Owing to his business success, Joseph Emm SEAGRAM was in a position to become involved in a sport he loved, horse racing. His many purchases had an impact on horse breeding in Canada:
“Canada’s leading turf journalist of the period, Edmund King Dodds, noted in 1909 that ‘for over twenty years [Seagram] has spent money lavishly importing choice blood, both from England and the United States.’ This lavish spending brought unprecedented success. Seagram’s horses began running in the Queen’s Plate in 1889 and in 1891 he won the race for the first time. His horses would win it ten times and the King’s Plate five times before his death in 1919. Between 1891 and 1898 his horses won eight consecutive Plates and in six of them a Seagram horse also placed second. This record made him, in the opinion of the Canadian Magazine in 1900, ‘probably the greatest Canadian horse-breeder.’ Dodds made the point that Seagram’s stables were also important in improving the bloodstock of Canadian horses in general. Seagram held annual sales at which the surplus stock of well-bred animals was sold at reasonable prices.
“Seagram was influential in the creation in 1881 of the Ontario Jockey Club, which sought to regulate horse-racing and improve the public perception of the sport.”
Like Seagram and several other prosperous businessmen, John HENDRY was attracted to sports enjoyed by the social and economic elite, and he became a pioneer of motor sports in British Columbia:
“As part of Vancouver’s business and social élite, he belonged to the Vancouver Club, the Terminal City Club, the Jericho Country Club, and the Canadian Club. He maintained similar affiliations in other cities, including Victoria, New Westminster, Ottawa, and London, England. He was an enthusiast for motoring, yachting, and fishing, and by 1905 had one of the first automobiles in Vancouver. He was a member of various motoring and yachting clubs in Vancouver, the United States, and Europe.”
The biographies listed below provide information about equestrian sports and motor sports, their participants, supporters, and spectators:
