by Garry Allison
The Horses, Rocky Mountain Turf Club
Jim Coutts has travelled a winding road in his 86 years - from the coal mining environment of early Hardieville and the sugar beet fields of the Taber area, to the winner’s circle of the “sport of kings,” with other stops along the way.
Jim, who is now retired and living in Fort Macleod, was recently honoured by the Rocky Mountain Turf Club with a special featured race for his year’s spent in horse racing and his continued support of the sport.
“We ran about nine horses when I was in the sport, and one thing I really remember was all the work,” Jim says with a laugh.
Jim, the father of Alberta’s Minister of Renewable Resource Development, grew up in Hardieville where his father worked in the No. 6 mine.
In 1930 the family moved to Crystal Lake, now the Sunnyside area just east of Lethbridge. From there it was on to Taber for Jim where he spent one year – “that was more than enough,” he says – irrigating, hoeing and shoveling sugar beets. Finally, in 1949 Jim found a permanent home at Fort Macleod where he went to work for the Crystal Dairy.
“The thing I remember most about dad in the dairy was the butter and the great smells of the dairy,” says Dave. “The dairy at Fort Macleod won red ribbons at the Toronto Royal Winter Fair and the Chicago Fair for their butter. I was so proud, because I knew my Dad had made that butter.”
Jim left the dairy business after 20 years and took up grain buying for the Alberta Wheat Pool for a time before he took over the Tourist Texaco along Highway 2 in 1959. In 1977 Jim, Dave, and the family opened the Scarlet and Gold Restaurant, one of the quality eating places in southern Alberta, which the family operated until 1999. It was during this time that Jim ventured into horse racing.
Jim served on town council for six years and got to know the town administrator Sid Bent real well. Sid had always been interested and involved with horses, and about 1985 introduced Jim to the world of Thoroughbreds.
“We ran our horses in Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, and even Billings and Great Falls,” says Jim. “They called us the Crazy Canucks down there.
“The best horse I believe we ever had was Miss Couben, a real nice horse. We stayed in the sport of horse racing for more than 10 years and I really enjoyed the experience.”
But it wasn’t all horse racing for Jim. As a younger man he tried his hand at amateur boxing and track and field, with the boxing more on the training end of things than the fighting.
Jim did have six or seven bouts, one of his most memorable right in Fort Macleod at the Commonwealth Air Training Base when he stepped into the ring with the British Empire All-Service Champion. He also tossed leather with well-known Cardston boxer Hugh Sloan.
As for his running, well he kept at it until a very late age. In 2001, Jim ran in a marathon race.
“It was a pre-Games marathon for the 8th Annual IAAF World Championships being held in Edmonton and my granddaughter was running in the marathon,” Jim says with a smile. “Well, I ran the last 100 yards of that race right alongside her!”
Jim and wife Norma have been wed 61 years and have four children (David, Margaret, Neil and Jean), and today there are 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
