Mel Peddle “I almost knew I was going to win”

Two years after wiping out on a highway after crashing his motorcycle into a dog that had been chasing a deer, Mel Peddle--still experiencing some clavicle pain--was only semi-excited to be collecting $1,000 as winner of Saturday’s Players’ Choice handicapping tournament.

“It’s weird. I was excited but I wasn’t,” he told The Insider. “I almost knew I was going to win.”

That’s because things have had a way of working out for him in life. “If it hadn’t been raining on Saturday, I would have been out riding (on his Harley) instead,” he said.

There was the time, too, written about in The Insider, when, on his 65th birthday, with only 35-cents remaining in his HPI account, he bet a straight 20-cent superfecta at Gulfstream that won and returned $685. How impossible a feat was that?

But what Mel, 69, is most thankful for is his “last minute” decision to don his motorcycle helmet and leather jacket after stopping at a beer store in Morden with his niece and her husband at about 8 p.m. on Sept. 10, 2017. He had previously been riding with no helmet (“because it gives me a headache”) or jacket. “I don’t know what made me put them on.”

As he sped along a dark Highway 23 at about 100 km/h, he said, “it appeared a dog was chasing another dog coming toward me. I pulled close to the shoulder and started to slow down. It wasn’t a dog, it was a dog chasing a deer. The deer brushed by me and, as I turned around, I T-boned the dog. The next thing I knew my niece’s husband was looking down at me on the highway.”

Which resulted in months of healing from road rash and cracked ribs, arm, ankle and scapula--and retiring from his book binding job. And a bit more involvement with horse racing including tournament play and owning a horse with a few partners (Ebadan).

His biggest tournament catch on Saturday was $23.20, $7.90 and $6.20 across the board on Ima Beast at Woodbine, a first-time starter with a recent quick workout. Mel says he has a soft spot for Woodbine because his parents took him to the now-defunct Greenwood and Woodbine when he was a kid in the 1950s and his biggest win ever came at Greenwood in the mid-1980s when a “hot tip” from a friend of a friend had him betting $50-$50 and other wagers on a harness horse there. The horse won by a nose and he collected $3,200.

But, Mel said, “I could have choked the guy when he told me he had bet just $6--$2 win/place/show--on the horse that he said couldn’t lose.”

TOP FIVE TOURNAMENT FINISHERS (out of 41 entrants):

1. Mel Peddle -- $119.10 -- $1,000 prize money
2. Ralph Gelardi -- $102.10 -- $400
3. Janet Gray -- $97.60 -- $200 (she also picked the highest-priced horse--see below)
4. Roger Bamburak -- $97.10 -- $100
5. Ron Phelps -- $94.80 -- $50

And congrats to Janet Gray for picking the highest-priced horse in the tournament, Adventist ($103) in the $200K Greenwood Stakes at Parx. Analyzing the horse’s bloodlines led to the pick although that horse didn’t win her the contest because prices are capped at $42, $22 and $12 across the board.