worthy of being ignored by MLA's and MP's alike. I had no original intent of making this into a political rambling, and rant, however, I found myself incapable of stopping. Please watch this site over the next several weeks, as I will be making postings about the industry and it's tenuous hold on life.
 

Disclaimer: We are not looking for any financial gain, but only moral support in our fight to remain viable. It would be nice to see some part of the agricultural community in general, and even the general betting public stand behind us. I have added a Saskatchewan Racing Crisis Forum for anyone so inclined to leave a post there. Thank you for reading this long rambling.
 
 

Due to the current crisis with the racing industry, I have, for covenience sake, removed all extraneous text, however, all links to other pages are still valid. and may be accessed through the text links below. The horse adoption pages contain nothing new, the waiting list is far to long to deal with at this point in time, but the page (and the listings) shall remain as a sample page only. I will update the sale page in the near future, time allocation allowing.

The Soo Line Museum Pages are still valid, with perhaps the exception of the hours they keep. I am still awaiting new pictures for this, so I may add on. It appears that I will likely have to play photographer myself in this instance.
 
 

And now onto the  Stuff!! That portion of this site is still valid, but lacking updates, I do have several more pages of jokes that I should find (old computer broke down, and I just hope those pages can be found) and upload; most of the jokes, like the ones already on line are generally tasteless, however, uploaded they shall be when I can figure out where they ended up on the old hard drive,

There are more pages of graphics to come (they met the same fate as the jokes pages) and must be found. This finding will take a while, it took a couple of months to find other lost files, and transfer them floppy by floppy to this machine; the font transfer was very slow, and still some missing, hoplefully not foever. Please follow the text link provided here for GRAPHICS

The links page requires much updating, and at present I have little time for this.
 

So, make a choice at the top of the page, or use the appropriate button below. Pick Horses, History,Saskatchewan Racing Crisis, Links or More, and take a little trip through Big Tee©'s world on the web!!!!!!
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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