Hall of Fame

With his extensive experience with both treating horses as a veterinarian and training and driving harness horses, Dr. Gordon Gilbertson would revolutionize the Standardbred racing industry when he invented the Quick Hitch. His idea changed the sport and has become so much a part of modern day harness rigging it seems as though it has been here forever.

Gilbertson was born in Hagersville, Ontario on June 3, 1920, the son of the Gordon Reid and Elsie Gilbertson. He graduated Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Guelph in 1944 at the age of 24.

While trained to treat all kinds of animals, his first and most enduring interest was for horses, and he occasionally raced a horse or two on the small town Ontario circuit. In 1950 Gilbertson came out with his colt named Bells Echo. He raced him with moderate success, reaching the season's top race, the Two-Year-Old Futurity then raced at London's Western Fair. A few years later Gilbertson and his father secured a young Indiana-bred mare named Ambitious, who they raced successfully at virtually every county fair in the area, as well as at the popular tracks in New York State.

In 1965 Gilbertson became the first track veterinarian at the then brand-new Windsor Raceway. In addition to his private practice, he worked for the Ontario Racing Commission for many years and was closely allied with the Ontario Agricultural College.

Throughout history, attaching a horse to a sulky involved using a "thimble" placed over the shaft ends and then wrapping straps around the straight portion of the shaft. Gilbertson felt there had to be better and safer method. He set about to bring his idea from theory to reality, fashioning a prototype from machined parts.

In 1980 Gilbertson secured Canadian and United States patents on his new “Quick Hitch,” which would eventually be called the “Rondeau Quick Hitch,” a reference to the area where he lived in Kent County, Ontario. After much hard work and several modifications, top horsemen in Canada and the U.S. became converts to the new invention. It continues to be the standard used at racetracks and training centers around the world. The once cumbersome apparatus used for centuries is now seen only in old photographs.

Dr. Gordon Gilbertson died in Stratford, Ontario on May 9, 2016 at the age of 95. He was inducted posthumously into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame the following year.