Briton's Pride his 16th book
May 05, 2009 - 04:30 AM
By Mike Ruta
PICKERING -- While an author's imagination may forge the materials with which he or she is working, the materials themselves often come from everyday life.
An interesting person. A city street. A building. The author takes them all in and, if and when the time is right, uses them in fiction. So it is with Pickering resident and writer Doug Hall.
"All the books reflect back on what I did," he says of his writing career.
The former TV and radio personality recently released his 16th book, Briton's Pride. Set in the United Kingdom, the title is also the name of a horse, and not just any nag. Briton's Pride, retired to stud, is the most famous stallion in Britain, holder of a stellar 18-1 record on the track, unparalleled in British thoroughbred annals. And, following a murder at the Lancashire farm where the horse lives, Briton's Pride is missing.
So begins Hall's work, his eighth mystery novel.
His interest in the ponies began when his wife, Joyce, was a day nurse caring for Harry Addison of the Toronto car-dealer fame.
"Whenever he had a horse racing at Woodbine ... whoever was on duty that day would have to take him to the race," Hall says.
He learned a lot about thoroughbreds from Addison and "Joyce and I got hooked" on them. They travelled and saw races in the U.S. and the idea for a book formed in Hall's mind. In England to conduct more research, he saw more races and enlisted the help of Tommy Brennan, who won the equestrian Olympic Gold Medal for Ireland at the 1968 games in Mexico City. Over 10 days, "he gave Joyce and I a classroom education in thoroughbred racing."
As he researched, he also gathered the materials for his book. Briton's Pride, he notes, has a white blaze on his nose and three white stockings on his lower legs. So did Secretariat, the astonishing stallion who won the Triple Crown in 1973.
The description of the stable and stalls where Briton's Pride is kept is closer to home: Oshawa's Windfields Farm, home of the great Northern Dancer, another amazing stallion who in 1964 won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Queen's Plate.
If sports reporter Dennis Proudfoot's surname sounds familiar, it's because he was modelled on Hall's old friend, Jim Proudfoot, formerly of The Toronto Star.
Hall was on Canadian radio and TV for than more 30 years, including as host of The Doug Hall Show and Bestsellers.
Long before that, he spent a good part of his younger years on a farm in the Ottawa Valley, where he began devouring books.
"I read everything I could get my hands on," Hall says, adding his English teacher was also the librarian. "She'd let me take books out of the library and I'd take them home. That's where I got the love of reading."
He's also written two biographies, including The Real Patsy Cline, for which he received invaluable help from Cline's second husband, Charlie Dick.
Hall is already working on his next mystery, Condo, and residents of his condo complex are asking him if they appear in it.
Briton's Pride is on Amazon.com and available at Chapters, Indigo and Coles.
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