Listen here. An ai generated podcast from NotebookLM
BY SARAH WELK BAYNUM
Before developing an interest in horse racing, Ida Paquette was involved in a different side of the equine industry.
“We’d moved to Florida from Canada, where I’d grown up with horses—show horses, jumpers, mostly Canadian-bred hunters, and half-Thoroughbreds,” Paquette said. “I’d bred a couple of Thoroughbred mares for warmblood hunters, but I didn’t know a thing about racing. We used to buy some off-track horses and retrain them, but I never went to the track myself.”
By a twist of fate, Paquette purchased her first racehorse while intending to buy a show horse.
“After we moved to Florida in the mid-1980s, I met Bill White, a trainer and blacksmith in Miami. He told me about this expensive Thoroughbred filly he bought with great breeding. Not long after, I went to look at a horse for show and realized he ironically had the same breeding. I bought Repeat the Beat (by Lot o’ Gold out of Going Thing) for a couple of thousand dollars, brought him home, and called Bill. Turns out, I’d bought the brother to his filly. Bill was floored—he said my colt looked even better than his horse and insisted I had to run him. So, that’s how it all started,” Paquette said.
Before long, Paquette and her daughter were completely immersed in the world of horse racing.
“Repeat the Beat won a couple of races—nothing spectacular—but after he broke his maiden, we realized he wasn’t going to be a standout, so we ended up selling him as a show horse. But by then, we had started getting deeper into racing, buying more and more Thoroughbreds. We based our operation out of Tampa and just kept going. I pretty quickly got my trainer’s license, and my daughter and I traveled all over the country to races with our horses, including client horses. There was no turning back—we’d officially caught the horse racing bug. At our busiest, we had up to 35 horses,” Paquette said.
One of their earliest successful horses still holds a special place in their memories.
“Bolderama (by Bold Forbes out of Sister Glass) was an older mare, but she won four or five races in a row for us—she just kept on winning. We had a few others like her, and they were running in low-level claiming races, but it didn’t matter to us. We were on winning streaks, and that was thrilling. They were fun horses we loved, and those moments were really exciting.”
Today, while they remain involved in the horse racing business, their operation has evolved and transformed over the years.
“We enjoyed the show horses, then when we transitioned into racehorses, we loved that for many years as well. Now we mainly stay at the farm, and this year we raised four babies,” Paquette said. “I sent one filly to the track—she only got one start and didn’t do much—but she’ll go back next year when she’s a bit older. These days, we’re focused more on breeding than racing, raising young horses, running a boarding stable, and getting back into the show world a little. It’s come full circle in a way.”
For Paquette, the horses and people she’s met along the way are what make the horse racing business so special.
“We’ve got album after album of win photos, and now and then I’ll flip through them and think, ‘Oh my gosh, I forgot all about that horse.’ We met so many wonderful people and owners who stayed with us for years. It was a lot of fun, a lot of hard work, and plenty of heartbreak, too. But the excitement of it all—the people you meet, the friendships that last, the thrill of traveling to different racetracks—it was just such an exciting time in life. Exhausting, yes, but worth it and an unforgettable experience.”
Return to the May 21 issue of Wire to Wire
