Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Grace Encourages Cancer-Stricken Trainer ‘To Keep On Fighting’

The odds were certainly stacked against trainer Shelley Brown last Sunday night at Century Mile in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. A sudden, devastating Stage 4 cancer diagnosis just a few weeks before the G3 Canadian Derby meant that Brown watched the races from her couch over 800 miles away in Winnipeg, exhausted after a weekend in the hospital for treatment.

Her entrant, the 3-year-old gelding Real Grace, had won just one race, the Derby Trial at Assiniboia Downs back in July. He'd not returned to the winner's circle in three subsequent starts, making the running early and fading in the stretch, and was facing the longest race of his career in the 1 1/4-mile Canadian Derby.

The race's post time, nearly 11 p.m. in Winnipeg, meant Brown had to fight through her exhaustion to stay awake if she wanted to watch it live.

Sent to post at 18-1 odds, Real Grace led the field from gate-to-wire for a gutsy neck victory that lifted his trainer's spirits beyond what she'd even considered possible. It was her first graded stakes win, and it was also a win in the biggest race at her home track.

Brown watched via her smartphone as Real Grace entered the winner's enclosure. Track announcer Shannon Doyle said: “Congratulations Shelley, we are all with you.”

Amazing Grace, indeed.

The weeks leading up to the Canadian Derby had been some of the darkest weeks of her life, Brown explained. The 47-year-old was diagnosed on Sept. 3 with cancer, Stage 4, learning that it was in her lungs, bones, stomach, ovaries, breasts, and lymph nodes. Doctors told her that left untreated, she had between three and six months to live.

Considering that Brown had only gone to the hospital that morning for what she'd thought was a torn rotator cuff in her shoulder, the diagnosis was a complete shock.

“For someone to look at you and tell you that, there's a million emotions,” Brown said. “I thought, 'What am I gonna do? I've got horses here, horses in the States, property, horse trailers. … I can't even tell you. I just totally went numb.

“Your brain can be very hard on you. As soon as I got the diagnosis, I didn't want to get out of bed. I felt helpless, overwhelmed, and I just wanted to shut down.”

Brown had 40 horses in training at Assiniboia Downs, and had sent several, including Real Grace, to her friend and former employer, trainer Rod Cone, at Century Mile. She was planning to ship the rest of the string to Century Mile after the Assiniboia meet ended.

Instead, Brown found herself in a downward spiral, researching treatments and treatment centers online, awaiting test results, and trying desperately to understand how the cancer had progressed so quickly without her knowledge.

“As a horse person, we make a lot of excuses,” Brown reasoned. “There's always kind of a way you get banged here and bumped there. I was unbelievably tired, but I kept telling myself there were only three more weeks (until the meet ended at Assiniboia), so I was kind of begging myself to finish off the meet. Of course with COVID there wasn't a ton of help, so I often had to pitch right in. I thought, 'Well, I'm just working really hard and I'm tired from racing three nights a week, it's just the amount of work and racing, and that's why I'm so tired.'”

The days after her diagnosis were a blur. Her longtime assistant kept the barn running, and the news spread around the backside quickly. Just four days later, a friend on the backstretch set up a GoFundMe account to help cover Brown's medical bills.

(https://www.gofundme.com/f/u6f5p-cancer?utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all)

Assiniboia even helped to set up an auction for Brown's tack, equipment, and several horses. She wanted to sell off everything, but other horsemen convinced her to keep a few things, some saddles and bridles and a few of the better horses, as a way of giving herself hope moving forward.

“I guess my whole life I've sort of felt like a lone wolf,” Brown said, her voice heavy with emotion. “It was never going to be easy for a woman to be in a male-dominated sport. I've held my own, but even in my personal life I've never really felt like I fit somewhere or belonged together. But, how the horsemen have come together for me through this, to see that, some of them I think we'll be friends for life through this. They've been so amazing and so helpful and so assuring, and these are people that I never expected. I just realize now that I'm not alone and these people are so important to me.

“If there was any doubt before, the question has been answered. These are my family.”

Since her parents had already passed on after battling cancer, Brown reached out to her brother and sister for help with the day-to-day things, like transportation to her doctor's appointments. Both responded immediately, but there wasn't much to do besides wait.

As a lifelong, hard-working horsewoman, and the first female trainer to ever win a training title at Assiniboia (2017), Brown said sitting back and doing nothing was an especially difficult mental challenge.

“Horses are seven days a week; when you commit to this, you commit to a lifestyle,” Brown said. “I guess if I could change anything, I would have listened to my body sooner.

“Now I look back, and I think, 'Oh my gosh, this started a long time ago.'”

She had seen her family doctor several times over the past few years. Last year, she felt a strange sensitivity on her spine, but he told her it was nothing. She asked to be sent for a mammogram, but he insisted she didn't need one. Earlier this season, she'd gone to see him when she felt short of breath for no real reason, but he told her she was just out of shape after gaining weight over the winter.

Sadly, it's not an unusual story for women's symptoms to be overlooked by their doctors.

“I think had I really listened to my body, I would have seen more signs,” she said.

Fast-forward to the week of the Canadian Derby, and Brown was still struggling with her frustrations. Biopsies had been sent away to labs for testing, but she was still awaiting an appointment with an oncologist since the test results weren't back yet.

Logically, she understood that doctors could not implement a treatment plan without understanding the exact kind of cancer ravaging her body. Emotionally, knowing that she had spent three weeks of what was possibly her final three months just waiting around for results was starting to get to her.

Brown had looked into the options, and knew the finances weren't in her favor. She'd decided that a combination of conventional and holistic medicine was the way she wanted to fight the cancer, and treatment centers in Mexico and the United States were both quite expensive.

Mexico was cheaper, of course, but she'd have to drive herself there and wouldn't have any sort of support system in place if things took a turn for the worse. And what if she got sick on the drive down to Mexico? Then she'd be in a U.S. hospital, and the bills would just keep rolling in.

Another trainer, Hazel Bochinski, happened to see Brown's GoFundMe page and sent her a message on Facebook recommending a local treatment center in Winnipeg. It offered several of the holistic treatments that Brown hoped to try, as well as a pay-as-you-go plan.

Now Brown had part of a plan in place, at least, but she still had to wait for the test results before she could start any treatments.

On Thursday, Cone called to check in on her and ask if she'd be attending the race on Sunday night. Unfortunately, Brown had been admitted to the hospital once again, this time with a partially collapsed lung.

“They tried to drain the lung twice, which is so painful because they cut in between your ribs,” Brown explained. “They couldn't drain it and so they weren't able to get fluid off. The pain was intense.”

Brown insisted she be let out of the hospital over the weekend, and felt better Saturday, well enough to take a drive with her siblings.

“Sunday, I wasn't well,” Brown said. “Of course, the race is so late, 11 p.m. at night local time. I don't have a lot of energy. I told my brother, 'The only way I'm going to stay awake is if I watch all the races, see how the track is playing.' With each race I got more discouraged, because my horse is a frontrunner and the track was not playing speed at all.

“I was actually able to stay awake, and I can't tell you the feeling I had to watch that race, watch that horse go to the front. I saw Synergy coming, the heavy favorite, and I thought he would blow right by us. My horse had to dig deep … Actually, the race was showing on a slight delay, because at the eighth pole my best friend's text popped up on screen, 'OMG you just won a Derby!'”

In fact, Real Grace held on through the wire to win by a neck over Something Natural and Rail Hugger. Cone was beyond thrilled as he led the Mineshaft gelding into the winner's circle, the three-time Canadian Derby-winning trainer calling Brown's victory the best win of his life.

Real Grace digs deep to win the G3 Canadian Derby

“No matter what happened, nothing could have made me happier than that race,” Cone told CBC Radio's Edmonton AM. “We did everything for Shelley and we were just overwhelmed.”

(https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/upset-victory-in-canadian-derby-inspires-horse-trainer-battling-cancer-1.5742728)

“All credit to Rod Cone,” Brown said. “If I would have had it in me, I would have loved to have been there. I bought this horse because I believed in him. We were disappointed (when he finished fifth) in the Manitoba Derby, so to win this one was so meaningful. I was a groom in Alberta growing up, so to be able to go back there and win such a prestigious race, it really just put the wind back in my sails.

“When there's no reason to get up in the morning, it was the one thing that made me go, 'You know what? This horse was 18-1, and he showed me what you can do if you just fight.'

“The next day I was a whole different person. It made me feel like, 'Don't you dare give up.' It was almost like a sign to say, 'This is what you can do.'”

On Monday, Brown finally had her first appointment with the oncologist, and her renewed sense of hope led to a surprising development. There was a drug, Ibrance, developed to treat her type of cancer. It was designed for post-menopausal women, so she'd have to be sent through medically-induced menopause first, but the drug was showing promising results.

“They feel like it can buy me three years,” Brown explained. “I was so happy to hear that. I thought, 'I can tie up loose ends, figure out how I want things done, instead of being in such a rush.' Of course, it isn't a guarantee, but now there's a chance.”

According to Brown, Ibrance is designed as more of a blocker that stops the cancer's progress, rather than killing the cancer outright. She plans to combine it with holistic treatments for the next three months, which the GoFundMe account will help pay for, and she has a backup plan in place to head to Mexico if the current plan doesn't seem to be working.

“When someone virtually hands you a death sentence, I can't imagine how, person to person, that would affect somebody,” Brown said. “Now I have possibly three years to work with, but the thought of the chance, maybe in that three years they can come up with something else, it at least that gives me hope to keep on fighting.”

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North Of The Border, Lasix Viewed As Useful Tool, But Not Essential For All At Century Mile

Though the debate over race-day Lasix use in the United States has been raging for years now, it is not likely to quiet down soon, as multiple racetrack authorities have begun pushing to push administration back to 24 hours pre-race in this year's 2-year-old races. For many, it's difficult to contemplate a world where every horse doesn't have an L next to their name in the program – but there is one place in North America where that was already happening prior to a rule change.

Century Mile Racetrack in Nisku, Alberta opened in April 2019 as a replacement for Northlands Park and is now host of the Grade 3 Canadian Derby. The current meet runs primarily Friday and Sunday nights through early November.

This year, Century Mile will not permit race-day Lasix in 2-year-old races, like many places in the States, but it won't card its first race for 2-year-old Thoroughbreds until later this month. Still, the season's first five days of racing saw just 65.3 percent of its runners use Lasix. Last Friday's card saw 16 of 59 runners (27 percent) start without Lasix, and last Sunday's card had 22 of 64 runners without it (34 percent).

Rob MacLennan, racing secretary at Century Mile, said he expects there may be a few more horses on raceday Lasix as the condition book moves more into 3-year-old maiden races, but generally, those percentages are pretty typical.

“I think some of it has to do with the fact Alberta was the last jurisdiction in Canada to phase in Lasix in the early 1990s,” he said. “There's some holdovers who still don't rush to put every horse on it right away. I also think that because the B circuit in Alberta (Grande Prairie and Lethbridge) does not have a Lasix program, there are horses who have proven they don't need it, or horsemen who are a little more used to doing without it because they may have started careers on the B circuit.”

Tim Rycroft, top trainer at Century Mile in 2019 and vice-president trainer/director for the HBPA of Alberta, said he doesn't have a problem using the drug, but is judicious about using it only when a horse has struggled with performance and scopes show there is a significant issue. Rycroft said his mentality may not be universal on the backstretch, but he's not the only one who will use the drug with some horses and not others.

For one thing, he thinks cleaner air around Century Mile probably reduces the need in some cases.

“I think the air's a little cleaner and we have a few less breathing issues than Woodbine,” he said. “I could be totally wrong, but I know we get lots of horses out of Toronto that were notorious bleeders in Toronto and they didn't bleed here working in the morning. Lots of guys treat their horses for morning workouts, because you sure don't want them bleeding – that sets them back about six weeks – and then they'll come here and not bleed. So I think it's got to have a little to do with air quality.”

Because it's up to the trainer (rather than the racing secretary) whether to have raceday Lasix on board, horses starting without it are usually facing at least one other rival running with it. On last Friday's card, three of 21 non-Lasix runners hit the board, one of them winning the race as the only non-Lasix starter. On Saturday, seven of 27 non-Lasix starters hit the board, including three winners on the eight-race card. Those three winners came in races where the majority of runners were running without Lasix.

Rycroft said he isn't too worried about sending a horse into the gates, knowing some of his competitors have used Lasix.

“I just like to keep them as clean as possible because then you know where you're at,” he said. “If the horse doesn't perform properly and you scope and you notice there's a little something going on, then you can go to Lasix, but if you start piling one medication on top of another, what's actually working and what's not?

“I'm not against Lasix; I'm really not either way on it. I don't like to see a horse bleed. If they need Lasix, they need Lasix. You'll see a lot of guys here start without it and if they need to go to it, they go to it. I don't put a lot of my young horses on it the first couple starts – if they don't need it, they don't need it.”

MacLennan said it's hard for him to be sure of how any horses running without the drug experience some degree of exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH), since the track doesn't keep statistics on scope results done by private veterinarians. It does make note of horses who suffer such serious bleeding that they experience epistaxis, or visible bleeding from the nostrils. Those horses go on the veterinarian's list for 14 days, and repeat offenders may be barred.

According to MacLennan, there were five horses placed on the veterinarian's list for bleeding last year at Century Mile – four of whom were already on Lasix, all of whom were first-timers on the veterinarian's list for bleeding. Alberta's B level tracks, which do not permit Lasix, saw a total of 16 horses on the veterinarian's list last year, including one repeat offender who was barred from racing for a year. Total race cards in Alberta last year were 219.

None of this means Rycroft wants to see new rules eliminating all Lasix use, however.

“I think there are some people that are too hard on horsemen, saying Lasix should be banned,” he said. “I don't think it should be banned. I think it's a good tool, used properly in the right circumstances.

“They give these guys their trainer's license because they're supposed to know what they're doing as far as health and welfare of their horses, right? So leave them alone and let them do their thing, and hopefully at the end of the day good judgement prevails.”

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