Remembering Bud Williams

By Perry Lefko

Hope springs eternal for an ailing horse owner in the twilight of his life with an unraced two-year-old.

For 89-year-old Bernard (Bud) Williams, It Wasn’t a Bluff became the best medicine while he battled age and physical infirmity that left him badly hunched over. It Wasn’t a Bluff made him feel invigorated.

Williams was a veteran horse owner, who spent years going to the races at Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg and became a good bettor after learning from his father, Joe, and taking it to a higher level. 

Bud and a friend developed a handicapping system based on the speed of the surface and track biases that was way ahead of its time. They could spot a horse that was considered a longshot in the program but much the best according to their handicapping system. They made some nice scores. 

Bud passed along his love of the track to his three kids. His eldest, George, whose parents nicknamed him Buddy, recalled running around the grandstand and picking up tickets thrown to the ground in hopes one of them might be a winner that a bettor threw away unknowingly or too frustrated to care. For a kid, it was just something fun to do. 

Bud also taught George about handicapping and, yes, George cashed enough times over the years to recount some stories of his best exotic bets, principally boxing a longshot with the field.

In his late teens, George was sitting in the grandstand at Assiniboia Downs with Bud. George had quit school, and Bud suggested he go to the backstretch and find work with horses. George started out doing menial tasks, such as carrying water buckets, but the next year he began grooming horses for the track’s leading trainer, Don Gray. 

George eventually graduated to full-fledged trainer and Bud wanted to give him a leg up on his career. Bud and two partners privately bought a three-year-old horse for $7,500 after it had raced poorly in low-level maiden claimers at Woodbine and Greenwood.

“When I say well-beaten, I mean he got completely obliterated at Woodbine and Greenwood,” George said.

Buck Domino was transferred to Assiniboia Downs and George quickly found out the horse was a handful. One day George was shadow boxing with Buck Domino, who bit him hard enough to break one of George’s hands.

“I didn’t get mad at him because it was my fault, I was just playing with him,” George said. “He was very aggressive but erratic. One race he went sideways and hit another horse.”

George put special blinkers on him, got him in good health and restored his confidence. He broke his maiden in his second start at Assiniboia Downs. 

George worked Buck Domino in company one day with one of Gray’s good older horses that had won six races. The two horses were supposed to go half a mile in company but at the three-eighths pole Buck Domino took off and defeated his workmate by over 10 lengths. George was ecstatic, but Gray wasn’t. That wasn’t the plan.

George knew then that Buck Domino was something special, even if no one else did. After a third-place finish in a minor stakes race at three, George told Bud and his partners Buck Domino could win the Gold Cup, Assiniboia Downs’ signature race in the fall for horses three and up, next year as a four-year-old. 

Because of a misunderstanding at the track, George had to turn over the horse to veteran trainer Red Johnson midway through the 1984 season. George convinced his dad and partners to run Buck Domino in the Gold Cup. Johnson was skeptical, so Bud and his partners doubled his commission from any money Buck Domino won. Buck Domino was considered a longshot by the bettors but won with a stunning kick in the stretch. George wasn’t the least bit surprised.

It was one of the biggest wins for Bud, who had owned several good horses throughout the years.

George felt even more confident that Buck Domino would repeat as the Gold Cup winner and slept beside the horse in his stall leading up to the race. Buck Domino, the 5-2 race favourite in the Gold Cup, came from 10 lengths back at the top of the stretch and unleashed a furious kick to win in a three-horse photo finish. Bud and his partners gave total credit to George, saying it was “Buddy’s” race. George partied hard that night. Buck Domino was subsequently named Assiniboia Downs’ champion older horse. George was 26 and on top of the world.

Fast forward 40 years to 2025. Bud wanted to become a horse owner after sitting on the sidelines for many years and had been pushing for George to train again. George had long since retired but maintained an interest in the game, first as a writer and trackman for the Daily Racing Form and later as a writer for the Winnipeg Free Press. Five of his stories won Sovereign Awards for writing.

George suggested Bud partner with a talented young conditioner named Devon Gittens, who had started out at galloping at Assiniboia Downs galloping and training horses. He moved his tack to Woodbine a few years ago.

“Devon took average-bred horses that hadn’t done well for other trainers and got them to perform beyond their pedigrees,” George said. “They tried hard every time they went out there. I noticed it right away.

“Dad liked the fact that the main reason we got this particular horse was to help a young trainer from Assiniboia Downs that I told him had some talent.”

George would manage the horse.

Gittens bought a yearling for $2,500 out of the Canadian Premier Yearling Sale, an afterthought among purchasers looking for stakes winners, maybe even dreaming of winning the King’s Plate. Gittens named the colt It Wasn’t a Bluff. If the horse did something amazing, Gittens could say he lived up to his name. 

George sent Bud a video of It Wasn’t a Bluff when he was being broken to saddle and said it made such a difference in his father’s attitude. He was happy again.

“What it resulted in was me getting to call him once or twice a week to talk about the horse,” George said. “It animated him. It just gave him a reason to get up every day. He wasn’t in great health.

“He was depressed one day and I said to him, ‘Why don’t you go out with your friends?’ He said, ‘All my friends are dead. They all died.’ And he wasn’t lying. He was 89 and when you get to be that old, your friends all die. That must be so sad.”

It Wasn’t a Bluff showed enough in training that Gittens had him ready to run in June. The colt ran sixth in a sprint in his debut – a $40,000 optional claimer – but suggested to Gittens he could probably do well in a distance race. Bud wasn’t mobile enough to come to Woodbine from his home in Fort Erie, where he had long since retired as the trackman and writer for the Daily Racing Form, so he watched the race on his computer. It had been his intent to see the horse race in person at some point.

“The horse gave him something to be excited about,” George said. “My mom was excited about it, too. It was fun talking to Dad about the horse, all the different races he was going in and how he was training. Dad could have talked to Devon at some point, but it hadn’t come to that stage. He didn’t have to because I was managing the horse for him and he was just happy to watch the horse run on his computer.” 

It Wasn’t a Bluff ran in a couple of stakes races and earned enough money to pay for all his training bills.

It Wasn’t a Bluff had been scheduled to run in September but had to be scratched the day before the race because of a technicality. Bud died the next day. He was sitting on the steps at his home tying his shoes and waiting to go to church with a neighbour and just slumped over. The friend tried CPR, but it didn’t work. He called paramedics, who also couldn’t save Bud.

It Wasn’t a Bluff is now owned by Gittens and Bud’s daughter Christine, who is a co-executor of Bud’s will. George called Christine after Bud died, concerned about the horse’s racing future.

“Have I ever let you down?” she asked George. “The horse will run, don’t you worry.”

“And I know I did that for my dad,” continued Christine. “We always bantered back and forth. I didn’t give him an inch, not an inch. That’s why I’m the executor. He knew he could trust me to look after my mom and my brothers and the horse.”

It Wasn’t a Bluff made his next start in the $150,000 Frost King Stakes on October 18. George came in from Winnipeg to see It Wasn’t a Bluff in his stall. George allowed “Bluff,” as he is known around the barn, to playfully nibble at him. It was almost like being around Buck Domino again.

George was joined the next day by Christine, brother Daniel and their mother Barb. They live in different parts of North America, but Christine suggested they come together for the race to honour Bud. She was convinced he’d be looking down from heaven.

The family went to the paddock to watch Gittens saddle the horse, and George became emotional.

“I had to be really careful that I didn’t let myself tip over the edge because I could get teary eyed pretty easily,” George said. “I never thought I’d be walking around there crying. You’ve got to control your emotions as much as possible. It was a special event for sure.”

George and Christine headed out to the walking ring to see Gittens talk to jockey Desean Bynoe. A ray of light shone down on Christine while a photo was being taken of her with George and Bynoe.

Maybe the ray of light it was Bud smiling. 

Christine said she could feel her father’s presence, saying “just keep an eye on the horse.”

The family and Gittens sat together in the grandstand. George made a $50 bet to win and place on the horse as per his father’s wishes prior to the horse’s last scheduled start. Being with his family made George long for his father.

“Too bad he wasn’t there watching it,” George said. “I felt like he was right there sitting with us.”

It Wasn’t a Bluff went postward at 11-1 and finished fourth, 8½ lengths back of the winner in the six-horse field, battling hard against the track, which favoured front-end speed.

But the outcome was really not that important.

“It was only about being together as a family, supporting the horse,” said Christine. “I don’t care if the horse ever runs again. As long as the horse is well taken care of and has a good life, I know that’s what my dad would want. Horse racing meant everything to my dad. My dad’s father was very involved in horse racing. I have a picture of my dad’s father reading the Daily Racing Form. He was in the cavalry in World War I. That’s how my dad got into racing, how (George) got into racing, how he got me into racing. Carrying on that legacy for my dad means everything to me. My dad was my hero, my mentor, my best friend.”

Christine said Bud is in a better place, free of infirmities, golfing, curling, betting and talking to all his horse buddies.

Surely the conversation will be about It Wasn’t a Bluff.

“I really enjoyed the last part of my dad’s life,” George said. “We got to talk regularly and we were really having fun. I still tear up when I think about it. If you’ve got hope in your life about anything, it makes a difference. I don’t know how to describe it. What is it about two-year-olds? Anything can happen with young horses.” 

For a father and son who both loved horses, It Wasn’t a Bluff re-connected them again.

If only for a short time.