Canadian racing mourns Gil Rowntree, trainer of three Queen's Plate winners

Gil Rowntree, a Hall of Fame trainer whose horses helped define a generation of Canadian racing, died May 24 at 92, closing a career that produced 1,036 victories, more than $17.5 million in purses and a lasting place in the sport’s national memory.

Born in Toronto in 1934, Rowntree came up through racing the hard way. He began as a hot walker and groom for trainer Art Halliwell, became a jockey’s valet when he grew too big for the saddle, and later worked as an assistant to Lou Cavalaris Jr. After obtaining his trainer’s license in 1959, he was hired by Stafford Farms in 1967 and stayed there until Jack Stafford’s death in 1981.

It was at Stafford that Rowntree reached his peak. The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame credits him with four Queen’s Plate victories, a rare standard of success in the country’s biggest race. Three of those classics came with Royal Chocolate, Amber Herod and Sound Reason, all ridden by Robin Platts, who became one of Rowntree’s most important partners. He added another landmark in 1984 with Key to the Moon in the 125th running of the Plate, reinforcing his place among the few Canadian trainers with multiple winners in the nation’s most important race.

Rowntree’s resume ran even deeper than the Plate. In 1973, his Stafford horses Tara Road, Good Port and Royal Chocolate swept the Prince of Wales Stakes, finishing one-two-three in a result that still stands out in Canadian Triple Crown history. Two years later, he was named Canada’s Outstanding Trainer and Stafford Farms also earned the Sovereign Award for Outstanding Owner, a double recognition that captured how dominant the barn had become.

Overskate gave Rowntree another pillar of his legacy. Often described as the best horse he trained, Overskate retired in 1980 as the richest Canadian-bred thoroughbred of his era, with nearly $800,000 in earnings, and later became a champion of champions and a nine-time Sovereign Award winner. The Hall of Fame also links Rowntree to the broader arc of Canadian racing remembrance, noting that the Hall was created in the winter of 1973 because the industry believed its pioneers and contemporary heroes had not been properly honored. Rowntree, inducted in 1997, became one of the figures that institution was built to preserve.