At age 74 BOB MURPHY is still the largest owner of Standardbreds in Canada, albeit with one-half
the number he once had. In the world of commerce he’s an open class performer and has brought
that insight to the group set to build the new Calgary racetrack. By Todd Beelby • Photos by Paul vanPeenen
No Laying
Down On
The Job
Robert Murphy has been there, done that and earned a few t-shirts
along the way. Starting out with basically nothing at a hot dog stand in
Kelowna, BC, Bob worked extremely hard for over 60 years and is now
one of the wealthiest men in British Columbia. Never afraid of taking a
chance, Murphy owns a few different businesses, one being his Serta
mattress manufacturing plant and another called Advance Wire Products,
which are both exceptionally successful.
He also built and operated two exclusive fishing resorts in BC one of
which he still co-owns and thoroughly enjoys.
Not one to sit still, Bob entered the harness racing industry 27 years
ago, and at one point owned over 400 horses. Most racing followers are
familiar with the “Red Star” prefix that Murphy uses for all of his homebreds, but not many people outside of British Columbia have had the
pleasure of meeting Bob or even know what he looks like. That changed
somewhat last year when he was nominated for an O’Brien Award as
Breeder of the Year.
Bob and his wife of 55 years, Mary, have three daughters, Denise,
Linda and Sharon, all of whom have worked in the family’s Standardbred
operation in some capacity over the years.
Several years ago Todd Beelby was Murphy’s Alberta trainer. His
brother Brent has been the Farm Manager in Surrey for Murphy for five
years now. Two months ago Todd visited his former owner and long time
friend to provide the following story for our readers.
NO LAYING DOWN ON THE JOB
Where are you from originally?
I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. My Dad worked
right in Vancouver as a Grader at the Sawmill.
Do you come from a large family?
No, I just have one brother, Chuck.
How far did you go in school?
I am a high school graduate.
What was your first job?
I used to leave Vancouver in the summer and go to
Kelowna, BC and work at the Kelowna Regatta. It is a big summer festival and I worked at a hot dog stand.
Before long I decided I wanted to work on my own, which
has always been my nature, so I opened up my own hot dog
stand. The fellow I had worked for was a great guy, and I
worked really hard for him, all hours of the day. We did lots of
travelling as well with the show and would be up pretty much
all night long and then back early again in the morning. There
were four counters and I used to sleep under the main counter
with my sleeping bag, so I was really quite attached to it.
He liked what I was doing, how hardworking I was, and I
made lots of money for him. I always talked about how I wanted my own stand. He had a spare one and one day said, ‘If you
want it, take it.’
I did quite well with it. I always liked onions, and the other
three or four hot dog stands all fried their onions, but I
decided to steam mine. I used to load it up with onions and the
smell of the steamed onions would keep my lineup two to
three deep constantly.
What year was that?
That was 1952, the year Mary and I got married. I was 20
years old. We just recently celebrated our 55th wedding
anniversary.
What did you do after the hot dog stand?
At the same time I was also working for a lumber wholesaler at a store they had in Calgary. After a while I decided I
wanted to have my own store. So I opened up a carpet and
linoleum store with my partner Pat Logan, called Logan
Murphy. He was an older man, I would sell, and he would go
out and do the installations.
Eventually, I decided I wanted to move back to BC and
open up my own business. Once I got back here, Sears was
opening up their first store out in Burnaby. They were advertising for managers so I applied and got the job. I was transferred
all over Canada with various positions.
Finally we got to the stage where we had lived in all parts
of Canada, a lot of them in the East where the head offices
were. I became the Western Merchandise Manager, and from
there I was offered a job in Toronto to head up the Home
Furnishing Division but it meant we would have to go back
there and live.
10 May 2007 • The Harness Edge
I wanted to remain in BC so I had a decision to make. One
of the positions I had held was furniture buyer and I got to
know quite a bit about the manufacturing end of it, who was
successful at it and who wasn’t. I decided to come home and
start up my own factory.
It was typical of me. I packed it up, had my wife’s support,
and gave up a real good opportunity, a real key executive job
with them. The money was good, as was the security but I still
had that yearning to be on my own and do my own thing. So
we came back and started up the mattress business.
Was it Serta right from the beginning?
No, originally it was Restonic. I had made some good
friends and contacts from my buying days, and when a Restonic
franchise became available in BC, these chaps from Toronto,
who had befriended me, offered to back me.
That wasn’t what I wanted so I scraped together whatever
I could and ended up starting my own business. That was in
1957 and we started with six employees. Today it is Serta and
we are up over 200 employees.
Are you the number one Serta manufacturer in Canada?
Yes we would be nationally.
You own another company named Advance Wire Products.
How did you get involved in this company?
One of the main component parts for making mattresses is
wire for springs and I decided we should be making our own.
There was an outfit that a couple of
brothers had owned for a few years and
they were into display materials like
book racks in Safeway stores. They were
ready to retire, one had had a heart
attack and the other one just wanted to
get out.
I hired their foreman and bought
the business from the brothers and started in the wire business. Now we are definitely one of the largest suppliers in the
whole Northwest, as a matter of fact we
also supply into Hawaii.
We are into large supermarkets
with our biggest customer being
Safeway and all of their affiliates that
they have in the States, we do all of
their work. We just built a new building
here in Surrey and this company has
about 90 employees.
You used to own the Queen Charlotte
Lodge on the Queen Charlotte Islands,
an exclusive and remote fishing resort.
How did that come about?
I’m an ardent fisherman, always
have been, and that was one of the
reasons I wanted to be back on the
coast. I used to do a lot of boating and
fishing near Prince Rupert on the
northern coast. One of my trips up
there to the Charlottes was to a place
called Naden Harbour, it is about 35
miles from the tip of Alaska. It’s beautiful fishing country and I have always
wanted to have my own little hideaway.
The fishing up there is great and I
loved the whole remoteness of it. I
decided I should build a lodge there.
Originally I was just going to build a
small cabin that I could take my corporate customers to in small groups. So I
bought the property which was the only
privately owned piece of property in that
whole northern part of the Queen
Charlottes.
How many acres was it?
There were 20 acres. Actually I
bought it sight unseen. I went in thinking I would build a cabin that could hold
about a dozen people and I ended up
building a 19,000 square foot resort that
held about 120 guests at a time.
I sold it about 10 years ago.
11 May 2007 • The Harness Edge
Photo by N e w Image M edia
NO LAYING DOWN ON THE JOB
One of Bob Murphy's most successful homebreds has been the
Grinfromeartoear daughter Red Star Biggirl. The filly started her career in BC,
shifted to Alberta and then Ontario and never lost a beat. She did not miss a
cheque last season as a sophomore and had standings of 8-4-2 in 15 starts for
$318,000 in earnings.
It must have been quite the production
building the lodge given its remote location. There was no Home Depot right
across the street.
Everything had to be barged or
flown in, mostly barged. There was just
no place where you could buy building
materials. It was all brought in from
Prince Rupert across the Sound to our
location in Naden Harbour. It was really
quite the experience; I had no idea what
I was getting into.
Except that you couldn’t stop once you
got started.
Yes, once that first load of logs went
in that was it. That was an experience in
itself. Not only did they not have any
local suppliers, there was no labour
either.
What was the size of the crew you had
building the lodge?
When we were going at our peak
we had a hundred people up there. I was
very fortunate to get the crew I did. They
were all from the same community and
when they went up there they went with
their total family, Mother, Father,
Grandpa, Grandma, baby, etc.
The whole family from morning to
night was on that site. Young kids were
carrying lumber, pounding nails, mixing
cement and doing the whole thing. We
started in March and actually opened in
the middle of June; in three months we
had that built, you just wouldn’t have
believed it.
One of the things I always said was
that if I built something like that I wanted to do it first class. I wanted to look at
it as my own home, take my shoes off at
night and feel comfortable with what
I’m standing on. So the one thing I said
to my suppliers was I wanted first class
materials and I wanted this to be a first
class lodge.
I wasn’t going to quibble over the
costs of it but I wanted the workmanship
and the materials to be the best. That
was the one real standard and directive
that I gave and as a result it ended up
that way.
During the time it was being built
there was a lot of friction between the
sports fishermen in that area and the
Haida Nation. They had the feeling it
was their territory and the sports fishermen were infringing on their area; there
was a lot of controversy going on at that
time.
I went to a council meeting in
Massett, where their town was. By boat
it is about half an hour away. They really
gave me a rough time. My attitude was
here I’m putting this together, it is
employment for you, you will be proud
of it and by doing this we will be working together and all mutually benefit
from it.
NO LAYING DOWN ON THE JOB
They saw my logic so at the time when everyone else was
having their troubles with them we bonded and formed a
fairly close relationship. When we opened the lodge they had
a ceremony. There are eight tribes in the area, they all came
to the lodge and they gave it a Haida name. Even the Minister
of Tourism came to the opening; there was all kinds of press
coverage.
We invited the entire town of Massett, which holds
approximately 1,500 people, to the new lodge. We hired the
Hereditary Chief, and we were going to make him the lodge
manager but he didn’t have enough experience so he became
the assistant lodge manager.
By the time that we got the lodge open and the guests
started to come in, everybody, literally everybody in that town
of Massett had our t-shirt. The whole town was supporting us,
it worked out very well.
Why did you sell it?
Well, it wasn’t for sale. We would get a lot of large corporations there as well as a lot of Hollywood types, the likes
of Lee Iacocca, the movie colony, the sports people. (Former
NHL star) Mark Messier used to bring a crew up there.
Groups like Honeywell would come and take up the whole
lodge.
I had a number of different people who wanted to buy it
and I always turned everybody down. Finally though the timing
was right. I was getting busier and busier with all the projects
I had going at the time and I could no longer devote the time
and energy to it, so I sold it.
You took a few years off from owning a resort and then you
built Gowlland Harbour Resort And Conference Centre, on
Quadra Island, tell us about that.
It is a lodge I finished about three years ago. It is totally
opposite in terms of environment and the conditions, it is more
laid back. The Queen Charlotte Lodge was very busy and hectic
at times. This one is quieter.
Do you and Mary get there often?
Yes, we like it there because the weather and the water
are nicer and it is just so serene. I have had a place up there for
17 years; it’s not new to us.
How do you get there?
Either by plane or boat. You can drive to Campbell River
and then take a small ferry across to Quadra Island. From here
(White Rock) driving to the lodge takes about four hours. To fly
from here it takes about an hour and a half. You fly into
Campbell River and then take the ferry across.
It really is first class as well. It holds about 40 people and
the season is a lot longer. It could be year round, but we don’t
operate it that way. It has a couple of nice lodges on it, the
main lodge holds 18 guests, then there are two lodges that
take eight each and one smaller private lodge that we stay at
when we go or for my special friends.
Let’s talk horses now. How did that interest start?
Years ago I had a good friend who was into the
Thoroughbreds, Frank Gatter. He loved racing and talked us
into going, and we ended up owning six of them over a period
of about five years. One Friday night they said we should go to
Cloverdale (now Fraser Downs), they had a great smorgasbord
and we have been there ever since.
What year was that?
1980. The difference for me between the Thoroughbreds
and Standardbreds was how close you can be to harness racing,
you have more of a feel, you can be part of it. With
Thoroughbreds if you want to talk to your trainer it was at 5:30
in the morning and that just wasn’t for me.
Once we went to the harness races I thought it was
something I could really get into. Frank suggested that Rick
White would be a really good trainer for me. I took his
advice, and at a later date I walked into Rick’s barn looking
for him. I introduced myself and told him I wanted to claim a
horse. Rick told me it was going to cost me at least $2,500,
they had $2,500 claimers back then. I said no, I wanted to
claim a good horse.
In the interim, I had heard about a good horse for sale
named Holridge Joe, so I couldn’t wait to get to Rick. I said ‘I
understand there is a horse for sale named Holridge Joe and I
want to buy him.’ He kind of gave me a strange look and said
‘that’s a lot of money.’ I said ‘well, I want to buy him.’ Rick had
12 May 2007 • The Harness Edge
NO LAYING DOWN ON THE JOB
another owner who was interested as
well and he ended up buying him.
That teed me off right off the bat.
Frank went to see Rick and told him I
wasn’t very happy about it and Rick said,
‘he doesn’t have much money does he?
You are his boss aren’t you?’ Frank said
‘heck no!’ We joked about that for years.
Rick claimed my first horse, Bethany
Pegasus, for about $12,000 if I remember
correctly, but I never really got over the
Holridge Joe thing. That was the first
horse, so typical me, I was not satisfied
with one horse, all of a sudden I wanted
to buy a farm with a track on it and get
behind this horse, because I had heard
you were able to go out and get in the
jogcart.
So I bought a farm with a little sawdust track on it and as soon as I bought
that I needed some broodmares to breed
a couple. It wasn’t long before we had
about a dozen horses there, and four or
five employees including Joe Sonier who
is still working for me. Then in about
1984 it just mushroomed.
How many horses did you have at the
peak?
We got up to 400 horses at one
point but I decided a few years ago I
needed to cut down.
To what number?
We have about 220 horses now, 46
of those are broodmares. Quite frankly I
am losing interest in it all, it’s just not as
fun anymore. I would like to one day just
have a few really good horses.
You have some horses in the east as
well, how is that going?
Bob Merschback is back east now
and I have 10 or 12 horses there, plus
Mark Harder has been doing quite well
at the Meadowlands for me.
If you open up any program across
Canada you will find a few Red Star
horses in it with an incredible number of
them at Fraser Downs. Where did that
prefix come from?
Rick White. His colors were white on
the shoulders with the red stars on it.
When I originally did that it was a bit
controversial, it was when the Cold War
13 May 2007 • The Harness Edge
was going on some people said I was a
Russian agent or what have you.
Do you name all of the horses?
In the beginning I named them,
but now my daughter Denise does. I
used to name a lot of them after family members or friends, but only one of
them really turned out, Red Star
Kelsey, named after your (Todd’s)
daughter, she was a real nice mare. For
the most part, naming after people I
knew didn’t work out.
You have two farms in BC, one for
broodmares and babies, and the training
centre in Surrey. Tell us a little about
them.
The farm just south of Kelowna is
actually three farms side by side, 145
acres. That is where I keep all of the
broodmares and babies. The farm in
Surrey is 90 acres, it has a track on it and
three barns for training the yearlings and
racehorses.
You have a large interest in the track
currently under construction in Calgary
along with six Thoroughbred people.
How is it coming along?
We had a bit of a setback with the
water situation, all of a sudden they put
a moratorium on the Bow River, so we
had to look for another source, but that
is solved now. It has been tough breaking
ground this winter with all the cold and
snow, so all that was done was some
clearing.
It looks like it will be ready for the
fall of 2008. There will be a 1,400,000
square foot shopping mall, a hotel and a
racetrack for both breeds. It will be an
extremely nice facility, benefiting the
racing community mostly. A first class
track, a nice dormitory, an area to park
trailers for the horseman and all the
other amenities.
So it is all privately owned by you
seven?
Yes. We may decide to bring in some
more shareholders because we are talking some big numbers here. In fact that is
a real possibility. When the whole complex is finished, it will be over a billion
dollars.
Sandown Park on Vancouver Island has
stated they are not racing this summer,
how big of a blow is that to the industry
in BC?
That is a huge blow to the racing
industry. We have to solve it by having a
longer racing season at Fraser to give
horseman the opportunity to put some
money ahead before the layoff. We can’t
do it based on what is planned now and
it is really bad if you have a top horse,
you just can’t get them raced or if you do
it is every second or third week and then
you are handicapped with an outside
post.
As good as your horses are you can’t
be racing them under those conditions.
There is no encouragement to get better
horses out here, and if you do, you just
end up shipping them away again. I got
into the game here because I enjoy
watching them, enjoy having them
around, and enjoy going over to the
barns.
You used to be around the barn quite a
bit, are you still as involved?
Not nearly as involved as I once was.
I used be down there all the time as your
brother Brent will tell you, but now I
only go once a week.
Do you have any involvement in classifying your racehorses or do you leave that
up to your trainers?
No, I leave that all up to them,
unless they ask for my opinion.
Where do you see your operation five
years from now?
It is hard to say, it is heading to
all $4,000 claimers here and I am
not a $4,000 claimer guy. I do have
them, I never used to have them, that
was a giveaway for me, but now I have
to. To make any money here you need
to race the $4,000 to $6,000 claimers.
So where I will be in five years here,
quite frankly, a lot will depend on
Alberta, but I think as far as BC is
concerned, I probably won’t be on the
scene. If I am, it will be with very few
horses.
What I may do is get a farm in
Alberta. I may start spending a lot
more time out there, so perhaps I’ll buy
NO LAYING DOWN ON THE JOB
a farm with a track on it. But five years
from now, the way I am feeling, who
knows? It’s not pleasant and it gets to
you.
What keeps you in the game?
I feel for my people. I have had a lot
of people working for me for a long
time, and I hate like hell to let them
down. That’s what keeps me going.
So is it tough to be optimistic at all
about the future of racing here in BC?
Yes it is. I think the future is brighter
in Alberta with the new racetrack. It
should bring in a lot better horses there
to race then it is up to track management to promote it and get races for better horses.
What do you think about the future of
racing in Canada?
It’s good; I think there is a good
future ahead for racing.
You were nominated this year for an
O’Brien award for Breeder of the Year,
that had to be a great feeling.
It was really quite an honour. It
certainly was a surprise; here I am with
my operation out west competing
against Seelster Farms. It really made
me feel proud even though we didn’t
win.
What has been your most memorable
moment in racing?
Well I have had a few of them
including Red Star Kelsey winning the
Northlands Filly Pace. The combination
of her being named after your daughter, and knowing Kelsey what she has
had to go through with diabetes, that
was a big thrill. That was for sure the
most exciting event in my career as far
as racing.
(Kelsey Beelby’s fight against diabetes and the Alberta horse community’s
support of that cause was detailed in our
December 2003 issue.)
Direct Quote winning the Four Leaf
Clover Series at the Meadowlands was
another one, that was my first major
stake win, but definitely the Kelsey
experience was a good time, it really
sticks out.
We have won a number of stake
races with our young horses and every
time you get one that you have raised
winning a stake final, that is always a big
thrill. The results we get out of the
breeding end of it is a big part for me
being involved in the sport. A claimer is a
claimer, but getting one you have raised
winning a major stake race is far more
enjoyable.
In addition to raising and racing top
horses you also claim to being the greatest cribbage player ever, is it mostly luck
in your case?
Well that’s for sure, I don’t practice
very much, it’s just a lot of intellect,
sharpness, quickness on the draw, and
quite frankly playing people who are not
quite as good.
The interview concluded with a few
rounds of cribbage with Murphy eventually winning game seven according to
Beelby. !
www.larcom-mitchell.com
14 May 2007 • The Harness Edge