by Bob Heyden

It was at 5:25 a.m. on April 8, 1983, when 33-year-old Jim Rankin lost control of his vehicle six blocks from Pompano Park and died on McNabb Road in a one vehicle crash en route to oversee his barn.

Rankin was gone.

“He was a beautiful human being,” said Allen Finkelson the vice president for public relations at the south Florida track at that time. “This is a great loss for his family, a great loss to the business and a great loss to Pompano Park. He was probably the most popular guy at Pompano Park; a nice person. He had everything in front of him.”

Today would have been Rankin’s 75th birthday. He won 662 races and $3,355,414 with a UDRS of .327. Pompano’s leading percentage driver in 1982, he was most identified with 1978 Monticello OTB Classic winner Happy Lady. She won 15 of 16 at 2, 19 of 24 at 3, $528,825 lifetime, and was a 2017 Canadian Hall of Fame inductee. Rankin also developed Bit O Cheer as well as Bo Scots Blue Chip early on. He then sold him and he then went on to win the eighth OTB Classic by open lengths, for Sam Fava, over none other than Cam Fella in 1982.

Jerry Glantz knew Rankin well and had horses with him.

“Jimmy was a good friend,” Glantz said. “He was also one of the best and shrewdest horsemen I have ever met. His assessment of the talent of a horse was second to none. His ability to pick out yearlings was second to none. He was a great guy. I still miss him.”

Bob Boni also saw something in Rankin.

“A good guy, and in his brief career had already shown himself to be a very good trainer,” Boni said. “He was definitely making an impact and getting noticed.”

Rankin also developed Docs Fella, a standout of the early 1980s.

Bruce Riegle who drove against Rankin said, “A great horseman. When I saw him at the track with a horse, he was ready to go!”

Kim Hankins took notice of Rankin too.

“He was one of the most underrated horsemen ever,” Hankins said. “He did very well on the grand circuit even with a limited budget. He was also one of the fine gentlemen in this business.”

Rankin was an athlete in the bike having gone to St. Joseph’s College in Indiana on a full football scholarship. A native of St. Catherine’s, ON, he competed in blue-red-white colors with maple leaves on the shoulders and was once quoted as saying a key to his success was “Buying larger bars of soap.”

Finkelson probably summed it up best.

“He had the brightest future of any guy I knew,” Finkelson said. “He was young and ready to go. He was a beautiful human being, handsome, he looked like a movie star. He had a way with people. A lot of fun.”

It was a terrible tragedy and great loss 41½ years ago. He only drove in his first race in 1973 and was around for just a decade. He was a worker, a presence, and an advocate for the sport. Stan Bergstein even sung his praises.

Today, pause for a moment to recall or listen to a recollection of the life that was Rankin’s, because it was far too brief and deserves to be remembered.

Rankin’s brother Robbie died in an auto accident also. He was leaving the paddock in mid-February 1990 after racing at The Meadowlands. He was 31. Also killed was 26-year-old Ricky LaFramboise. Robbie inherited 25 horses after Jim’s passing in 1983 and had competed at Rosecroft for the second half of the 1980s.

COINCIDENCE?

• Jim Rankin died in 1983. His Happy Lady, a daughter of Most Happy Fella, was tragically lost in 1981 in a Castleton barn fire that killed 14. Most Happy Fella died Dec. 10, 1983. No sire was more closely associated with Jim than Most Happy Fella.

• Lew Williams had a storied yet brief career also, and the mare most associated with him was clearly the great Courageous Lady. Williams passed in 1989 at age 41 and Courageous Lady died the very same year at 14.

• Tender Loving Care was easily the best female driven/trained by Shelly Goudreau. The 1979 Pacing Mare of the Year, she only made it to age 7 and passed away the first week of September 1982, the very same week Goudreau died from injuries on the track at age 34.

WE LOST FAR TOO MANY IN THE 1980S

In addition to those already mentioned, we lost Peter Haughton just 25 days into the ’80s, Wayne Smullin in 1983, Robert Samson also in 1983, Dave Dunckley in May 1986 in a four-horse pileup just two months before Billy Haughton’s July tragedy.