by Matthew Lomon

Wayne Stone doesn’t need a hulking physique to command the attention of his peers. Instead, his unassuming stature provides the perfect cover for his dogged spirit.

Following a brilliant maiden campaign in which he hit the board in all nine starts (3-4-2; $19,678 banked), the gritty grey established himself as the top rookie performer to compete at The Raceway at Western Fair in 2024.

After making eight of his starts at the London, ON, oval last season, Wayne Stone’s outstanding efforts were formally recognized during the track’s annual awards night on Feb. 22.

In light of the well-deserved distinction, lifelong horseman and trainer of Wayne Stone, Peter Core, couldn’t help but be proud of his driven youngster with a knack for racing.

“When we broke him, his timing was so good right from the start,” Core said. “We’d jog him, and he’d be picking them up and putting them down in rhythm, right from Day One.

“He’s probably the best gaited horse I’ve ever broke.”

Core also co-owns and bred Wayne Stone with his now 90-year-old father Raymond Core, who Peter said remains an active part of the barn each morning, helping to jog horses and clean stalls.

That natural feel for the game was evident early on, noted Peter, who had a front row seat of Wayne Stone’s first qualifier and start from inside the sulky.

“When we trained him down, even when we went to qualify him, we never, ever went top speed with him,” Peter said. “He always had determination at the end of the mile, so we never did. We kept him with the other ones.

“Then, he showed me a little something his very first start. I was fourth back, a long way, and he paced real well back half, and I let him loose a little bit at the end. I saw that he had something, and we went on from there.”

The Sarnia, ON-based horseman enjoys driving his young horses at first to better gauge how they feel behind the gate and make any necessary equipment adjustments.

Peter would go on to pilot his peppy pacer four more times, including in two legs of the Ontario-sired Autumn Series, before handing the reins to Natasha Day in late November.

“Natasha’s very patient, and handles the horse really well – nice, light hands,” Peter said of Day, who steered Wayne Stone to a 1-2-0 record in their three starts together. “She’s driven a few for me, and I like the way she drives my young horses.”

As Peter recalled, October’s Autumn Series was a little uneven for Wayne Stone, especially during the lead up.

“I didn’t race him in the first leg of that series because he wasn’t a great eater after he raced,” Peter said. “It was difficult to keep the kind of weight I like to have on him. I missed the first leg of it, but with pretty good assurance that he would race well enough to make the final.”

Peter’s intuition was correct, as Wayne Stone made the Autumn final after finishing third in the second leg on Oct. 22.

While the pair were not victorious in the $20,000 final, another third-place finish validated Peter’s belief in his homebred racer.

“He showed me a lot of ability,” Peter said. “He’s a game little horse. He’s very, very determined.”

Ability has by no means been in short supply at the Peter Core stable over the years.

Among the top performers to come out of the respected horseman’s training program are B Cor Timgo and Image Control.

Peter remembers the former as the “first good horse” he had. Looking back, good was a bit of an understatement.

B Cor Timgo won the Ontario Sires Stakes Gold final for 2-year-old trotters in 1995 and followed that up with another OSS Gold final tally in the 3-year-old class the year after.

The son of A Go Go Lauxmont—B Cor Tamara went on to record a 39-26-24 line across 146 lifetime starts for $666,267 in total prizes.

With Image Control, Peter found himself not only a reliable racer, but a horse that would later blossom into a prolific mare.

“I raced her three times at 2,” he said. “As a 3-year-old, every race she competed in was a stakes race. She missed the board once and made $150,000 before I sold her to Harry Rutherford for a broodmare. He raced her five more times and then retired her.

“She was the dam of Pure Ivory, who was the dam of Forbidden Trade. Pure Ivory made $1.4 million and, of course, Forbidden Trade won the Hambletonian [in 2019].”

In Wayne Stone, Peter sees the similar relentless motor that defined Image Control during her days on the track.

“She’d get parked the whole mile, and it wouldn’t make any difference,” Peter said. “She’d still grind right to the end and hit the board. She was incredible. Wayne’s maybe on those lines”

Peter can’t say for sure that tenaciousness alone will be enough to propel Wayne Stone to a Gold level horse. What he does know, however, is that Wayne will always give his all.

“I know he’s determined enough,” he said. “Whether he’s talented enough to go those big miles against the big boys, we’ll see.”

Peter reported that Wayne Stone had grown about two inches since their last training session of 2024. He mentioned that part of the plan going into year three is to add and maintain more muscle.

Phase two in the quest to build on Wayne Stone’s impressive rookie campaign involves a change in strategy.

“The next step in his progression is to try to get him a little closer to the lead early,” Peter said. “He’s just chasing horses down all the time, but from well back. As a 3-year-old, I think he’s going to have to be a little closer to the lead. That’s one thing we’re going to have to do. I’m hoping that he’s a Grassroots competitor, but we’ll see how it goes.

“He’ll tell us what level he is as we go.”

For all the questions Peter faces concerning Wayne Stone’s size and ceiling, they pale in comparison to the volume of questions he gets about the origin of his award-winning gelding’s name.

Naturally, a human sounding name comes with the expectation that the horse is named after a particular person. In this instance, London, ON-based horseman Wayne Stone appears the logical fit.

But as Peter will tell you, and the dozens of other people who have asked, it is merely the coincidence of all coincidences.

“I’ve been asked about that numerous times by people that work for Wayne Stone,” Peter said with a laugh. “But no, we just had two babies – we called one Walter, and we said, ‘What should we call the other one?’ They said, ‘Call him Wayne, like Walter and Wayne Gretzky.’ He got the barn name Wayne, and his dam was Molly Moonstone, so we just called him Wayne Stone.”

Like “the Great One,” the equine Wayne Stone knows what it takes to chase down his goals.