Prairie pride

By Nicholas Oakes

Darryl Mason scrolls down the Standardbred Canada results page to see that his home bred Friendly Farmer has yet again beat a field of conditioned pacers at Woodbine, this time in 1:53.1. This is what makes it all worth it for him, although he wishes there was that same kind of opportunity home in Manitoba.
But with only 22 race dates a year in the prairie province, he has to keep plugging away doing what he loves: breeding and racing horses.
Mason grew up – and still lives – in Killarney, Manitoba. His family was involved in racing which prompted him to get his driver’s license.
“I liked driving right from the start,” Mason says. “It was thrilling to get out there and drive your own horses instead of standing at the sidelines and watch someone else do it all the time.”
It was just pure fun for Mason with little stress involved.
“I was young then and didn’t have too many people relying on me.”
Now – over twenty years later – he does have people relying in him, with three children and his wife Sherri. Together they operate a massive breeding operation with seven stallions and 106 broodmares. Not to mention the 14 horses that are racing on the side.
Sherri doesn’t mind working with her husband everyday one bit.
“We get along pretty good,” she says. “Sometimes we have differences of opinion but we get along. You have to when you live together and work together.”
The biggest inspiration in Darryl’s life in career is hands down his wife, he says.
“She’s always been there to encourage me and support the decisions that I make.”
Friendly Farmer was a definite highlight of their careers. The Mason’s bred the horse and shared ownership of him with Donald Anness.
“He was a nice horse right from day one,” Darryl says.
And what was so nice about Friendly Farmer?
“He could beat everybody,” he laughs. “He knew what to do as soon as he went behind the gate the first time. He was a natural.”
“We owned the sire, we owned the mother, and we owned the mother’s sire,” Darryl explains. “We were always proud of that horse because he was a true home bred.”
In his spare time in the winter, Darryl likes to curl and snowmobile but in the summer it’s racing horses – which can have it’s strange and comical moments.
Post parading in a race in Portage La Prairie Darryl’s horse locked on a head pole and stopped dead still in front of the grandstand. Then deciding that he didn’t like the head pole, he reared straight up in the air and landed on top of the outside fence.
“There I was, stuck there,” Darryl remembers.
Once help came and they got the bike off the horse, he jumped all the way over the fence.
“Then there was no way to get him out of the grandstand area. We had to wait for someone to come and bring a key to unlock the gate.”
Earlier that same day, the horse got his halter off and spun around on the crossties, got his halter off, and got onto the golf course with his harness still on.
“He was having a bad day,” Darryl laughs.