From a Broadway legend to a Canadian local hero

It's good to see some of the old faces again – Honey Booboolina, Mystic Messenger, Medicine Hat. Especially Medicine Hat, who seems to have found a new lease of life in claiming races, winning twice recently.

Of course, I know very little about it but these trotters, or ‘pacers', seldom win twice in a row at Century Downs and Medicine Hat will be trying for a hat-trick in the last. They handicap you by pushing you out wide – eight or nine in a typical nine-runner field, and very few win from there. Medicine Hat is in seven but there's an hour or so to wait.

Meanwhile my daughter Catherine, passing me the baby, opts for Trustee in the seventh. Place only, she says, the way women do. Trustee breaks well and races in second the whole way round. He is still second when they cross the line, a couple of lengths behind Keep Coming, my son-in-law Jaret's choice at 8-1. I spend much of the contest praying that nothing will change and nothing does. They are both very happy and so is little Henry Douglas. It's not a bad start in life at nearly four months.